Stream Sniping

[ImpulsE69]

I was going down the rabbit hole of the internet and came across an article about this rising epidemic of 'stream sniping'.

Stream sniping is simply the act of using other players live streams to their advantage while playing against them. The way it works differs by game. This doesn't include watching peoples streams and learning their strategies. Yes, it is considered cheating.

Firstly, I always assumed that streamers were on a 5-10 minute delay to prevent things such as this (to a degree). Secondly, I laughed. I laughed hard. I don't agree with the act, but I also find it hilarious that idiots are going to stream themselves live and then complain about it and expect devs to police it.

Twitch streaming is really nothing more than a popularity 'look at me' contest and a perceived easy way to make money in some cases. I've known people who do it first hand. Sure there are some positives to it on occasion, but for the most part it is pure narcissism. If the only reason you are playing a game is so you can stream yourself, then maybe you should find another hobby. You know who isn't getting stream sniped? The people who aren't streaming. Deal with it.

PU:Battleground has started banning people for perceived stream sniping - with no actual proof.

Players of multiple games claim to know when someone is stream sniping based on 'their feelings', which, is about as bad as someone claiming someone is botting just because they are getting their ass handed to them.

I'm sure this is a controversial topic, and as I mentioned, I don't condone it at all. I for one am too lazy to even bother with the extent some of these people go to actually accomplish this, however to me the solution is simple. Don't stream or don't play. This is not a game dev issue to be wasting resources on. I do however feel that it is only going to get worse over time and game devs will feel pressure to somehow do something about it or risk losing players and attention to their games.

This crowd might be too old to be streamers, so not sure anyone will have any differing opinions, but curious of others thoughts.

 

[cmdrdredd]

So...if you're too good at a game and someone you don't know is streaming thinks you may be watching them you get banned? Just great. This has to be the biggest pile of horse crap I've heard of. I'm with you, if you put something out in public then it's open for all to see and you shouldn't be a baby about who is watching. This is the equivalent of someone complaining that you can see their moves in split screen games. Why doesn't everyone just stream their games then complain when someone keeps killing them? I think asking devs to police it is ridiculous and what will likely happen is nobody will be able to stream multiplayer games and you'll somehow be locked out of doing so or forced down off of twitch or whatever for this childishness.

I'm sorry but if I was playing Unreal Tournament against Fatal1ty and kept getting sniped from across the map because I suck but I happen to be streaming my game I can't say that he's only winning because he's watching my stream can I? lol

I hate the phrase but it applies here "git gud skrub"

 

[KentState]

We used to do this back in the day with play call snipping in Madden. Except it ended with fists if you were caught.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I think this is what it feels like to realize that you're getting too old for this s***...

 

[Aikouka]

Stream sniping is simply the act of using other players live streams to their advantage while playing against them. The way it works differs by game. This doesn't include watching peoples streams and learning their strategies. Yes, it is considered cheating.

That's actually called Stream Ghosting. Stream Sniping is when you watch a stream to know when to queue in hopes of queuing up with that streamer. The prior can be a pain, as you described, but the latter can be too. A troll can easily snipe you, and potentially get into a good chunk of your games and just make them a nightmare. It kept happening to a few streamers that I watch, but luckily, they were able to get away.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Sounds like a lot of streamers are crybabies to me

 

[Elixer]

Sounds like a lot of streamers are crybabies to me

It isn't just streamers, they are all over the place.

Lag kills are the #1 problem with pubG.
Not having any kind of a delay on twitch (or mixer--I still think that is the #1 boneheaded move MS has ever made, Beam was a better name.) is the streamer's own fault.

 

[cmdrdredd]

It isn't just streamers, they are all over the place.

Lag kills are the #1 problem with pubG.
Not having any kind of a delay on twitch (or mixer--I still think that is the #1 boneheaded move MS has ever made, Beam was a better name.) is the streamer's own fault.

Hasn't that always been a problem? Lag kills I mean.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Hasn't that always been a problem? Lag kills I mean.

I think that's what he means. People whine about lag kills all the time (false bot blaming etc).

 

[Stg-Flame]

This is just the current generation's way of saying "AIMBOT KICK PLZ".

During my L4D2 and TF2 days, I loved it when I would get accused of aimbotting. It was a really good compliment.

 

[TeknoBug]

Streaming with 5-10 mins delay isn't a thing, 2 minutes is the biggest ideal delay but most streamers prefer real-time. Secondly, banning for stream sniping isn't a thing until PUBG did it, they shouldn't intervene with something that doesn't have to do with their game, I mean banning for stream sniping but not doing anything with intentional TK'ers?

I don't watch streams, it's not my thing to watch another person play a game.

PS- lag switching has been around for quite some time, I remember 10+ years ago lag switchers were around and you'd know when it occured. There are most certainly lag switchers in PUBG, although much more rarer than you'd encounter in H1Z1 for eg (since H1Z1 is loaded with Chinese players now).

 

[Aikouka]

Streaming with 5-10 mins delay isn't a thing, 2 minutes is the biggest ideal delay but most streamers prefer real-time.

Yeah, the biggest issue with streaming with a delay is that you can't really interact with your chat at all. (Having a good community can turn streaming from a fun thing to something that's fun and actually profitable.) The end up watching things so far behind that their comments or questions may end up being a bit more confusing. "Why did you do that there?" ...not too easy when you have to remember what happened two minutes ago.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If that's the case then honestly you have to take the good with the bad. Using your "feelings" to get someone banned because you're getting smoked is like a kid taking his ball and going home.

 

[gorobei]

seems there is some evidence the ban was appropriate, as pubg staff went thru and found evidence in the logs of the sniper repeatedly trying to get in the same lobby as the streamers. also some people found screenshots on the offendant's steam ss pages before he made them private.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/30/16059138/playerunknowns-battlegrounds-stream-sniping-ban
for those unfamiliar with the pubg lobbies, you have to click "join" at the same time as someone else in order to have a chance of being in the same match. players die at all kinds of intervals so if someone was trying to snipe there would be clear evidence of quitting out of a match in order to get back to the lobby join page.

this is mostly a pubg thing, as there is big money involved in streaming it. the banning is part of PU(brendan greene's) personal philosophy on strict rules of conduct and is explicitly part of the TOS of pubg.
he has banned players for intentional tk of non-friend squadmates(someone accidentally forgot to turn off squad randos, and rather than exit to lobby they shot the rando and continued with the match). again also part of tos.

 

[Stuka87]

Stream sniping is a real thing. Not sure why people here are justing saying they are crybabies. My guess is the people here saying that just don't know anything about the subject. One streamer I watch had this happen over and over again. Not in PUPG, but in another game. The guy would watch and purposefully get into his game, and then harass or TK him. He eventually put a 10 minute delay on his stream to stop it. Which of course means he can no longer interact with chat. So that one guy ruined the experience for everybody.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Stream sniping is a real thing. Not sure why people here are justing saying they are crybabies. My guess is the people here saying that just don't know anything about the subject. One streamer I watch had this happen over and over again. Not in PUPG, but in another game. The guy would watch and purposefully get into his game, and then harass or TK him. He eventually put a 10 minute delay on his stream to stop it. Which of course means he can no longer interact with chat. So that one guy ruined the experience for everybody.

No one is denying it is real....you missed the point entirely I think. They are creating their own issues. It shouldn't be something devs need to police.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Stream sniping is a real thing. Not sure why people here are justing saying they are crybabies. My guess is the people here saying that just don't know anything about the subject. One streamer I watch had this happen over and over again. Not in PUPG, but in another game. The guy would watch and purposefully get into his game, and then harass or TK him. He eventually put a 10 minute delay on his stream to stop it. Which of course means he can no longer interact with chat. So that one guy ruined the experience for everybody.

It's hard to feel sorry for someone who openly broadcasts their game then gets upset when someone uses it to their advantage. I can understand getting upset when someone uses it to troll the person, but that's what happens. That's like playing split-screen and getting upset when the other player looks at your half of the TV - it's going to happen eventually.

 

[Concillian]

It doesn't affect me either way, but I do watch (more like listen to) a fair amount of Twitch because I enjoy having it on in the car instead of the radio.

The big streamers get sniped A LOT. Like in PUBG, they will drop in and be looting a building and some asshat who couldn't possibly know where they are drives up outside and starts honking just to get attention. These are the kind of "sniping" that are fairly harmless, but if that is happening with reasonable frequency, then how many times is it happening where it's not so harmless?

My understanding of the recent PUBG ban was that a guy was queueing into lobbies and leaving until he got into the one with the streamer, and then would find and kill him, and they had plenty of evidence of this. People go out of their way to be asshats and/or to get attention. I watch a fair bit of Hearthstone and there was literally a guild of people who created usernames 'sniper###' and deliberately queued into a popular arena streamer who consistently reaches top 50 for the month when they had a good deck to counter it. Literally 30+ people working together to try to hold this guy down. He figured out how to keep them from queuing into him without the help of Blizzard, but the point is that these people are going to extremes to be real assholes to the high view count streamers. These kinds of people are the dregs of humanity... not the kind of people we need to defend.

Twitch is fairly big as an alternate, free advertising platform for the game studio. A game that's in the top row or two on twitch gets lots of views from people who otherwise might not know about the game. There is some interest from the studios to keep these streams in good health as they bring in revenue without any money spent. Do they NEED to police it? No, absolutely not, this is risk assumed by the streamer for his chosen profession. Is it a good thing for them to police it? Absolutely! It makes the community a better place by showing cheaters that it's not okay to cheat in that game, and even if it only takes one small step towards improving an online community, I'm all for it. Online game communities have always been horrible places and we should take steps to improve them at every opportunity.

Personally, I think that for the small to medium viewership streamers, they're whatever. But for the high viewership streamers, they do face this often enough and there is adequate proof in cases that this absolutely should be cracked down on by the developers and it's also in their best interest to do so. Much like botting bans, a few high profile "ban waves" can have a big impact on reducing the number of small timers cheating too.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

As to the "point" of steaming, I assume the people who do it make money, or hope to do so? I mean if not there is really no other reason to stream. I don't understand what else you'd get out of it.. To be fair I don't understand why people watch other people play either, or how they have time to. I watched SC2 streams to learn, but not being able to skip it was just boring and too time consuming.

 

[Aikouka]

No one is denying it is real....you missed the point entirely I think. They are creating their own issues. It shouldn't be something devs need to police.

I know some streamers do things like hide parts of the stream (video and/or audio) or the entire game stream until they're in game. A sniper can't try to get in your game if they have no idea when you'll join. The only issue is that you may randomly delay your join, but that also introduces more downtime. It's just a huge pain in the butt that we shouldn't even have to care about.

In a similar issue, Blizzard never added a feature to Overwatch to block custom game invites. I watched a streamer get repeatedly invited to custom games even while already in a game. The only time Overwatch blocks any invites is when you're queued for Competitive or in a Competitive game, and this happened in-between seasons when people don't play Competitive. Even a personal ban on the player by the streamer didn't stop invites.