With the speed at which news comes out in the gaming industry we sometimes miss important or news worthy things. Some of these things we want to talk about in a way that was both easy for you guys and allows us to get all the facts together as some of these stories develop quickly.

Creators Program Launches on Xbox One and Windows 10

So  this first bit of news is that the Creators program has been launched by the guys over at Microsoft. Here is the announcement video they released for your viewing pleasure.

Well the guys over at Microsoft, more specifically the guys behind the Creators Program and ID@XBOX have opened the flood gates to allow anyone with $20 and a dev center account to be able to openly publish their games on both Xbox one and the Windows 10 store.

Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject: You may be asking yourself what exactly mean for you as gamers ? Well on the positive side of things that means that there will be an increase in games for both Windows 10 and Xbox one stores. I’d like to think of that as an overall good thing but after watching what transpired in the Steam store for the last 5 years please understand if I think that it’s a recipe for disaster. Due to the low barrier to entry to get games on the both platforms I can see this turning into the Steam store with a ton of indies showing up out of nowhere. That would be the best case scenario as the other alternative is it turns more into a mobile app store and since there is no curation at all it’s a very possible reality. I don’t want to straight up bash this initiative because some cool games may come from it, but realistically I don’t see it going at all how they are expecting it to.

Twitch live streamer sexual harassment 

This second item up for discussion today is about a Twitch streamer being sexually harassed while she was streaming in Twitch’s IRL category. The story was posted this morning (08/11/2017) over on Kotaku and has a firsthand account of what transpired. Charleyy Hodson was streaming herself putting together a puzzle under the IRL Twitch category when her stream was raided by a group that was both insulting her and trolling her stream. Even going as far as sexually harassing her.

TL;DR – Women in games are being attacked in front of a live audience because they're women in games. pic.twitter.com/3fovr9geQQ

— Charleyy Hodson 🏳️‍🌈 (@itsCharleyytho) August 2, 2017

Now I’ve yet to have her experience of being raided mid stream but I imagine it’s both quite annoying and extremely disruptive not to mention I highly doubt they come in spreading words of encouragement and kindness. The group that came in and raided her had a ring leader that was restreaming her stream and talking derogatorily about her while the raid was going on in attempt at some twisted live trolling reality TV experience. They were raiding Charleyy’s stream for the sole purpose of creating some form of entertainment for their own viewers, at the expense of others. I’m sure many can begin to understand just how messed up this is. There was a bit of consequences for the ring leader as his Twitch account was banned but only for twenty four hours. As of writing this their account has been reinstated and they are free to continue terrorizing other female streamers for their sole entertainment and those that follow them.

 Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject: I find this type of shit both surprising and also completely depressing to hear about. On one hand I find it surprising because the internet always has a way to surprise me in the worst possible way. Maybe that is because deep down I have an altruistic view and really want to see the best in people and society even if that rarely comes to pass. So it would seem that those on Twitch have found yet another way to turn a service that has potential to be an amazing medium for people wanting to interact with each other into their playground for mischief.  The next issue I have with this is Twitch’s response to the incident.  According to Twitch’s own Conduct section:

 “Hate Speech and Other Harassment

Any content or activity that facilitates, promotes, or encourages discrimination, harassment, or violence based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or nationality is prohibited.”

It would seem to me that this squarely fits under those guidelines for Hate Speech and Other Harassment. I would think that due to such a blatant breaking of the Twitch ToS that the ring leaders account can be banned without much question. Quite disappointed to hear that this sort of thing even happens in the first place but alas this is the internet and people think that being a terrible person to each other is par for the course. Hopefully Twitch will step in and make this sort of behavior more difficult and have steeper ramifications for this behavior in general.

Twitch releases Desktop App

This third bit of news is that Twitch releases it’s desktop application. This desktop application (I refuse to use the term app as shortening it doesn’t make any “cooler”) wants to allow steamers and communities to stay in contact with each other even after the stream has ended. It is trying to achieve this by creating servers that you can hang out in that I can only assume is tied to the streamer you’re a fan of.  They have a dark mode UI option for you view in those low light situations.

They also bring with it your twitch friends list and voice and video calls in case you really want to keep in contact with those you meet on Twitch. This seems like a well rounded set of features for a desktop application but the question that keeps bothering me is “why?”.

Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject: Now this is all conjecture and I don’t have any proof of anything I’m going to mention bellow but it strikes me as very odd that Twitch now comes out with its own desktop application.  Many of the features that this application are touting  are similar to features Discord either already has in terms of communicating and staying in contact or things currently being worked on, like video chat. So that just furthers elevates the question of “why” to me and frankly my mind wanders back to the Amazon purchase and thinks it may be related to that.  I’m not sure that this Twitch desktop application will somehow dethrone Discord as the cool kids VOIP program any time soon but at least Discord now has some competition.