An open letter to the CoHmmunity about rebroadcasting

I'm a long time player and an avid Twitch fan of both Hans and the entire "Official" Tournament casting crew (Stormless AE + guest casters + Sunday KOTH gig) so I'll really be speaking from a neutral point of view with no favoritism.

My only objective is to place an opinion on what I think is best for our community and the game we all love.

I believe that any casting of official tournament play (live or re-runs) should be the "property" of those hosting the tournament and anyone wanting to redistribute this content should, in the spirit of ethics, request permission to do so.

"At the end of the day this is my job and I have to make a living out of it, you can't spite me for trying to cast tournament matches." -Helpinghans

I disagree, with the notion that the Tournament matches aren't your property to rerun.

That's like saying it's ok to rebroadcast NBC's NFL Superbowl game on your own channel because you need to make a living.

The Tournament directors spent a lot of time, effort, (I'm sure some money) and opportunity cost in organizing the entire event and therefore should have the say in how the tournament content is distributed during live play and thereafter.

Now with that said, I think it's best we all try to act grown up and try and resolve this with solutions so that there isn't a some wedge between top elite players and the nice tournament host that spend a great deal of effort to provide great professional content for us.

Some suggestions:
1) Written Notification - Tournament directors should post some visible terms (and speak them) somewhere in their cast/channel/tournament website. This could prevent some who might unintentionally step on their toes when they might not realize that what their doing shouldn't be done and is not permitted by the owner of the content.

2) Work Together - ..I'm sure there's many ways to find a solution that benefits both the official casters of the tournament and anyone who can add value to the content.
- Ex1: Invite Hans to guest cast with you on official stream.
- Ex2: Give Hans permission to rebroadcast other replays (where he could speed up and give commentary on decisions/turning points).

Also, I don't think Hans' actions were pre-planned, so let's not treat it as such.

I was watching both streams and Hans'audience was telling him he should cast and slowly the idea grew on him to act upon his viewers wishes, despite my opinion on weather he shouldn't do this or not.

I think really after everyone's initial emotions have been expressed and take a minute to breath that both parties should come together and find a solution that includes everyone involved to benefit both themselves, the tournament and the game.

Surely, there's a win-win solution you all can come up with.

It would be a shame otherwise, because I (and I would assume many others) who respect both sides are likely to not pick sides but rather distance ourselves from any aspect of the game that has a toxic vibe.


Hope everyone takes the high ground...

Just my 2 cents...

I mean, look at it like this guys, there is enough dedication, passion, right in this thread where there are things being discussed which might should have gone different.

Hans said sorry. That's fine.

We can go and rip ourselfs apart and not use that community we already have for things that will come in the future.

So how do we go forward from this? Shake Hands and next time find an agreement.

We got a lot of casting willing people, we got a healthy anmount of very good players fighting each other in game.

This Horsewagon has the 3 Horses pulling it right no, which is Stormless,HelpingHans and VonIvan. But then there is the Ponies, which are still small and stuff. But if they grow aswell, we have more Horses and then be able to get so much out of it and everyone will profit in their own ways.

But that's for Coh2, and in my opinion, when we help each other out to reach more people as a whole, everyone will profit from it.

With AoE4 coming, WE could host Tournaments, from the experience we just gathered, we can create community events. We have the connections to relic.

As soon as AoE4 Hits, we can create these things, organize tournaments and stuff. We can be the Rock in the AoE4 Community, which can make it great, and at the same time keep CoH2 alive.

And we should just talk about this in a Discord / Teamspeak. Make agreements, don't fight about what happened, because now we cannot turn back time and change the events.

Come on COH2 Community, Coh2 Twitch community, let's all help each other out, pull on the same Strings, and we are going to be more than we could imagine.

I'm a long time player and an avid Twitch fan of both Hans and the entire "Official" Tournament casting crew (Stormless AE + guest casters + Sunday KOTH gig) so I'll really be speaking from a neutral point of view with no favoritism.

My only objective is to place an opinion on what I think is best for our community and the game we all love.

I believe that any casting of official tournament play (live or re-runs) should be the "property" of those hosting the tournament and anyone wanting to redistribute this content should, in the spirit of ethics, request permission to do so.

"At the end of the day this is my job and I have to make a living out of it, you can't spite me for trying to cast tournament matches." -Helpinghans

I disagree, with the notion that the Tournament matches aren't your property to rerun.

That's like saying it's ok to rebroadcast NBC's NFL Superbowl game on your own channel because you need to make a living.

The Tournament directors spent a lot of time, effort, (I'm sure some money) and opportunity cost in organizing the entire event and therefore should have the say in how the tournament content is distributed during live play and thereafter.

Now with that said, I think it's best we all try to act grown up and try and resolve this with solutions so that there isn't a some wedge between top elite players and the nice tournament host that spend a great deal of effort to provide great professional content for us.

Some suggestions:
1) Written Notification - Tournament directors should post some visible terms (and speak them) somewhere in their cast/channel/tournament website. This could prevent some who might unintentionally step on their toes when they might not realize that what their doing shouldn't be done and is not permitted by the owner of the content.

2) Work Together - ..I'm sure there's many ways to find a solution that benefits both the official casters of the tournament and anyone who can add value to the content.
- Ex1: Invite Hans to guest cast with you on official stream.
- Ex2: Give Hans permission to rebroadcast other replays (where he could speed up and give commentary on decisions/turning points).

Also, I don't think Hans' actions were pre-planned, so let's not treat it as such.

I was watching both streams and Hans'audience was telling him he should cast and slowly the idea grew on him to act upon his viewers wishes, despite my opinion on weather he shouldn't do this or not.

I think really after everyone's initial emotions have been expressed and take a minute to breath that both parties should come together and find a solution that includes everyone involved to benefit both themselves, the tournament and the game.

Surely, there's a win-win solution you all can come up with.

It would be a shame otherwise, because I (and I would assume many others) who respect both sides are likely to not pick sides but rather distance ourselves from any aspect of the game that has a toxic vibe.


Hope everyone takes the high ground...

Just my 2 cents...

well written!

But if this behaviour is genuinely accepted and validated (By any community of any size or value) then I think that's worth a discussion and in the future we'll make sure we protect ourselves from this happening for our own personal happiness rather than relying on the decency of others.

The community opinion doesn't make much of a difference because the community can't really do much about it. Even if this thread were a chorus of agreement (and it mostly is) the only people with the ability to do anything about it here are the tournament organizers and the people who want to stream tournament matches.

I only see three outcomes here.

• Tournament matches are parallel streamed without permission from the organizers.
  
• Tournament matches are parallel streamed with permission on the organizer's terms.
  
• Tournament matches aren't parallel streamed.

Personally I think there's a mutually beneficial deal that can be made here provided the bridges aren't too burned up by now. Otherwise all you can really do outside of Relic intervention is use tournament disqualification as a deterrent. And I'm not sure how well that route would end.

The community opinion doesn't make much of a difference because the community can't really do much about it. Even if this thread were a chorus of agreement (and it mostly is) the only people with the ability to do anything about it here are the tournament organizers and the people who want to stream tournament matches.

+1

But I did actually message James during the event. We all did this as friends in private. He read those messages and decided to make a public statement about how fed up he was and how our content wasn't good enough to compete with his.

I also messaged him after the event with the clip I have linked in my post. Granted I did make a short sharp comment about my thoughts on it which may not have been constructive. But those private messages have been read and then completely ignored since Sunday.

I think the best solution would be a community meeting, setup in a private discord or teamspeak where we could discuss this constructively, with neutral party members, like myself who could help. I find messages over steam aren't the most successful ways to discuss with someone an issue when both partys are emotional about it. (even if one party is solely responsible)

I think really after everyone's initial emotions have been expressed and take a minute to breath that both parties should come together and find a solution that includes everyone involved to benefit both themselves, the tournament and the game.

Surely, there's a win-win solution you all can come up with.

It would be a shame otherwise, because I (and I would assume many others) who respect both sides are likely to not pick sides but rather distance ourselves from any aspect of the game that has a toxic vibe.


Hope everyone takes the high ground...

Just my 2 cents...

+1

The community opinion doesn't make much of a difference because the community can't really do much about it. Even if this thread were a chorus of agreement (and it mostly is) the only people with the ability to do anything about it here are the tournament organizers and the people who want to stream tournament matches.

I think the community is important because reading this discussion and understand how people feel about this gives the community more of an idea of how this kind of thing affects Tournament Organisers.

There may be people who were not involved in this directly but may consider streaming this way in the future and hopefully, this would deter that kind of thing.

It's also a matter of consensus because we are not able to convey as a minority that such behaviour is controversial and frowned upon. As a community with enough voices, we can speak out and build a general understand of behaviour that results in the happiness of everyone rather than a few people.

This is a good discussion to have. I wouldn't say that nothing good is going to come out of this because we as organisers are speaking out about how we feel about this. The most important thing is that instead of this 'unspoken code of conduct' we have opened a debate so everyone can have their say about it.

Following all the points here. Rules will be updated, guidelines will be established and sanctions created to ensure that situations like this are clear cut when someone breaks the rules.

This is exactly what I hoped would come of this discussion and poll I created (against my will). TOs could get a feel for what the community wants and create some rules posted on this site somewhere in the streaming area. To go even further there could be an official COH2.ORG seal that could bee added to your broadcast to help create a place where viewers/streamers could get to this information easily.

And we should just talk about this in a Discord / Teamspeak. Make agreements, don't fight about what happened, because now we cannot turn back time and change the events.

Come on COH2 Community, Coh2 Twitch community, let's all help each other out, pull on the same Strings, and we are going to be more than we could imagine.

This was the point of the poll. So when this meeting happens, you know where the community stands.

I feel the need to write this open letter to the community due to some recent events regarding tournaments within our scene.

On Sunday at the opening of the Ultimate Team Tournament hosted by Currahee & FaHu, it was apparent that the official scheduled casting was disrupted by unofficial and unauthorised re-broadcasting on Twitch by one of the game’s top players. This caused one of the official channels to suffer a significant viewership drop and caused upset to the Tournament Organisers (and other TOs) who were upset at the lack of respect shown. Whilst we did still achieve an average of 450 viewers, we care deeply about reaching as many people as possible and this post is more about the etiquette and morals involved.

This post hurts coh 2 at the end of the day. This should have been resolved behind the scenes. I think this is very selfish and serves no purpose other than to create drama. I feel strongly this is an attempt to discredit hans so you can maximize your viewer count. Disgusting considering he thought you all were friends.

I just came from HelpingHans' stream.

I heard about this whole drama from him 10 minutes ago. He's always been my favourite CoH2 player and streamer.
And I think he's in the wrong here. I didn't even need to read this forum letter. Through his behaviour he's convinced me of his fault.
I have no doubt he is one of the best CoH2 players and arguably understands the game better than anyone.
But he is behaving like a child. He seems to have no concept of empathy of honour here. Let alone intellectual property law.

In regards to his actual offence:
If he had cast the game at a later date I would understand. He would be adding his expert opinion to a pro game. He would not take viewers away from the live broadcast. And he would direct people who were not already aware of the tournament to view the live broadcast next time.
Instead he broadcast the event live and excused himself with the self-entitled view that he does more work and contributes more to the CoH2 community than the people who organised the tournament.

But ultimately that's not what turned me against him.
I decided to watch his stream tonight to unwind. Instead I get to listen to him abusing chat for (largely respectfully) disagreeing with him. I believe "fuck you" and "go die" were thrown around.

A year of my respect for HelpingHans, garnered through his expertise and entertaining videos has been destroyed in mere minutes. He demonstrated a blatant and childish disregard for reality which prevents him from considering anything but his own self-pity. It is with regret that I will no longer be subscribing to his twitch. I am deeply disappointed by his attitude, and I hope he develops some level of introspection in the future.

The fault does not lie solely with HelpingHans.
All that said, I also believe Stormless and the other organisers/casters had a way to attempt a more peaceable resolution to this than posting it on the CoH2 forums. The post may have been more justified if they attempted a personal conversation with HelpingHans first. I don't know whether this happened... It would reassure me if it did. If Hans still refused to admit the error with integrity then I believe this post is entirely justified.

Finally:
I would just like to stress the fact that the first information I received on this matter was from HelpingHans himself, he has always been my favourite CoH2 streamer... and I do not support him in this.

I think the community is important because reading this discussion and understand how people feel about this gives the community more of an idea of how this kind of thing affects Tournament Organisers.

There may be people who were not involved in this directly but may consider streaming this way in the future and hopefully, this would deter that kind of thing.

I agree on that. I for one hadn't even considered the tournament organizer's position before reading your open letter.

It's also a matter of consensus because we are not able to convey as a minority that such behaviour is controversial and frowned upon. As a community with enough voices, we can speak out and build a general understand of behaviour that results in the happiness of everyone rather than a few people.

I think the etiquette argument has achieved all it's going to achieve at this point. It's doubtlessly won over a lot of people (myself included) but if you want to nip this in the bud entirely you'll either have to come to a mutually beneficial agreement or resort to stronger deterrents.

I just came from HelpingHans' stream.

I heard about this whole drama from him 10 minutes ago. He's always been my favourite CoH2 player and streamer.
And I think he's in the wrong here. I didn't even need to read this forum letter. Through his behaviour he's convinced me of his fault.
I have no doubt he is one of the best CoH2 players and arguably understands the game better than anyone.
But he is behaving like a child. He seems to have no concept of empathy of honour here. Let alone intellectual property law.

In regards to his actual offence:
If he had cast the game at a later date I would understand. He would be adding his expert opinion to a pro game. He would not take viewers away from the live broadcast. And he would direct people who were not already aware of the tournament to view the live broadcast next time.
Instead he broadcast the event live and excused himself with the self-entitled view that he does more work and contributes more to the CoH2 community than the people who organised the tournament.

But ultimately that's not what turned me against him.
I decided to watch his stream tonight to unwind. Instead I get to listen to him abusing chat for (largely respectfully) disagreeing with him. I believe "fuck you" and "go die" were thrown around.

A year of my respect for HelpingHans, garnered through his expertise and entertaining videos has been destroyed in mere minutes. He demonstrated a blatant and childish disregard for reality which prevents him from considering anything but his own self-pity. It is with regret that I will no longer be subscribing to his twitch. I am deeply disappointed by his attitude, and I hope he develops some level of introspection in the future.

The fault does not lie solely with HelpingHans.
All that said, I also believe Stormless and the other organisers/casters had a way to attempt a more peaceable resolution to this than posting it on the CoH2 forums. The post may have been more justified if they attempted a personal conversation with HelpingHans first. I don't know whether this happened... It would reassure me if it did. If Hans still refused to admit the error with integrity then I believe this post is entirely justified.

Finally:
I would just like to stress the fact that the first information I received on this matter was from HelpingHans himself, he has always been my favourite CoH2 streamer... and I do not support him in this.

You are right, a "friend", and once upon a time a sub. Is who he told to "go fuck off and die" https://clips.twitch.tv/DeadSuaveElkEagleEye

and also insulted the things we make for him for free. Just like you saw when he said running a tournament is easy and anyone can do it and it takes no work, yada yada. I would love to see him run GCS, or hell even my tourney. I have years of manager experience from a multimillion dollar company and have run my own tournaments, it boggles my mind that he thinks running even a small tourney is easy.

To be honest not even sure why I'm surprised, this isn't new behavior from hans either.

He was also, to my knowledge asked to stop via PM during the cast. Which if you read the thread, A_E and stormless confirm. Infact I believe the clip is from that Sunday (in the initial post) about how he saw it and ignored it.

You are right, a "friend", and once upon a time a sub. Is who he told to "go fuck off and die" https://clips.twitch.tv/DeadSuaveElkEagleEye

Absolutely disgusting behaviour. I don't think it'll remain "up" for long though. Some seriously, to be frank, disturbing behaviour on stream today.

Absolutely disgusting behaviour. I don't think it'll remain "up" for long though. Some seriously, to be frank, disturbing behaviour on stream today.

It's just yet another instance of "USE YOUR FUCKING TIGER!" In other words, him utterly failing to control himself in a fit of rage. Hardly disturbing.

He apologized, kinda.

https://clips.twitch.tv/HelpfulHotLadiesVoteNay

Alright, so I was casting the main stream with AE so I thought i'd chip in

So this insight point is pretty bullshit as far as im concerned. I've done better than Hans in recent 2v2 tournaments and would say I can offer just as good insight in to 2v2 as he can. Just skimmed through his cast and he hasn't really said anything particularly enlightening, curious to know what god tier information about 2v2 he has that I don't.

Only seen one 30 second clip of the rebroadcast, if he actually did a whole game thats out of line.

Also think it's just common decency to not start casting tournament games that have an official stream unless you're providing an alternate language. Romeo comes back just to cast a tournament and his viewer count is probably quartered because a more followed coh2 streamer is putting out the same content.

Lastly what part of the open letter is targeted directly at Hans? This post was clearly made so that it doesn't happen in future weeks or with future tournaments.