Streamers, their followers and WoW culture

[cantrip]

Sometimes i think WoW would be better off without twitch and its streamers. It seems to me, there are a few streamers which fill the brains of many with bullshit ideas about what WoW should be and what not.

If you take a look on the bigger streams and especially their followers, they seem to mainly adress very questionable individuals. Just watch the chat and you will discover they mainy post one word posts and often in caps, rarely full sentences and rarely anything with substance. They repeat racist insults, rant all the time and use phrases like "Monkas" or "Poggers" beside writing nothing useful.

If you would watch this for the first time you could get the impression this are not really humans, but bots who either use the "Poggers" or the "Monkas" macro. And some of them seem to be a little bit further developed using sentences like "NO U" or "U SUCK!".

I wonder: Is this simply a completely retarded community, or are they not even try to type anything useful as the big streamers chats have a scroll speed of a river? Do people try to gain the streamers attention by writing stupid content? What is the chat all about if it produces nothing of substance?

And what is the future of that system, if the chat itself becomes less and less interesting, and the words of the streamer are only what matters? Why do they simply do not retintroduce television, if twitch becomes a 1:n media, while n should better not even try to interact?

Then i also want to take a look on the streamer. It seems very problematic to me, if a large streamer with 100,000s of viewers talks about "how only the best performers" should be allowed to "get rewards", if he obviously has a communiy full of his followers who boost him through all content and send him gold and item presents whenever he joins a game he ever wants to play. Heck, there are even realms which seem to have no other function than to be a pool for such kind of streamer and his followers, who seem to do everything to gain the attention of their "big leader". I see this as toxic, if a wannabe-elite streamer who could not even solo a rare himself talks elitist.

I really wished Blizzard would not listen to these toxic indidivudals, but unfortunately their followers take every of their words as given and holy, and spread their bullshit on other forums on social media.

So my question is, should blizzard stop listening to these toxic subjects? Or should they really play a role in game design? Am i simply too old for nowadays WoW community?

[Dartz1979]

Sometimes i think WoW would be better off without twitch and its streamers. It seems to me, there are a few streamers which fill the brains of many with bullshit ideas about what WoW should be and what not.

If you take a look on the bigger streams and especially their followers, they seem to mainly adress very questionable individuals. Just watch the chat and you will discover they mainy post one word posts and often in caps, rarely full sentences and rarely anything with substance. They repeat racist insults, rant all the time and use phrases like "Monkas" or "Poggers" beside writing nothing useful.

If you would watch this for the first time you could get the impression this are not really humans, but bots who either use the "Poggers" or the "Monkas" macro. And some of them seem to be a little bit further developed using sentences like "NO U" or "U SUCK!".

I wonder: Is this simply a completely retarded community, or are they not even try to type anything useful as the big streamers chats have a scroll speed of a river? Do people try to gain the streamers attention by writing stupid content? What is the chat all about if it produces nothing of substance?

And what is the future of that system, if the chat itself becomes less and less interesting, and the words of the streamer are only what matters? Why do they simply do not retintroduce television, if twitch becomes a 1:n media, while n should better not even try to interact?

Then i also want to take a look on the streamer. It seems very problematic to me, if a large streamer with 100,000s of viewers talks about "how only the best performers" should be allowed to "get rewards", if he obviously has a communiy full of his followers who boost him through all content and send him gold and item presents whenever he joins a game he ever wants to play. Heck, there are even realms which seem to have no other function than to be a pool for such kind of streamer and his followers, who seem to do everything to gain the attention of their "big leader". I see this as toxic, if a wannabe-elite streamer who could not even solo a rare himself talks elitist.

I really wished Blizzard would not listen to these toxic indidivudals, but unfortunately their followers take every of their words as given and holy, and spread their bullshit on other forums on social media.

So my question is, should blizzard stop listening to these toxic subjects? Or should they really play a role in game design? Am i simply too old for nowadays WoW community?

But i like streaming my gameplay and sharing ot with fellow gamers

[Beej]

Then i also want to take a look on the streamer. It seems very problematic to me, if a large streamer with 100,000s of viewers talks about "how only the best performers" should be allowed to "get rewards"

I think streamers are healthy for the game and any game. It gives exposure and reach to the game which helps keep it in the eyes of the players/grow the game. And this part of your quote is why I like Asmongold's content so much. I know many have their mixed feelings about him, but he has all but been on a warpath to make WoW better for the complete opposite of what you suggested. Designing the game around the top 1% is very bad for WoW, and Asmongold has been very blunt in calling this design issue out.

[Divada]

Streamer culture isn't going anywhere, I'm afraid. Besides, WoW has a storied history of listening to the most toxic voices. The hire from Elitist Jerks is proof of that.

[WowIsDead64]

...

Unfortunately Blizzard think, that streamers represent their community. I.e. that simple idea, that if streamer X has 100k subs, then he represents opinion of 100k players, so doing what he asks = having extra $1.5M of sub fees.

[Jester Joe]

Unfortunately Blizzard think, that streamers represent their community. I.e. that simple idea, that if streamer X has 100k subs, then he represents opinion of 100k players, so doing what he asks = having extra $1.5M of sub fees.

And...that's why they repeatedly ignored Asmongold's existence basically until recently? This isn't even remotely true.

[McNeil]

The game was at its best long before streaming was a thing. Maybe let Blizzard hire people who know how to make a game fun which used to be a thing.

[Caprias]

Reading this I'd suggest for you to quit the game and have a nice last stroll in the sunset, you're clearly old enough to be with one feet in the grave.

On a more serious note:

-Twitch chat/culture is like this because at a certain viewer size you can't have conversations in the chat anyways, it's moving too fast, if you go to lower view count streamers (1k or lower) you'll also catch some nice debating and conversations with the streamer.

-There is only one guy who pulls 100k+ viewers and could be considered a "WoW-streamer", if you fall for his hyperbolic comments and his persona you're not as smart as you probably think you are, you don't get to those viewer sizes and hold them by being a sober and analytical guy, his only goal is to entertain the audience.

[Zoibert the Bear]

Sometimes i think WoW would be better off without twitch and its streamers. It seems to me, there are a few streamers which fill the brains of many with bullshit ideas about what WoW should be and what not.

If you take a look on the bigger streams and especially their followers, they seem to mainly adress very questionable individuals. Just watch the chat and you will discover they mainy post one word posts and often in caps, rarely full sentences and rarely anything with substance. They repeat racist insults, rant all the time and use phrases like "Monkas" or "Poggers" beside writing nothing useful.

If you would watch this for the first time you could get the impression this are not really humans, but bots who either use the "Poggers" or the "Monkas" macro. And some of them seem to be a little bit further developed using sentences like "NO U" or "U SUCK!".

I wonder: Is this simply a completely retarded community, or are they not even try to type anything useful as the big streamers chats have a scroll speed of a river? Do people try to gain the streamers attention by writing stupid content? What is the chat all about if it produces nothing of substance?

And what is the future of that system, if the chat itself becomes less and less interesting, and the words of the streamer are only what matters? Why do they simply do not retintroduce television, if twitch becomes a 1:n media, while n should better not even try to interact?

Then i also want to take a look on the streamer. It seems very problematic to me, if a large streamer with 100,000s of viewers talks about "how only the best performers" should be allowed to "get rewards", if he obviously has a communiy full of his followers who boost him through all content and send him gold and item presents whenever he joins a game he ever wants to play. Heck, there are even realms which seem to have no other function than to be a pool for such kind of streamer and his followers, who seem to do everything to gain the attention of their "big leader". I see this as toxic, if a wannabe-elite streamer who could not even solo a rare himself talks elitist.

I really wished Blizzard would not listen to these toxic indidivudals, but unfortunately their followers take every of their words as given and holy, and spread their bullshit on other forums on social media.

So my question is, should blizzard stop listening to these toxic subjects? Or should they really play a role in game design? Am i simply too old for nowadays WoW community?

The fact that you managed to call not just a community, but a group of communities toxic, and then also question if they are simply retarded... Fuck man you should really consider looking into a mirror.

[Nutri]

Sometimes i think WoW gaming would be better off without twitch and its streamers. It seems to me, there are a few streamers which fill the brains of many with bullshit ideas about what WoW gaming should be and what not.

Fixed that for you.

[Kralljin]

I think this post is a great example of toxic positivity.

Exhibit A

I wonder: Is this simply a completely retarded community

Exhibit B

I really wished Blizzard would not listen to these toxic indidivudals

"I'm the good guy, therefore i'm allowed to do what bad people do!"

At least have the common courtesy to name drop Asmongold, because c'mon, that's the guy you're thinking about.

[Nhiosis]

Hard disagree. While some streamers are more toxic than others, there are a fair amount of them who give constructive feedback and help direct change within games. Much better than the antiquated forums that we had to post on before to give feedback.

Also - Asmongold has done more good for WoW than bad.

[Zelk]

This post is not poggers at all in fact it's kind of MonkaW

[Ashana Darkmoon]

This is not at all unique to wow or games. Humans follow the leader! Before YouTube and podcasts we had cable news, before that we had celebrities and radio etc.

There's actually a lot of research on this in sociology.

[Ringthane]

And...that's why they repeatedly ignored Asmongold's existence basically until recently? This isn't even remotely true.

Well, to be fair, that isn't that hard to do.

And if they think the streamers don't represent the community, why do they give them early access to every beta and everything? To get the free publicity they know they'll provide. If they were ignoring the streamers, they wouldn't bother.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh noooo they wanted people actually good at the game to make decisions how awful of them

Good at the game? Have you seen some of these people play WoW? One of those birds that you used to see in bars that would just go up and down all day play better then some of them.

[Jester Joe]

Well, to be fair, that isn't that hard to do.

And if they think the streamers don't represent the community, why do they give them early access to every beta and everything? To get the free publicity they know they'll provide. If they were ignoring the streamers, they wouldn't bother.

Free publicity isn't thinking they represent the community though. Representation would mean that their opinions are the same as the many, which isn't true. You don't have to agree with Asmongold to enjoy and watch his content, for example.

[Beastiel]

So my question is, should blizzard stop listening to these toxic subjects? Or should they really play a role in game design? Am i simply too old for nowadays WoW community?

when did they start?

They've literally been saying "you think you do, but you don't" to these people for years now FFS

[Aucald]

This thread didn't start off great, and reads more like a blog-type post than a real conversation. Closing this.