Eh, looking at the names, I'd say that was a freebie. I see the usuals doing their usual thing.
One curious thing though: when I did watch the paid streamer's launch day experience, the moment he got into the game proper there were people already in Lioneye's Watch. Were they just the really lucky ones who somehow beat the ridiculously long queue and stayed on despite very frequent disconnections (hard to believe) or was that 'priority queue bypass' already in play even before said paid streamer logged in successfully for the first time?
I was genuinely expecting him to log into an empty game, given how GGG made out that they opened the gate specifically for him because he was paid to be there. On the other hand, that would have looked fishy in and of itself.
I dunno. The whole thing really stinks.
https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
Last edited by Foreverhappychan on Apr 26, 2021, 8:45:58 PM
There were definitely ppl getting into the game, the queue was just extremely slow.
I think the disconnects only happened after they let the streamers in and messed around with hotfixes that were supposed to fix the queue, at least that's what I read from Chris' post.
Last edited by Sadaukar on Apr 26, 2021, 9:36:06 PM
Here’s the summary: on April 17th, 2021, GGG gave priority access to an otherwise locked league launch to a number of high profile streamers.
One of them, a well-known streamer of other games, was paid to be there and legally had to receive 2 hours of launch day stream time. Most of the others were local celebrities, who were not paid to be there, and their partners, friends, guild members, etc. Everyone else, regardless of support level or community contribution, could only watch as this elite few received priority treatment on a crucial launch day. This completely contravenes the spirit of Path of Exile’s ‘fairness for all’, and to continue giving them money after that is to send an unhealthy message of compliance if not encouragement. It was also false advertising: it showed a working PoE on launch day to viewers when PoE has a long-standing history of server overloads and crashes whenever a new league lands.
GGG’s ensuing statements made clear that this was indeed about money (see GGG’s official post-fact statement below), so it follows that the only response is a financial one.
Path of Exile is a free to play game, so play it for free. But I urge you to think twice before buying any more support packs or mtxes from Grinding Gear Games. If they can choose a streamer over ‘a normal player’ once, they’ll almost certainly do it again. Maybe not in the same way, but I think it’d be naïve to believe that this is the only method they have of ensuring streamers, whose involvement and willingness to play PoE they see as ‘literal piles of money’, keep playing and keep their game looking good.
Play PoE but boycott GGG. They don’t need your ‘little person’ money (see financial statements) and if they’re going to gamble big on big-shot streamers as their source of revenue, do not provide them a safety net when that gamble falls through.
What I originally wrote.
I had a nice long rant typed, but it doesn't matter who I am or what I've done. If you know, you know. If you don't, you've still been screwed over all the same by this event. You've still been treated with utter contempt by a company you supported.
If being openly shown that streamers get preferential access to a new league isn't your breaking point to stop supporting PoE, if 'reset the league' would be enough for you, then I seriously question what it'd take.
GGG has openly shown they 100% choose profits over people, which for a free to play game shouldn't even be possible. YOU are GGG's profits.
It's time to remind them of that. One person can't make a difference. I, more than many, know this. That's why I'm saying it to all of you.
Don't take this as just 'GGG being GGG' and 'of course they give streamers first dibs'. Don't see this as the price you pay to play 'the best ARPG around'. Surely being treated like a lower priority for what should be a fair start for all is too high a price to pay. Because it's not just that they did this; it's that they knew you'd see them doing it via streams and didn't care that you'd see it. They're assuming you'll just get over it, forget about it once you're back to playing. Like the good little PoE junkies you are.
I can only conclude that is exactly what they think of you. How helpless and stupid they think you are.
Exiles: Boycott GGG. It claims to be a free to play game. So play it for free. See how that turns out for them while they're coddling their toxic, parasitic mouthpieces.
GGG have shown you who they are now. Show them that it's unacceptable.
Boycott GGG.
GGG’s official statement at the end of the day, and a few notes on certain claims.
So while this was all going on, we managed to also commit a pretty big faux pas and enrage the entire community by allowing streamers to bypass that really slow queue we mentioned. The backstory is that we have recently been doing some proper paid influencer marketing, and that involves arranging for big streamers to showcase Path of Exile to their audiences, for money (they have #ad in their titles). We had arranged to pay for two hours of streaming, and we ran right into a login queue that would take two hours to clear. This was about as close as you could get to literally setting a big pile of money on fire. So we made the hasty decision to allow those streamers to bypass the queue. Most streamers did not ask for this, and should not be held to blame for what happened. We also allowed some other streamers who weren't involved in the campaign to skip the queue too so that they weren't on the back foot.
The decision to allow any streamers to bypass the queue was clearly a mistake. Instead of offering viewers something to watch while they waited, it offended all of our players who were eager to get into the game and weren't able to, while instead having to watch others enjoy that freedom. It's completely understandable that many players were unhappy about this. We tell people that Path of Exile league starts are a fair playing field for everyone, and we need to actually make sure that is the reality.
We will not allow streamers to bypass the login queue in the future. We will instead make sure the queue works much better so that it's a fast process for everyone and is always a fair playing field. We will also plan future marketing campaigns with contingencies in mind to better handle this kind of situation in the future.
It's completely understandable that many players are unhappy with how today has gone on several fronts. This post has no intention of trying to convince you to be happy with these outcomes. We simply want to provide you some insight about what happened, why it happened and what we're doing about it in the future. We're very unhappy with it too.
(Bold mine for emphasis. I have edited out the technical explanations – you can find them at the link below)
The most important part of this statement is an admission of guilt. These are very rare in official company responses; admission of guilt leads straight to culpability and potential legal action, typically. But admissions of guilt are now part of GGG’s official post-mortem statements, so users expect them and do not see them as potential avenues of attack. They are, essentially, part of the image. Sincerity, it would seem, is optional – as proven by what GGG said next.
They knew two things on launch day: they'd paid an outside streamer a lot of money to play on launch day for two hours, and their launch days are traditionally very rocky. Reading between the lines, and knowing that they could make a 'hasty decision' to let this streamer skip the massive queue, we can see that they were prepared for a rocky launch and had a contingency plan. The decision might have been hasty but the system was always in place. This isn’t surprising; they likely need to have a backdoor to check what’s going on internally. That they were so quick to tap that system not only to fulfil a legal obligation but also give their 'top streamers' priority access (for no discernibly good or smart reason) indicates to me that they had at least considered the possibility that they’d need to do something against GGG's ethics based on this agreement.
The addition of other streamers was particularly egregious. They were not legally bound to be there, and it seems to me that they were added not to 'leave them on the back foot' but so as not to create envy and bitterness in GGG's regular, unpaid revenue streams. It would be a very bad look if an outsider got log-in privileges to an otherwise locked server and your most watched streamers did not. Immediate schism, but not between players and streamers (which is an acknowledged and almost encouraged schism between elitists and plebs) but between actual players and ring-ins. This would look like GGG chose a complete outsider over their own faithful streamers. Absolutely unacceptable.
The problem is GGG couldn't easily facilitate all of this without everyone seeing. They could have informed their chosen few of the decision privately but everyone watching would have seen the top streamers suddenly get in all at once and form their own conclusions. So of course GGG did openly; the damage was done by then, although players (and probably most streamers) didn't know it.
Let's address the worst line in there: 'literally setting a big pile of money on fire'. Now and then GGG try to skew candid and honest (yet another gamble), but in this case they just plain showed their hand. Not allowing a paid streamer their play time even if no one else had that playtime on a free to play game that is 'fair for all' would indeed be a massive financial hit. Had they allowed this person in and no one else and said simply, 'we had no choice', I think people would be at least somewhat more forgiving. Instead they doubled down and let a bunch of non-paid folk in, not to mention their cohorts, because that too avoided setting some piles of money on fire down the track. So instead of simply doing what they were legally obligated to do and admitting THAT was the mistake, GGG went overboard, admitted it was 'for money', and then, and only then, claimed there was a mistake. No, GGG. You made several here. But the big one was gambling on your servers being stable on launch day. You gambled on that and you lost. You might still have your big pile of money, but in that moment, everyone saw who you really are.
To suggest that they did this to 'offer viewers something to watch while they waited' is an insult, flat-out. No one likes to watch someone else doing something they themselves really wish they could. It's like rubbing it in their faces. No, not 'like'; that's exactly what it is. And it's made all the worse by the fact that this 'offer to watch' confirmed something many players suspected but didn't want to believe: GGG do in fact give streamers priority treatment beyond relatively harmless things like mtxes. Do and can and did. I remain astounded that anyone could type that line and not see it for the 'massive faux pas' that it is. Astounded.
Finally, the last line: 'we're very unhappy too'. After all this talk of setting piles of money on fire and giving streamers priority access and seeing this as somehow a 'gift' to all the other players, I'm left wondering what exactly GGG are 'very unhappy about': are they unhappy that they were forced to make this decision? Because they weren't -- they put themselves in that position. Are they unhappy that we all got to see them choose 'a pile of money' over their own integrity? That's a pretty selfish thing to be unhappy about. Are they actually unhappy that so many people were unhappy? Well, whose fault was that? There is little to no empathy in that last line. I've no doubt that Chris and GGG are very unhappy, but I seriously question whether they're unhappy for the same reasons as their faithful, loyal Exiles, past and present.
Summary: typical admission of guilt, candid explanation, a few moments of Freudian truth, and a promise to do better. Feel free to accept the apology and believe the promise to do better. Just be aware that this was not a mistake in the moment alone. This was a chain of bad calls, and the worst of them was neither rushed nor forced. It was motivated by a need or desire to make 'a big pile of money.'
On April 20th, 20 users were 'banned' (suspended for the duration of the league – 3 months, roughly) for abusing an exploit. It is known that at least some of these users were among the priority queue for streamers and their friends/family/guild members, and one of them insulted their viewers when the unfairness of the priority queue was brought up. This is both only to be expected and very convenient for GGG, who needed a scapegoat and a win after the streamer priority queue debacle. I'm reminded of that parable about the frog carrying the scorpion across the river only to be stung to death by the scorpion halfway across, but I can’t tell in this case which is the frog and which is the scorpion.
Whatever the exploit, users were quick to point out that yet again the damage had been done. Whatever ill-gotten goods these people created/acquired, they’re already in the market. Still, for a brief moment, GGG looked like 'the good guys' again – for doing the bare minimum expected of them when someone is 'caught' cheating. In fact, many people also pointed out that had a non-streamer been caught cheating, they'd have just been banned outright, permanently. Just more evidence of GGG giving their revenue-generating streamers preferential treatment.
Would a boycott work? Don’t GGG make a lot of money regardless?
A boycott would not bring GGG down, no. Absolutely not, and if I thought it could, I wouldn’t call for one -- I still care about the people working there and I want them to continue to working on this game, given it seems to be all they'll be working on for the foreseeable future. Company destruction is typically not the intention of a boycott. The intention is to make enough of a dent in their revenue that they can’t but help notice it and want to change their ways as a result. But even that isn't really the goal in this case. The goal here in fact is not what GGG do, but what players do. This is all about not rewarding bad behaviour. GGG treated their normal player base, regardless of support status, with open contempt that day, and they did it to save themselves a lot of money, or to prevent the loss of potential revenue.
If you like the mtxes or support packs, that's fair enough. You are buying them for your own pleasure, and getting 'your money’s worth'. But if you're a supporter because you've always been a supporter or because you think GGG are morally upstanding or have your best interests at heart, I think you should definitely consider playing for free from now on.
As for GGG's financials, they’re public record and I’ll link them below. As others have noted upon trolling through this (and likely other) documents, GGG pull in roughly 77 million USD from customers a year. So yeah, they're doing just fine without or without your few hundred a year chucked in. Surely it's worth more to you than to them...
PS: Please do not quote or even name specific players/streamers in here. Other threads have been locked for doing this as a form of 'personal attack', and I'm willing to bet they're just looking for an excuse to bury this one too. They've already tried once.
I don't mind streamers having priority que, the issue is streamers and their buddies got que then exploited ultimatum mechanics with that said priority. Doesn't look good in the eyes of the community honestly. (not all abused the bug , a few did but that's where the problem persists for me.. giving them an upper hand and them using it as they exploit bugs and glitches for personal gain and advantages. Be very careful who you give priority que to GGG , another priority bug abuser wont look good at all in a financial point of view.
Last edited by brandondimopoulos on Apr 26, 2021, 10:05:01 PM
There were definitely ppl getting into the game, the queue was just extremely slow.
I think the disconnects only happened after they let the streamers in and messed around with hotfixes that were supposed to fix the queue, at least that's what I read from Chris' post.
Oh, that's a very interesting take. So you believe it was simply a ridiculously long queue at first, with a very lucky few able to get on and stay on, but once the queue priority was employed and subsequent hotfixes attempted, that's when the instability kicked in? Hm. That would imply that the server instability wasn't actually an instability but a planned outage. I'm not sure I buy that one. Some of the queue numbers people shared were impossibly high, and I've seen my share of red numbers in the millions...
Either way, that's all a bit tangential at this point. I'll say this much: reading up on the paid streamer's professional gaming history and meteoric rise to streamer stardom has been interesting. These top-tier gamers pull in upwards of $200k USD a month but there they are, on stream in what looks like a pretty normal bedroom, hours on end. It's such a weird scene to this old Gen Xer. I get millionaires not realising just how rich they are and the need to make more as a self-defining trait, but gaming streamers self-define as gamers. It's almost like the wealth is a by-product -- and yet they do work hard to produce entertaining content. I don't doubt whether or not a person 'makes it' as a streamer is down to a measure of luck, but there has to be some capitalising on that luck too. Anyway, further reading:
Oh, and unlike PoE's chronic streamers who seem to be, to paraphrase Aquinas, 'men of a single game', the paid streamer bounces from game to game fairly freely, as befitting someone considered one of the best gamers in the world. I think that, plus the professional e-sports background, puts him well beyond the scope of PoE's niche appeal -- even though he definitely enjoyed the game and streamed it more just yesterday. I do not see this becoming a long-term thing, however. PoE is not well-suited to the e-sports scene. It might have a lively streamer culture but it offers almost nothing to a casual viewer. No team to root for. No exciting moments. No human challenge. No impressive plays. You're either an Exile or you're not, and the only time I've seen a streamer successfully bring a bunch of players with him is when he came from another, disappointing ARPG and PoE's potential had yet to be tested (and found wanting, ultimately).
I suppose that'd be two distinct tiers of streamer: most of them get 'big' within their chosen game but don't really leave that pond, but then there are the ones who are so big every pond clamours to be honoured by their presence. Again, GGG could not afford to show the latter favour over the former on launch day. It'd be like insulting local nobles with whom one has to deal day to day just to genuflect to a visiting king who probably visits dozens of little provinces yearly. And make no mistake: PoE is still a little province on the larger map of online gaming. So GGG roll out that red carpet and break out the crystal...
I do wonder how it all would have gone had GGG more openly promoted the paid streamer's incoming presence beforehand, and made clear that they were indeed going to go to unusual lengths to ensure his PoE experience would be extraordinarily (and some might argue misleadingly) smooth.
I also wonder how long people are going to be content with this increasingly obvious notion that not everyone's playing the same game, and I don't mean that in the 'some people are just better at the game than others' sense. Life isn't fair (hahaha I finally snuck one in) but games aren't life. They're meant to embody certain ideals that life can't deliver. Foremost of these, I would argue, is a sense of fairness.
Isn't the idea that 'the same rules matter for and apply to all' the main reason games have served as escapism for as long as games have existed? Chess is a poor representation of any sort of real-life conflict between kingdoms (surely anyone who's played it has wondered why the king can't be assassinated, or why each side has exactly the same resources) but it remains the preeminent game for people seeking a 'fair' experience of such. Take that fairness away (illusion though it may be) and the game loses value as something to be played. It becomes merely compromised entertainment.
And isn't the real issue here the fact that those expected to enforce the rules broke their own, and for the most selfish of reasons? And then, in a dazzling display of ethical versatility, 'banned' people who broke the rules they themselves failed to sufficiently uphold. Like I said: scorpion, frog. Meanwhile, most Exiles are either ignorant to the high-stakes fuckery or would rather eat a mouthful of sand if it means being able to just get back to their daily delusion that PoE is fair for all, that how others play doesn't affect them, and that as long as no one gets hurt, everything's fine.
Putrefaction isn't instantaneous; it only seems that way to those ignoring the warning signs. And some of those signs should be pretty damn hard to ignore.
https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
Last edited by Foreverhappychan on Apr 26, 2021, 11:51:24 PM
Wow. 200K a month... Those dudes are livin the life. Good for them but they shoudlnt be given priority in a competitive game with ladders. It's like not only letting him play white in chess (which is an advantage) but all pawns are queens.
Git R Dun!
Last edited by Aim_Deep on Apr 26, 2021, 11:35:04 PM
There were definitely ppl getting into the game, the queue was just extremely slow.
I think the disconnects only happened after they let the streamers in and messed around with hotfixes that were supposed to fix the queue, at least that's what I read from Chris' post.
Oh, that's a very interesting take. So you believe it was simply a ridiculously long queue at first, with a very lucky few able to get on and stay on, but once the queue priority was employed and subsequent hotfixes attempted, that's when the instability kicked in? Hm. That would imply that the server instability wasn't actually an instability but a planned outage. I'm not sure I buy that one. Some of the queue numbers people shared were impossibly high, and I've seen my share of red numbers in the millions...
Either way, that's all a bit tangential at this point. I'll say this much: reading up on the paid streamer's professional gaming history and meteoric rise to streamer stardom has been interesting. These top-tier gamers pull in upwards of $200k USD a month but there they are, on stream in what looks like a pretty normal bedroom, hours on end. It's such a weird scene to this old Gen Xer. I get millionaires not realising just how rich they are and the need to make more as a self-defining trait, but gaming streamers self-define as gamers. It's almost like the wealth is a by-product -- and yet they do work hard to produce entertaining content. I don't doubt whether or not a person 'makes it' as a streamer is down to a measure of luck, but there has to be some capitalising on that luck too. Anyway, further reading:
It's not luck. Some streamers are entertaining and some aren't. It's ultimately down to personality.
I'm quite boring myself with little physical emotion. So I for example would be an awful streamer. But when it comes to abstract concepts and hermit / software life I do well enough to make money. Not that you were asking but like anything else it's good to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Too many people in the streamer world are deluded.
Thats life...the lack of a "social network" that can be tremendously influential to young people in getting a foot into the door, whether it be of a school, or a first job. Kids from affluent families often have parents or other contacts who are "connected", and can make that first opportunity happen for them. That first opportunity is often seminal in setting a course of their future progress. A summer job leads to a reference letter, which leads to first job, which leads to a career. I've seen it happen many times.
I often think where I'd be with a quite abrasive personality without connections. Probably digging ditches with a shovel instead of a $250,000 tractor lol.
Anyway..more connections you can make w/ ppls = more success.
Git R Dun!
Last edited by Aim_Deep on Apr 27, 2021, 12:16:41 AM
I don't doubt whether or not a person 'makes it' as a streamer is down to a measure of luck, but there has to be some capitalising on that luck too. Anyway, further reading:
It's not luck. Some streamers are entertaining and some aren't. It's ultimately down to personality.
I'm quite boring myself with little physical emotion. So I for example would be an awful streamer. But when it comes to abstract concepts and hermit / software life I do well enough to make money. Not that you were asking but like anything else it's good to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Too many people in the streamer world are deluded.
Fair enough. I think *most* success has an element of luck involved (right time, right place, right people) BUT as I said, you have to know how to capitalise on that luck. How to turn it into an opportunity rather than, as with most of us sooner or later, the 'what-if' stuff of unfulfilled nostalgia.
In this context, there's a measure of luck involved purely in the fact that, as you noted, personality is a key factor to gaming success now. This wasn't always the case; I read it as another version of video killing the radio star. The fact that people even read my relatively long-winded posts is miraculous in this regard: I am old-school internet, a misshapen ghost-child of Netscape and ICQ and IRC. Nevermind that the longest possible post here is still shorter than a well-edited chapter in a book -- even reputable news sites now list how 'long' it'll take to read an article, in terms of mere minutes. Contrast that with how much you can squeeze into a video of the same length, and the fact that you can multitask while watching/listening to a video, and naturally 'personality' is going to be a big factor. This is, in that light, the 'right time' for streamers.
I believe the written word can still do things the spoken cannot -- most importantly in this context, it can be read at one's own pace, and re-read without needing to fuck around with any sort of controls -- but if we're being utterly honest, I'm a shit orator who talks way too fast; by virtue of not really getting out much these days, I tend to talk in a sort of short-hand that only the woman living with me can understand (and maybe the cats, but I suspect they're communicating with each other on a higher plane when all we hear is various iterations of 'meow'). Add to that my complete lack of competitive spirit when it comes to games and I'd be the worst streamer in history, or at least close thereto. And were it not for my relatively recent windfall, I'd probably still be either an office worker shitkicker or, heaven forbid, a tertiary-level humanities teacher. I'd still take either of those at a living wage over the stress of being watched and judged 10+ hours a day by some of the most fickle people on the planet. It definitely takes a certain sort of person to allow themselves to fit into the mould of 'a product'. And it takes a lot more than merely wanting the fame/fortune.
So I agree. A lot of never-will-be streamers who see a 'get rich quick' scheme fail to grasp the sheer amount of work behind the scenes. I absolutely do not begrudge a successful streamer's fortune. I just find it interesting that part of the image remains, at least aesthetically, quite humble. Do people who watch these super-popular streams remain constantly aware that the person they're watching is a multimillionaire? Or is there some sort of necessary self-delusion that hey, we're all just gamers here? I honestly don't know. But since I'm not really that sort of gamer and I grew out of hero worship as regards fellow human beings long ago, they'll remain somewhat alien to me. I do not consider them 'lucky' so much as 'fortunate'. There is a subtle but important difference. To be lucky alone implies almost foolish happenstance and a sort of 'unfairness' compared to others who might work harder but get less; to be fortunate beyond a moment is to be both passive and active about one's luck.
https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
Last edited by Foreverhappychan on Apr 27, 2021, 12:19:08 AM
Fair enough. I think *most* success has an element of luck involved (right time, right place, right people) BUT as I said, you have to know how to capitalise on that luck. How to turn it into an opportunity rather than, as with most of us sooner or later, the 'what-if' stuff of unfulfilled nostalgia.
In this context, there's a measure of luck involved purely in the fact that, as you noted, personality is a key factor to gaming success now. This wasn't always the case; I read it as another version of video killing the radio star. The fact that people even read my relatively long-winded posts is miraculous in this regard: I am old-school internet, a misshapen ghost-child of Netscape and ICQ and IRC. Nevermind that the longest possible post here is still shorter than a well-edited chapter in a book -- even reputable news sites now list how 'long' it'll take to read an article, in terms of mere minutes. Contrast that with how much you can squeeze into a video of the same length, and the fact that you can multitask while watching/listening to a video, and naturally 'personality' is going to be a big factor. This is, in that light, the 'right time' for streamers.
I believe the written word can still do things the spoken cannot -- most importantly in this context, it can be read at one's own pace, and re-read without needing to fuck around with any sort of controls -- but if we're being utterly honest, I'm a shit orator who talks way too fast; by virtue of not really getting out much these days, I tend to talk in a sort of short-hand that only the woman living with me can understand (and maybe the cats, but I suspect they're communicating with each other on a higher plane when all we hear is various iterations of 'meow'). Add to that my complete lack of competitive spirit when it comes to games and I'd be the worst streamer in history, or at least close thereto. And were it not for my relatively recent windfall, I'd probably still be either an office worker shitkicker or, heaven forbid, a tertiary-level humanities teacher. I'd still take either of those at a living wage over the stress of being watched and judged 10+ hours a day by some of the most fickle people on the planet. It definitely takes a certain sort of person to allow themselves to fit into the mould of 'a product'. And it takes a lot more than merely wanting the fame/fortune.
So I agree. A lot of never-will-be streamers who see a 'get rich quick' scheme fail to grasp the sheer amount of work behind the scenes. I absolutely do not begrudge a successful streamer's fortune. I just find it interesting that part of the image remains, at least aesthetically, quite humble. Do people who watch these super-popular streams remain constantly aware that the person they're watching is a multimillionaire? Or is there some sort of necessary self-delusion that hey, we're all just gamers here? I honestly don't know. But since I'm not really that sort of gamer and I grew out of hero worship as regards fellow human beings long ago, they'll remain somewhat alien to me. I do not consider them 'lucky' so much as 'fortunate'. There is a subtle but important difference. To be lucky alone implies almost foolish happenstance and a sort of 'unfairness' compared to others who might work harder but get less; to be fortunate beyond a moment is to be both passive and active about one's luck.
Would you believe that the reddit community routinely apologizes for post length for posts shorter than the one I'm quoting here?
I couldn't find the two I saw this past week because apparently, despite all the things humans and machines are great at, website text search functionality is not one of them.
On the topic of why streamers are perhaps surprisingly frugal I'm not surprised. Some factors:
Generational differences. Modern young adults started the mainstream trend of trying to retire aggressively early (age 32-38). I think there is a term for this...FIRE? Yep that's it, on further research. Financial Independence Retire Early. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement. I think streamers are savvy and thinking about this even if they aren't aware of the acronym.
Tack on to that I've heard streamers worry about life after streaming. They're taking their 'skill building and learning' prime and taking up a full time hobby without many direct transferable skills to other occupations. I think they sell themselves short here a little bit as the hiring landscape changes as time goes on, but it's a reasonable concern, and one that probably leads to frugality if indulged.
You don't need to be rich to start streaming and make it big. Some % of streamers have more money to their name than their family lineage has ever had. When you come from nothing it is much more likely you save your windfall instead of live in luxury, yeah? I'm sure they have some nice things and they're not afraid to, you know, buy a house and a dog. But yeah I think that might be a factor.
Streamers are hard workers. Ok you can think of exceptions. A lot of exceptions. Many of these exceptions have something in common that is obvious if you've spent a decent amount of time on twitch. But ignoring that segment of streamers I think your average streamer who actually had to build a following starting with nothing are the type of people who would have hustled out a living in any historical era. Via gaming - not the type who can get by with 'just chatting' type streams.
Pandering to the audience. Maybe. You hit on this one but I can see the logic going both ways. Being relatable seems like a good way to brand. But so does trying to be a lavish celebrity as we know there's no shortage of eyeballs who are drawn to that world, no matter how shallow. Maybe its an audience mismatch for streamers of more 'hardcore' games - which even D3 as casual as it is probably qualifies as in the grand scheme of things.
