Twitch.tv: Gaming Highlights & Moments Of 2021 - January

Virgins, Incels, And Pogchamps Banned Off Twitch

In 2014 Amazon bought the video gaming stream service known as Twitch for $970m. Ever since that, the site’s terms of service have been getting stricter and more bizarre.

No, the registration process does not include a virgin checkbox. Twitch won't simply ban you for retaining your purity. The phrases “simp”, “incel “, and “virgin” however, can get you a one-way ticket to a permanent suspension. And the live streaming community isn't happy about it at all.

Twitch has been striving to create a more inclusive and safe community and already banned certain words from their vocabulary before. In their argument, Twitch states that they want to eliminate potential harmful and harassing content, which resulted in this outcome.

Many streamers and long-time viewers in the community however, argue that the restrictions of word choice violate their freedom of speech. And also could lead further into selective and biased account terminations, with keywords used as a scapegoat.

Twitch has a rich history of questionable ban decisions and many live streamers are terrified of what's to come. Asmongold, who is a longtime Twitch partner and a World of Warcraft react streamer, is one of many that oppose this decision.

PogChamp Deleted And Gootecks Terminated

The emote has become a global slang with people using the term in casual conversations to express excitement. And as of January 2021 Twitch has terminated this emote due to its owner’s (Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez) opinions and stances on the Capitol Hill riots.

‘Rust’ Comes Back And Sparks Toxic Communities

The popular survivor game reaches new peaks since 2014. The beloved all-father of survival games comes back in a surprising fashion and brings its iconic toxicity with it.

Rust is one of the original games that jump-started the popular survival genre of battle royale, which is so prominent and popular today. Its gameplay can only be described as a wasteland where only the strong survive.

OfflineTV -- Twitch’s golden child is a wholesome group of friends who started a private server with all the right intentions. The Rust section quickly grew and became the largest “trend” among streamers. However, the natural characteristics of the game slowly turned these clashing personalities against each other and ignited huge drama.

xQcOW is one of many controversial figures that compensates his in-game skills with personality and safely took the top Rust streamer spot with just 10 streams generating over 8,000,000 viewer hours.

Developers of Rust on top of all the drama activated a Twitch feature called 'Drops'.

"Drops are a fun way to get in-game loot just for watching your favorite channels on Twitch! If the game developer has activated it, all you need to do is link your Twitch account with your game account and you are eligible to get Drops. You only need to continue watching the broadcast to win!"

In this feature, viewers are encouraged and rewarded for watching a different variety of streamers. This made some audience members feel obligated to watch channels they don't like, in order to obtain the in-game loot.

This of course, sparked a mob resembling black Friday sales, furthermore igniting the 'Rust drama'.

Some viewers demanded, that certain streamers broadcast on their terms. And these people were willing to go to extreme measures and as far as doxing, death threats, and racist remarks.

"Just one more game" Roshtein Starts His Year With €326,345 And Breaks The Twitch Record

Talk about starting off the right foot! Roshtein -- one of the most popular streamers of the slot section, starts his year with a never seen before jackpot sum of €326,345.

When you're on a roll it's hard to stop. But in Roshtein's case, there is no reason to! He then continued his daily streams like usual and reached a stunning 7 day win streak. Although the wins were significantly lower than the huge pot above they are still sizable and impressive nonetheless.

Being quite the controversial figure, Roshtein has been accused of “fake money” gambling many times in the past. This huge accomplishment sparked even more questions and many Reddit specialists began posting and discussing the winning's legitimacy.

While the authenticity of his game balance cannot be confirmed; Provable fairness of certified slots cannot be disproven.

"In online gambling, provably fair describes an algorithm which can be analyzed and verified for fairness on the part of the service operator." - Wikipedia

The enormous win was achieved in a game called Fruit Party. This game is developed by Pragmatic Play, which is regulated and licensed by the UK's gambling commission. Meaning any fraudulent activity would be illegal and heavily investigated.