Asmongold’s ban from WoW shows how annoying the special position of Twitch streamers is to normal players
Asmongold is one of the most successful streamers on Twitch ever, in the area of MMOPRG and especially WoW he is a leader. Yesterday he was banned from World of Warcraft for 30 days, but only a few hours later he was able to log back into the MMORPG. The discussion about the ban shows how much “normal players” are bothered by this special treatment.
How big is Asmongold on Twitch?
- It’s a strange situation, because Asmongold is “actually” one of the biggest streamers on Twitch with an average viewership of 54,000 (2021) and has always been the biggest streamer on the platform in months when new MMORPGs were released.
- However, he is currently not streaming on his main channel “Asmongold” with 3.3 million followers – but on a side channel “Zackrawrr”, with which he only reaches around 10,500 viewers on average.
- Asmongold has increasingly withdrawn to his side channel because the hustle and bustle around his main channel was too much for him and he felt overwhelmed with the situation when his private life was shaken by crises.
Twitch streamer Asmongold is always present via YouTube
Then why does he seem so present?? Asmongold achieves its actual reach via the YouTube platform: “Editors” cut parts out of its twitch clips and publish easily consumable snippets as “video on demand” on YouTube. Before, people had it without his consent, since 2019 Asmongold has been earning money from these videos.
Especially “Asmongold reacts to” videos are popular: Asmongold looks at editorial videos of others and comments on them. It’s a way for big YouTubers to get maximum profit with minimum effort.
Even fans of Asmongold sometimes find it too much Asmongold on YouTube (via reddit):
Asmongold is extremely present on YouTube: videos appear daily on his own channels where he reacts to current topics and comments on them. There are also fan channels that also successfully create videos about him by clipping Twitch clips.
If you are interested in MMORPGs in general, the YouTube algorithm quickly gives the impression that Asmongold is omnipresent. Because he also has a polarizing manner and appearance, he is often spoken about very emotionally: people either like or loathe him.
Blizzard Bans Biggest Twitch Streamer on WoW for Real Money Trading: “I Didn’t Do Anything Wrong!”
Players believe that if they were Asmongold, they would have been banned for 30 days
This is what the ban showed: Blizzard banned Asmongold on August 16th. because of “Real Money Trading” for 30 days. The ban was lifted just a few hours later: Asmongold had his account back.
This special treatment of Asmongold is criticized in comments on YouTube and on gaming sites. Players believe that if they had been banned, they would have served the 30 days. But someone like Asmongold just had to shout out loud and Blizzard would look at the case again and unban him.
On YouTube it says:
- “Imagine being unjustly banned and not having millions of viewers.”
- “The problem is this could unfortunately happen to any player and not all of us are big streamers so our chances of getting unbanned in a situation like this are just non-existent.”
- “A streamer gets unbanned almost immediately. A normal player who plays WoW for 15 years and never bought gold or participated in any boosting is just fucked up.”
On MeinMMO user MathError says:
I’m 100% sure any normal player would never have been unbanned as quickly as Asmongold for the “same wrong reason”: Here someone at Blizzard read: “Asmongold” – better let’s look at it again, and “Tada – unbanned. Any other player would probably have been banned until September 30th.
MyMMO reader MathError
So you can see that WoW players feel like Blizzard is using double standards here and treating streamers better.
This is behind it: Anyone who has ever been banned in a game knows the feeling of “powerlessness”, because they often only receive form letters as an answer without any deeper explanation. A “ban” is a nightmare for any MMORPG player, losing months or even years of invested time. For some hardcore gamers, it feels like they’ve lost their homeland.
It seems unfair that a Twitch streamer like Asmongold, who is already controversial, can get out of the situation here within hours.
The problem that companies first ban and later take a close look at it is also known from Twitch. Twitch also often withdraws bans from large streamers if enough people are outraged by the ban:
Twitch’s ban policy is getting more and more ridiculous
Reference-mein-mmo.de
It’s not just twitch streamers. I’ve never bothered with Twitch in my life – just the name is irritating enough.
My beef is streaming in general – the fact that the majority of streamers spend almost the entire time joking with a sidekick and never getting to the point of their title until the closing moments.
My other gripe is their excessively long intros. Why bother? They either have something to say, or they don’t, but don’t waste MY time having to sit around, listening to your idea of a cool playlist of music for 15 goddam minutes before you show your ugly face and start bumping you gums.
I’d much rather read an article than put up with streamers.