Twitch Officially Bans Adult-Only Games

So this is a rather curious case.

It was a year ago when there was a bit of a kerfuffle over Twitch with people using the internal live-streaming capabilities of their PlayStation 4s, combined with Eyetoy, to stream themselves in the Playroom, “playing” something a little more risqué than intended. And by “playing” I mean “having sex”. Sony and Twitch both hopped on the issue and fixed it right up, and fundamentally, streaming sexytimes was never against the rules—It just had to be digital. There was nothing stopping anyone from streaming a hentai game or some other kind of porno, except that they would lead to prompt bans.

But it wasn’t until now that Twitch has actually, expressly banned all Adult games. And the timing is rather curious.

The ban itself is pretty straightforward: Twitch announced the other night that all titles rated AO by the ESRB would no longer be tolerated on their channels. That’s not a giant problem in itself, as very few games get that rating and even fewer get it for non-porn related reasons, but it begins to make sense when you realize that Hatred, the upcoming (and extremely controversial) PC game about performing mass murder before committing suicide, is being released tomorrow for everyone who pre-ordered, and a week after that for the rest of us.

While Hatred has no ESRB rating listed yet, the creators have assured the press that it has been rated AO for Adults Only due to the graphic nature of its content. It seems, at least right now, that this move has been specifically designed to keep streamers from showing off Hatred, which… is curious, to say the least.

Hatred is, for lack of a better word, a rather messed-up game. While censorship is the wrong way to fight any battle, it’s inarguable that Hatred is going to rustle some jimmies due to the recent mass shootings in America. While not quite on the nose as “Super Columbia RPG”, it is still tasteless and unfortunately timed… and Twitch is in its right to tackle the issue as it sees fit.

I’m going to avoid talking about Hatred for the time being, but you can probably expect some kind of opinion piece in the near future.