Profile of A_E

This thread is now unlocked, please discuss civilly.


There have been some good responses aimed at this thread, in a rather unbalanced poll thread that Rosbone created.

From these three users:

I as a "marketing person" don't see why streaming and restreaming should be forbidden.

I respect all the streamers around here and sometimes I also like to rewatch games (not from this particular tournament), especially from Dane and A_E, because I enjoy them the most.

BUT

People complaining about copyright law and stuff sound a tad ridiculous to be honest. This is not the League of Legend LCS also not an MMA Tournament, as someone mentioned. It is a CoH2 game, please stay with your efforts.

While the LCS and MMA attract between 1 and 20 million people depending on the game and tournament, the "average" game of CoH2 has usually around 50 viewers for a "usual" stream and around 500 for this kind of tournament.

So it is not like these kinds of tournaments are here to make money. With the uploads on Youtube that get usually 2.000 views at best, you make less than two dollars. The LCS and the MMA are such events so there are strict laws who may stream and who may not.

But my personal opinion? Let the guys stream. It brings attention to these kinds of events. The money comes from sponsors like Dr. Wachs who would also benefit from a bigger viewership.

Honestly some things feel like the stuff we were protesting against 5 years ago, NDA and such. Most viewers will either way watch the "main channel" of a tournament, in this case A_E's. Other streamers can generate more viewers out of post-match analysis and stuff that's okay too.

But right now, I personally have no idea what this tournament is about and I am on this board everyday. I hope I wasn't too harsh about you guys, but sometimes I feel like some people here tend to sit on some kind of a high horse.

Streaming is an important part of promoting and maintaining interest in CoH2 (and even CoH1) so many years after release. For those that do stream regularly with relatively high numbers of viewers, viewer count is important, especially so for those who are running organized events. It is also important to those who depend on viewer, subscriber, and follower counts to earn income for themselves.

If I chose to stream coh2, I most definitely wouldn't stream during an official event; I'd most likely be watching said event. If I was participating in an event, I probably wouldn't be streaming my own game either, though players are able to do that if they wish. Tournament organizers are also able to request participants that they do not stream their own games.

It has already been established that streaming another streamer's content is against Twitch's terms of service, barring the observer mode.

It would be improper etiquette, though not violating Twitch's terms of service, to stream live replays of tournament games if you have not asked the tournament organizers for explicit permission to do so. This is usually done well in advance (I believe Romeo and Dane have already been asked and announced that they will be streaming GCS2 qualifiers over the summer and it was the same case with GCS), though if there are last minute technical or scheduling conflicts I'm sure things can be organized on an ad-hoc basis.

If you're not involved with a tournament that's happening and you're playing coh2 in automatch rankings or dicking around in private games, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to stream your own gameplay. Although, personally, I wouldn't do that (like I said I'd be watching the live stream/participating), nothing is stopping you from streaming your own gameplay.

Another thing that hasn't been tackled yet, with regards to YouTube videos, if I were to cast a tournament game and upload it directly to YouTube, I would probably ask the tournament organizers first. Out of etiquette and respect, of course, not because of Relic or .org rules.

I believe that this is a learning experience for the community and should be used as an opportunity to learn what is and is not acceptable and establish the public consensus or private resolutions as precedent for handling potential incidents in the future. We should grow out of this incident stronger and more united in our love of this game and respect for each other's hard work in gaming skill, casting skill, and the styles and conduct that streamers engage in when using their twitch accounts.

If I've said anything wrong, if someone disagrees with me, or I have omitted something, please say so. I'm not really sure what I'm trying to do here besides summarize what I've read from others, read on twitch, seen on twitch, was witness to on Sunday, and what I believe is proper etiquette. Perhaps this can form the basis of a Public Service Announcement post here on .org in the coming weeks? Perhaps that may prove to be divisive.

IMO people are creating a gray area where there should definitely not be one.

Tournament creators go through a lot of time and effort in producing quality and fun tournaments for a community, they should reap the benefits of their hard work without the viewership being split. No other serious E-Sport Community allows streaming of events (with small possible exceptions) and COH2 should not either.

Edit: Additionally straight up dubbing over other streamers is a copyright infringement that is definitely against twitch TOS.

To make a profit off of other people's hard earned work is wrong and should be addressed now. In my opinion, it's a given rule that you do not stream a live tournament without permission of the tournament directors.

My thoughts on this are as follows:

In this particular case it seems the overwhelming majority of people believe both counts of what Hans did were wrong in differing amounts:

1) re-streaming is definitely wrong and Hans admitted as much himself.

2) Brodcasting tourney games without permission is also wrong within the context of our community, and from what I've seen nearly everyone agrees with that.

So let's use this as a precedent that we stick to those rules etc, and also tourney organiser lay out any opportunities clearly so people can get involved.

GCS2 as an example: I will say right now that for GCS2 we will probably have a Saturday (day 1 of 2) for each qualifying tournament that is a casting free for all, but the rule that people try to cast different games, and we have a schedule that allows this. Day 2 will be structured with 2 different streams only. Then the GCS2 live final tournament will have one stream and one stream only.

This way I think it will strike a nice balance between giving people content to cast, whilst leaving the most hype portion to the event organisation themselves.

Rosbone this poll misses the mark horribly, I don't think you've fully read the thread have you?

For example where is the option "talk to the tournament organisers first, obtain permission then cast games."

And no one said people couldn't stream CoH2 whilst a tournament was on, that would be madness, well at least there was nothing in that thread that said that.

Why is it that people making these polls always have a strange vision...

Nice little witch hunt we have here I see.

You've done something incredibly wrong within the context of our little community of 1,000 or so people and gotten called out on it. From what I can see its been done in a public way so people can understand the etiquette and know what to do going forward.

First of let me just state I do not want to cause anyone grief for streaming tournament matches. I asked my viewers if they would like me to stream the matches and they said yes because they preferred my game insight.

They should never have even been asked that question, of course your viewers are going to say that... the majority of them are your fans they will agree with most of what you say, even if it's not the right thing to do as in this case.

I even asked Tenshi (a professional caster) on his opinion on all this and he said the more people watching on different channels is actually better for the tournament on a whole. So what your saying about damaging the community is complete bull shit.

Well that's funny, because Tenshi told me and Dan the story once (iirc) of when he helped run a smaller esports outlet for SC2 and someone used to re-stream their streams, and it lead to a drama and was incredibly BM. Perhaps another case of people telling you what you want to hear? Or perhaps he meant in the context of SC2's huge community not in our community of 800 people.

Secondly the only reason I did I rebroadcast of A_E's channel was because it saved me time jumping into the replay manually and speeding through the game. I admit this was wrong and I will not do it again. Next time I'll just use the spectate mode, at-least that way viewers won't miss important moments of a match.

Firstly the disrespect you showed in rebroadcasting and overdubbing a fellow streamer and their cast was quite significant, but at least you acknowledge that that was wrong.

But nah next time you will ask whichever tournament organiser's permission, and discuss with them which games you can cast if they want you to cast. Otherwise you'll probably end up burning bridges with said organiser(s), and not being afforded the opportunities you would like in the future.

I am pretty sure that for any other game like SC2 if a tourney match was available to watch and cast having been available in the game's own spectate mode I am sure plenty of people would jump at the opportunity. I am absolutely sick and tired of having to step aside and be the good guy for other people because you're worried about me stealing viewership. Now listen and listen good all of you, if you're content is good people will watch it. End of story. So if I am having more viewers then you there's a bloody good reason for it.

Well for one you didn't get more viewers, you maintained the same viewership you had before, me and Siddolio had 500 viewers at our peak, but we could have had more, had you not been re-streaming our fucking stream.

This is not about you having more viewers, this is about you being rude, arrogant, and going against community conventions because you think you can and because you don't have a traditional job you think it's ok. edit: after cooling off, I think this phrasing is overly personal, apologies.

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

No one was gonna spite anything until you made the speech about how you DNGAF what people thought, and did it anyway. A nice courteous PM could to a friend or two could have meant you could cast on your channel in an organised fashion.

Well we work all day in traditional jobs, then spend our free time organising and casting tournaments, we're not prepared for you to come and swing by and snap up the good shit we've created. Please don't, or discuss and organise it first.

Agree entirely on all of this, I will frankly admit I was only annoyed after I finished streaming to find out that the games Romeo had taken time out of his day to cast, had been cast live by someone else without asking. I thought this was rude, and shouldn't be done, but I've seen it before.

But then later after I saw that earlier in the day my stream had re-streamed and overdubbed... well let's just say my very fragile ego would have meant I would have used very, very, different language to that used in this post.

In this case this isn't my tournament, or even Stormless's tournament, it's Currahee's hard work in principle, someone who's put not only his time and effort into this but also his own money, to create the framework for players to play within. If there's no organisation we all go back to automatch and wait times.

He alone should have the rights to that content, if you want to broadcast it: you ask him politely, he'll most likely say yes, then you thank him afterwards.

If you don't fully agree, all I'll say is try organising your own tournament, realise how much work it is, then get back to me. Casting is the only thing that keeps me going, the actual organising is a displeasure I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

Nah it's just unlisted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYwZ6GZXWhA