If you read PUBG answer its pretty obvious the guy was stream sniping.

I've always thought the chance of a false positive on stream sniping is too high for heavy-handed enforcement. All it takes in this case is report-brigading by a streamer's viewers to get your logs brought into the spotlight. And in a game as technically sketchy as PUBG is right now, those logs may as well be tea leaves for how useful they'll be to read. I don't know every streamer under the sun, but at this rate I'd be afraid to play just in case I accidentally kill a streamer after having a chain of disconnects or crashes.

The onus has to be on the streamers to protect themselves, and this isn't just the usual victim blaming. You want to play poker with your cards to the camera? You better make sure your opponents can't see a TV, metaphorically speaking. You don't redefine the game's rules.

Isn't it enough that I'm complaining? I have to solve my own problems too? Jeez, I might as well be living in Soviet Russia!

I think it's pretty gross how many people are trying to put the onus on the streamer to protect themselves from stream sniping. Victim blaming sucks. Don't do it. Streaming has played a big part in the success of the game and people love watching and interacting with the streamers. You add a delay and the interacting sucks.

People who are stream sniping area only looking to ruin other people's experiences. Why are people not okay with people being punished for it? It's not like this is a major issue with hundreds of people getting banned every day. It happened to one person and became a huge story. He got reported, they looked into it, there was sufficient evidence to support the accusation, he was banned. 100% okay with it.

@hunkulese: You're not a "victim" if you get shot in a video game. Maybe don't compare terms used in the real world to describe actual traumatic situations to recreation. There are half a dozen ways a streamer can prevent getting stream sniped with the tiniest bit of effort in a game that already has a very small window for even being able to do such a thing.

@bocckob: Why should they have to? There's a clear rule against stream sniping, so why the uproar when someone is reported for stream sniping?

@hunkulese: "Victim" is a pretty strong word for someone who knowingly gives the advantage to the other player by broadcasting their location and every move. The streamer chooses to give others the advantage they aren't forced to. And for have to deal with that they get monetary gains. Pretty good trade off if you ask me

@hunkulese: Well there's the one side that if you're going to stream a multiplayer game, you should expect people watching that stream may want to find you to either help or harm you and be prepared for it. Especially if someone wants to stream video games professionally. I wouldn't walk through a shitty neighborhood fanning myself with a wad of bills and then complain when I got mugged. Nor would I consider starting a business without being aware of the potential drawbacks or difficulties involved in it. Take some personal responsibility.

There's another side that compared to the time, personnel, and resources involved in tracking down, verifying, and then banning stream snipers, it's a thousand times simpler and more practical to look at the ground or block the screen during the pre-match. Game developers aren't your babysitter. They can deal with the people trying to hack or modify game files to give themselves an advantage. If a player wants to broadcast their own position during gameplay, it's their own problem to deal with people actually watching it.

There's also a clear rule against profanity, abusive language, rudeness, etc. Where are the bans for that? Turn on voice chat for two seconds during the plane ride and try to report everyone there. Or you can simply mute them.

@bocckob: People have been banned for profanity, abusive language, rudeness, ect. PLAYERUNKNOWN has been adamant that if you're caught breaking the rules, you'll get banned. Obviously, it's impossible to catch everyone, but don't go crying on Reddit when you get caught.

@punched: Don't stream and you won't get "stream sniped". It's pretty straightforward.
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@hunkulese:

PU has also banned at least one person who killed a team mate in self defense during a squad game. A random teammate killed two of the four people. The "victim," as you put it in a previous post, defended himself by killing the team killer. The defender received a ban for his actions for team killing.

The way the game is being handled is proving that there is too much of a stranglehold over how the community is expected to act.

@fenrisulfr: Again, they have rules. If you want to play their game, follow their rules.

• Do not team kill: there is no excuse for non-accidental team kills. If your teammate is breaking these rules, report them to us instead.

It's always the best decision to strictly enforce your rules or else what's the point of having rules. You know that killing your team is ban worthy now so you won't do it. Lots of other people know this now as well. Every person that breaks the rules will have an excuse.

They have a clear rule that clearly states what to do if the exact situation that you're complaining about happens. How can you get mad at that?

I think it's ignorant to not know the costs of streaming your location when you play. If you know the problem exists and you're a fairly popular streamer, I can't exactly believe that you don't know how to mitigate the problem.

But, it's still against the rules of the game to stream snipe and willfully breaking them makes you the bad guy. Nobody sides with a criminal who stole a car somebody ignorantly broadcasted. Nobody sides with wallhackers or aimbotters for downloading easily accessible programs. It's not a defense to say "well they could have done something about it if they didn't want me to stream snipe."

I understand a big problem people have with this is the lack of ability to show proof that this ban was legit. It's clearly an issue that they need to clear up. I would very much like to doubt the amount of people defending the banned guy would be lower if Bluehole came up with definitive proof of this. It seems like everyone is more mad about the questionable ban than why he was banned, but a lot of the comments in this thread are still focused on "Just don't stream."

I wonder if through their twitch partnership, Bluehole would be able to check if players had an open stream on their connected account. I'm sure there would be some outrage over that also, even if it was covered by both companies' ToS. A part of me wonders if they already have that information and can't or won't reveal it out of concern.

Reading these comments as a form of education, mostly because of my own lack of experience in multiplayer games, I have determined as much. The streamers should have developer protection, but only if they provide their own first, being enterprises entirely outside of Playerunknown. And by that I mean they should demonstrate they've done so. If something steps on fair play within the game, that then should also be stepped on . But if they are not protecting themselves first, that might mitigate any responsibility on the part of the developer, especially if they are easy and simple moves to make.

Yeah there is probably a breed of streamer one doesn't mind getting theirs, but that is YouTube, right? Most (I only watch GB but would not mind watching Austin and Pat) are I'm sure decent, or more.

I think that's really reductive. Sure, it will solve the problem in a roundabout way, but the person who stream-sniped was still in the wrong (I guess up for debate on how provable that was), and the person who wants to stream now cannot because they're trying to protect themselves.

Just because it's easy to do something illegal or against the rules doesn't make it OK to do so. Sure, you should lock your car at night, but it's still the thief's fault for stealing it even if it was unlocked.

Streaming is fine. The cult of personality around streaming that leads to what amounts to groupies reporting other players for questionable-at-best offenses is not fine.

While I want to believe that the devs truly have evidence to support a ban, I don't see, based on what they've discussed, that there is any justification for banning the player for killing the streamer. I could just as easily be the banned party by killing some rando who happens to be a popular streamer--which I wouldn't even know b/c I don't watch any of them--merely b/c they are angry and get their followers to report me for cheating. One would hope that the devs wouldn't even take complaints from people not actively playing, but this situation certainly calls that into question, since they haven't been very clear about the nature of the evidence supporting the ban.

Finally, to people whining about getting killed in a video game (especially one whose sole gameplay mechanic is based on the concept), like the streamer involved in this mess, grow the fuck up. Just load up another round and play again. I wish that was the worst problem in my life.

I don't think it's out of line at all. After all, it's included in their terms of use. This is a private company, not a nation-state. You are playing their game, on their servers. Not only that, stream sniping is cheating, in my opinion. Whether or not it is ethical is a longer, murkier and messier discussion. In my opinion, the ban was justified.

You can argue the slippery slope all you want, but there's not a point there in my opinion. He broke the terms of use. Devs said they detected him connecting and leaving lobbies repeatedly for trying to find a specific one. Imagine you're on their community team or player experience team or whatever. You get multiple reports simultaneously (because it is not the streamer reporting, but the viewers), the game is there as video evidence, everything is in place. Probably the easiest ban to justify that day. The fact that there's a kerfuffle at all about this mystifies me.

Some of you are talking about how hard it is to enforce, how do they detect, why aren't they telling us, etc. Again, this isn't a civil society, this is a business. They have a blanket ban on streamsniping. They don't have to catch 100% of it (and can't). Doesn't affect this singular issue. They caught somebody breaking the rules.

@hunkulese:

That's because PU is wrong. Plain and simple. I don't need some big brother looking out for me. No one needs that. In most cases, you can handle people like the team killer yourself: put him down and keep going if the party is still alive. Report him, sure. There's a kill feed that can back you up on your decision. Otherwise PU is knowingly punishing people for defending themselves, even when they have proof.

It's an incredibly European thought process.

Edit: A few games ago I opened up on a teammate when we opened a door. I didn't expect him to be there and didn't notice see his name tag appear above his head. If I blasted him at point blank range with a shotgun and dropped him, should I be banned for that? For an accident in an active hostile zone? According to PU rules and how he's banning people, he would.

Ahahaha that's what I'm talking about!

If you don't want people to be able to track you like this in game to kill you.... then don't stream man. I think the risk goes on the streamer and if someone does it that is fine by me.

Good, way too many assholes in online games. I'm glad some games are brave enough to take a hard stand.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/578080/announcements/detail/1451700696565067398

Gameplay

• Added 1st Person server options to NA and EU Solo and Duo game-modes
• Players who choose 1st Person mode will be matched together
• Character view is set to 3rd Person mode in starting airplane and during free fall from the airplane. This will be set to 1st Person only in a future update
• Camera will stay still while looting items to prevent dizziness
• Added a new feature to report players
• Some people killed knocked-out teammates in order to avoid giving kill count to an opponent who knocked them down. Now the kill count will still go to the opponent in this specific case.
• Added new animation when using different consumables
• Improved camera transition when disabling Free look feature (Alt Key)
• Decreased the reload time of VSS
• Players may now re-enter games if they have been disconnected mid-game
• You may now play with Xbox controllers, and we will continue to make improvements with Xbox controllers
• Sound volume difference from inside and outside of building is more obvious
• Added new sound effect while scoping or aiming weapon
• Added new effects when a character is running or sprinting over different types of surfaces
• Improved character animation without any weapon or with melee weapon
• Added slight delay when using the drag-and-drop feature on items in inventory UI. We implemented this delay to provide a fair gameplay environment to all players
• Improved post-process effect when a character takes damage outside of the blue circle

New patch will allow for players to rejoin games after they've disconnected. Not sure if it's going to be at the exclusion of joining new games, i.e. if you disconnect from a game, you can't join a new game, you HAVE to re-join your previous game. Either way, that should now eliminate the false positives of those who are leaving and joining new games because of issues with their connection or with the game not being optimized. So even if the number of stream snipers that streamers will report won't reduce, the number of bans that the team hands out should certainly go down.

This actually sounds reasonable.

@whatshisface: here is a somewhat crazy video from a Hearthstone streamer about it, that is mostly level headed and sums down to "it is what it is"

Hearthstone is a bit different because once you get into the game it should be easier to stream snipe in theory, but there are some more nuanced idea like mixing up stream delays

Stream sniping seems like a Urban legend everybody talks about it but it's hard to pull off plus it's kind of a disadvantage watching two things at the same time.

@sweep said:

I see another using has already pointed it out in this thread, but I think it's worth mentioning the recent development in the "Kripp complaining about stream sniping" old joke:

https://compete.kotaku.com/hearthstone-streamer-uncovers-proof-of-guild-dedicated-1797513515

Not a lot of fact checking from Kotaku, but I'll assume Kripp isn't so insane to have fabricated it all. This has to be an incredibly rare case of troll coordination, but I imagine a handful of streamers of popular games could have a small amount of dedicated trolls trying to queue up with them and mess around with them.

Hoooooly shit, people in the comments on Kotaku really have it out for streamers. Why all the hate?

I believe Playerunknown when he says there's plenty of data supporting the ban, but also I really have a hard time believing that streamers should get special treatment for stuff like that. Kind of like playing poker with your hand exposed and getting mad when people bet appropriately against you. I get that adding delays makes things less compelling, especially in something like Battlegrounds where you might be parked in a house for five minutes, but it kind of just goes with the territory I would say.

One of Kripp's best points was mixing up delays, but couldn't PUBG streamers just screen transition, talk between games and mix up when they load in given PUBG's lobby screen.

This is a game where people are screaming racial slurs over chat constantly with no recourse (can't even report them because nobody has nametags or a report function except when you get killed)...but it's stream sniping that's a problem.

Late to the discussion, but Blizzards response seems the most sensible. If you don't want people to see what you are doing, don't show people what you are doing.

If you do stream, you have tools to mitigate sniping (to a large degree).

Also, at this point, it's "just a game". I think stream sniping should only really "matter" if/when PUBG becomes a real esport (games/tournaments for money). At that point, the Dota method should be used (watching in client is 5 minute delay, and broadcasters use the client, so streams aren't "live"). And the individual players really, really shouldn't stream a tourney match at all.

omg this is just a game... some streamers act so arrogant that it feels disgusting to continue watching them