For the past two weeks, the VALORANT section on Twitch has been dominated by channels broadcasting 24/7, with much of their content being rerun material. But yesterday, the platform adjusted its guidelines to discourage such actions.
While many of Twitch’s top influencers have been vocal about these 24/7 VOD channels being a detriment to the platform, the change in policies to seemingly prevent such action would appear to be a victory for the content creators who truly provide live content. But yesterday on stream, Summit1g said he isn’t sure whether the new guidelines will have an impact.
“So I heard about [24/7 VOD streams] being against the rules in regards to drops, but not against the rules, you get what I’m saying,” he said. “I think it’s worded weird so I’m interested to see if people are going to take advantage of that wording and still attempt at doing what they’re doing or if they’re going to be a little bit scared.”
When Twitch changed its policy, it specifically changed wording under the “Spam, Scams, and other Malicious Conduct” subsection. Effectively, Twitch’s concern with the 24/7 streams was that they in essence perverted the integrity of the viewer incentive program that the platform has with Riot Games to promote the VALORANT closed beta.
On the surface, it’s looked like 24/7 streamers have been exploiting Twitch’s system to gain viewers who are simply looking for VALORANT closed beta drops. Though this policy puts an end to that, Summit’s concern is that it doesn’t fix to the larger issue of 24/7 streams.
If a person were to do the same thing that current 24/7 VALORANT streamers are doing but without there being a view incentive involved, they wouldn’t be punished, according to the new guideline.
In the past two weeks, Anomaly has been the top channel on Twitch with more than 295 hours of airtime between April 16 and 28. Yesterday was the first time that he effectively turned his channel off from “live” broadcasting. This move came following Twitch’s announcement, suggesting that at least the most-watched 24/7 VALORANT streamer understands the spirit of the updated Twitch policy.
