Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
Last week I wrote a few tips for anyone looking to stream Second Life or Second life content creation live for an audience. I mentioned that game streaming services like Twitch have varying degrees of patience with regards to how much non-gaming content they'll allow you to stream (though they're typically forgiving of streaming the development of games and game assets), but there's one thing I failed to take into account.
Reader Jessica Pixel shared an email she'd received in response to a temporary ban placed on her Twitch account while streaming Second Life several weeks ago. She was scripting at the time, so it would be understandable if a moderator mistook that for 'not playing'. However, the reason Twitch gave for her ban was a lot more blunt:
Your account was suspended for streaming Second Life, which is not permitted for streaming on our services. Do not do this again.
A later comment by Cyclic Gearz (that I've since confirmed) suggests that Twitch started disciplining users for streaming Second Life around January 2014. Do a little Googling and you'll find plenty of anecdotal reports of chats with site mods, and FAQs for several streamers mention that they cannot/will not stream Second Life on Twitch, only on rival services like Hitbox.
This was very surprising to me. Why? Well first and foremost because Second Life is a game, and arguments to the contrary tend to demonstrate a laughably narrow and outdated idea of what games are or can be. Games aren't always about running around killing enemies, blowing stuff up, solving puzzles, whatever. Games can be virtual environments. Games can have other games within them. Games can be a million different things. More to the point, Second Life is still selectable in Twitch's game database.
As for the second reason I was surprised...
I streamed Second Life last April, showing off the Cutie Moon Fair to an audience of non-SLers who had been watching me work my way through the history of Sailor Moon video games. At the time I received no ban, no stern chat with a site moderator, nothing. I slipped under the radar and got lucky, I suppose, because plenty of others streaming SL (including Jessica) didn't.
So what's the deal? There are certainly a lot of preconceptions about what goes on in Second Life that could have something to do with it, but most of it's not much all that much worse than what can be done with a modded copy of Skyrim... Or an unmodded copy of GTA V. Regardless, Twitch typically doesn't allow excessive sexual content, but it does also allow users to age-lock their channels.
But there's another possible reason for the ban, especially given that Second Life tends to attract the wrong kind of attention in the streaming and Let's Play communities. SL troll videos are still going strong, with new ones uploaded almost daily, eagerly exploiting the most unseemly parts of what is typically a pretty tame virtual space. There's plenty of trolling going on on Twitch every day, but in most cases it seems like only a small percentage of people playing a given game. Meanwhile, if you browse Youtube for new Second Life-related content on the regular (as I do) you'll probably have noticed that for every one legitimate SL video, there are usually two or more trolling videos going up.
For that matter, trolling in SL is an entirely different beast than in many other games. Playing unfairly in a PVP match or blowing up someone's house in Minecraft are on a slightly different level than hunting down someone having virtual sex so you can stand there and watch in a racist avatar while spamming them with Waluigi emotes. It's worth noting that infamous SL troll Ralph Pootawn was told by Twitch to stop streaming Second Life "due to the game being 'pornographic' in nature", and his particular use of it often was. That's why it's easy for me to imagine Twitch mods seeing an overwhelming number of negative, inappropriate and trolling-based streams coming from Second Life and opting to quietly blacklist the game and limit these uses of their service.
But my use of Second Life wasn't pornographic at all. If I'd been caught by a moderator, would I have been temporarily banned just like Jessica was?
What's most concerning to me as someone who personally uses Twitch to stream games is the idea that they have a list of blacklisted games that aren't all public. While the ban on Playroom, an interactive camera app that shipped with the PS4, was well publicized, the only people who seem to be spreading the word about the ban on Second Life are people who have already been disciplined for streaming it. If you want to keep your account in good standing, the idea of a secret blacklist that you'll only find out about if you stream the wrong game and catch a site moderator's eye is pretty unsettling.
I contacted Twitch directly to clarify their policy on Second Life, but they have yet to respond. [Update 3/16: Read twitch's response here.] However I also reached out to Hitbox, Twitch's main rival in the game streaming space, and they responded promptly with their own policy on SL:
We are more than happy to allow broadcasters to stream Second Life on hitbox granted they are responsible about the content being presented to the viewers. We don’t tolerate our broadcasters to present mature, sexual content that isn’t the intention of the game.
We know that Second Life offers the player the opportunity to live out a second life literally, but discourage certain aspects being broadcasted that aren’t age-appropriate. We can’t regulate the age of our viewers, and it is their responsibility to watch what they are comfortable with, but there’s some subject matter that isn’t appropriate for our broadcasting platform.Long story short: we are okay with broadcasters streaming Second Life as long as it’s done responsibly.
So there you have it. Twitch may be relatively supportive of developers streaming as they work on game assets from time to time, but if you want to stream Second Life itself you'd best head over to Hitbox (and keep it PG.)
TweetJanine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.
I'd like to see an official comment. One would hope Twitch know enough to see beyond the silly stereotypes that exist about SL.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | Wednesday, March 04, 2015 at 04:04 PM
So, how likely is this policy to do real PR damage to Twitch? Is there a way to tilt the odds in our favor, to the point that they trot out a big, public apology and they then take disciplinary action against those moderators who too eagerly suspending people over streaming from Second Life? For that matter, what can be done to make them be more transparent about what games or programs they prohibit, so that they can be called on the carpet for games or services that *don't* belong on the ban list? It is high time that ALL internet-based services be *required* to be transparent about things like this. Google, for instance, lists *every* *single* instance where they have been required to censor search results (except in cases where the law requires they not list it, and even then they've challenged the validity of such listing limitations), this should be the gold standard for ALL online services that provide information to the public. Full stop.
Posted by: Nathan Adored | Wednesday, March 04, 2015 at 05:58 PM
Narrow and outdated is insisting Second Life the platform is only one of the kinds of content that can be created in it and hosted, games in this case. Why the hypocrisy? I love when SL bloggers want to insist SL is only a game, yet get offended when the media labels SL is only a porn simulator.
Here's to services like Twitch, marketplaces like Steam, educators, businesses and users of all kinds continuing to either write SL off as a terrible game that for some reason ships without gameplay and 90s graphics, or just some porn simulator. God knows SL's blog community has never had an interest in describing Second Life as what it actually is to help manage expectations; it's a 3D platform with a client that by default is devoid of porn and games much like the text web as a platform and it's client Google Chrome is devoid of porn and games 'til one purposefully goes and find it or create it.
Posted by: Ezra | Wednesday, March 04, 2015 at 07:05 PM
@Ezra I did not say it's "only a game". I said that people who insist that it's NOT a game are operating with a narrow and outdated definition of 'game'.
Posted by: Janine/Iris | Wednesday, March 04, 2015 at 07:43 PM
@Iris
It sounds like you also believe it'd be accurate to call Second Life a film because film screenings in it are possible, a charity app because charities in it are possible, a soundtrack because music in it is possible, an audiobook because book reading circles in it are possible, etc.
There's nothing open minded or present thinking about being confusing and purposefully off-base. Just like you immediately took issue with my saying "only" even though it'd be perfectly fine to call something like GTA "only" a game, outsiders that don't know better always become quickly confused when Second Life is described as a game, and then they log in to an experience that is absolutely not gameplay.
Posted by: Ezra | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 12:42 AM
What is Twitch ?
Funny how many don't know ship about Second Life, Open sim or any other virtual games but they assume one has to know about other things like that Twitch.
Posted by: zz bottom | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 03:48 AM
Second Life is a virtual world within which you can play games, but which is not in itself inherently a game. Actually, you could say the same about most MMORPGs, but there the game elements are "baked" into the world to the point that you have to make an active choice and effort to avoid them.
That's not a narrow definition. It's a broad one. On a Venn diagram of online interactive entertainment, Second Life intersects online gaming, but it is not bounded by it.
A blanket prohibition on SL content because it might be explicit is ill-considered, in light of the fact that you can do the naughty in any virtual environment with a chat system. SL just has superior graphics for the purpose. Boom chicka waa waa.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 05:52 AM
Watching someone else play Second Life spunds like it would be utterly boring, but I've never been banned for streaming it.
http://i.imgur.com/K1BoN7p.png
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 06:28 AM
More curiously: you can even pick "Second Life" as a chooce of what you are streaming, which is odd they'd include it on the list if not allowed.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 06:29 AM
Iris wrote: This was very surprising to me. Why? Well first and foremost because Second Life is a game, and arguments to the contrary tend to demonstrate a laughably narrow and outdated idea of what games are or can be.
###########
I'm with Ezra and Arcadia on this, SL is not a game, even though you can play games with in it. I can shop in it but it isn't Macy's. SL is more akin to a "table", or a park. You can play games on a table or in a park, but the table or park itself isn't a game. You can eat at a table or have a picnic in a park but neither is a restaurant. but also eat on it. They're tools for doing many things. SL isn't a game, it's a virtual world tool for doing many things.
And as I said in the previous post about this issue, you're not supposed to stream non-game content to Twitch....and SL is literally not a game.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 11:56 AM
I agree with Iris.
SL is a game. It gamifies interactions in that the players can turn their avatars into any kind of person, animal or inanimate object. They can turn their environments into something like Candy Land or play it conservative. Many people interact in ways that skirt the line between role play and being on the level honest.
Its a game that is so rare and new, people don't even have a definition for it yet or recognize it as gaming. But it is.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 12:44 PM
I am an avid watcher and streamer of Twitch. I stream SL activities that deal with creation of my business products, both in and out of Second Life. I also stream some gaming from time to time with friends. I find it quite strange that Twitch.TV has a tag for Second Life, if they don't support it? I've also been on Twitch for many years and never received any notice of such a rule.
http://puu.sh/go5SG/d5dee8bed7.jpg
I watch the development streams all the time which sometimes just deals with someone drawing art in Photoshop or SAI and not having anything to do with a game. I've used HitBox in the past as well. It is slowly making a name for itself but it's mostly a foreign audience for now. It's heads and tails better than Twitch for smaller streamers that are moving their own traffic but to garner traffic from the site, that will be slow going for dev streams.
Posted by: Malkavyn Eldritch | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 03:28 PM
This back and forth argument about whether or not SL constitutes a game brings to mind that old joke from... seems to me it was Saturday Night Live. There was this mock-commercial where a couple people where arguing over whether this (made up) product was a dessert topping or a floor wax, and then the product-representative guy stepped in to say, "You're both right! It's a dessert topping AND a floor wax!"
The truth of the matter is, Second Life constitutes "a game" enough that it SHOULD fall within the definition set forth for places like Twitch.tv, and for them to argue otherwise does both SL *and* their service a disservice, and the sooner they publicly acknowledge this and apologize, the better.
Posted by: Nathan Adored | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 08:09 PM
Twitch allows non-game related content. Plenty of streamers sit around and just chat basically. There's a talk show category, a music category for DJs, a game development category for people making games rather than playing them; and even within those categories people skirt the lines without punishment.
Second Life got banned from Twitch because of trolls and griefers like ones with videos you'll find on YouTube; they tended to gravitate towards adult areas where nudity and sex beds were common.
Iris pointed out HitBox allowing Second Life and the most popular Second Life streamer there is BritBong, a troll (at least last I checked).
So the problem is for awhile no one, at least no one popular enough to be more visible than trolls/griefers streamed. That's easily remedied by people like Drax continuing to stream and showing different kinds of content.
I think Linden Lab needs to reach out to Twitch themselves and explain what Second Life is and how nudity in Second Life is more difficult to enable and encounter than some of their most popular games. Rust for example, it's a lot easier to just uncheck the blur penis option and viola 20 penises on screen; that compared to all the age verification, search result filter changing and etc. you have to do in Second Life ontop of having to actually go find an adult sim.
Posted by: Ezra | Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 08:37 PM
YouTube SL Troll Charlie Winsmore (who has a twitch partnership and a lot of subscriptions) was told flat out he's not allowed to stream any SL on the service my twitch staff. Its been that way for over a year and they've shown no sign of wanting to change it unfortunately.
Posted by: icecream | Friday, March 06, 2015 at 04:22 PM
They do not allow any streaming of SL. I have seen people not even showing nudity get banned within 5 minutes of starting the stream. It's all about the nudity and other sexual stuff that they don't allow. But i do find that its bull that they don't take the second life icon out of twitch or at least warn u before you stream that its a no no
Posted by: Layla | Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 11:49 PM
What complainers and article's author fail to understand:
a) SecondLife as social network got ToS that got paragraphs to protect privacy, streaming it without explicit permission of company and other users is privacy and digital right breach based on Terms of Service
b) SecondLife is just more advanced version of IMVU, a media-assisted chat program, it contain personal data. You can call it game but it's still a communication program (and there are too many clients that are text only)
Posted by: Swift | Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 11:03 PM