Recently, Twitch Support took to Twitter to highlight the rules around ‘Drops’ campaigns, which are special events that allow viewers to unlock bonuses and rewards in specific games simply for watching a streamer play that game. It was clarified that streamers are prohibited from ‘abusing’ these campaigns by not streaming live while they’re offering Drops to their viewers.
It was stressed that viewers soaking up said rewards won’t be penalised – but the streamers will be. This clarification comes just days after the closure of an enormous Escape from Tarkov Drops campaign that ran for almost ten days and catapulted the game to the top of the Twitch charts – during which many streamers broke this very rule.
You Need to Be There
In the post on Twitter, Twitch Support explained:
Drops rewards are meant to be earned during live gameplay with your community – not through streaming unrelated content like static images, rebroadcasts of past VODs/footage, or other scenarios where you are not interacting with your community. Streamers who use VODs or static images, for example, to share Drops are misusing the reward system.
That means that you can’t use replays, stream someone else’s stream, or even be AFK while broadcasting during a Drops campaign. Some streamers will arrange their stream and then go to sleep, farming viewers who are collecting their rewards. During the recent Escape from Tarkov Drops campaign, the game experienced a boom on Twitch, skyrocketing to almost half a million concurrent viewers and surpassing every other game on the platform.
Owing to the nature of that campaign, many streamers were AFK, using ‘holding scenes’, or simply running past VODs to retain viewers. Every day during this past campaign, viewers had to watch at least nine hours of content to gain every reward in Escape from Tarkov.
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