Top streamers of Ubisoft’s first person tactical shooter, Rainbow Six: Siege, are desperately calling upon the publisher to create a dedicated stream mode to prevent career-inhibiting streamsniping.
Stream mode already exists in other popular online shooting games like Fortnite and Apex Legends, so a game that’s already known for its extreme toxicity (Siege) would surely benefit from this addition.
Further suggestions by top streamers include the likes of masked usernames to prevent opponents from being able to target live streamers.
What is Streamsniping?
Streamsniping means that a player watches the live stream of an opponent to gain information and thus an unfair advantage. Someone who is streamsniping might tune into a live feed if they see they’re up against a well-known streamer, and in doing so, they’d be able to see their opponent’s current positions and even hear their tactics in commentary.
Some gamers may even manipulate the matchmaking process to purposefully bring them up against their target streamer. Streamsniping leads to toxicity in the gaming community and enables cheaters and harassment.
It’s a pain for big name content creators because it means anyone can watch and predict every move they’ll make in the game, leading to defeats that may not have happened otherwise. Of course, it’s also highly annoying to streamers.
Many think of streamsniping as an action that should lead you to getting banned from the game. It looks like FPS gamers have taken to Twitter to explore the issue further, with the following thread demonstrating the confusion over whether streamsniping should or shouldn’t lead to a ban.
As much as streamsniping is annoying, it appears it’s not a bannable offence. Yet as the below Tweet outlines, the main issue with streamsniping is that it’s putting off big streamers from broadcasting Rainbow Six: Siege and ultimately giving the community exposure, says BikiniBodhi on Twitter. Fans already worry that the player base is shrinking as ranked matches toward the end of Year 4 took even longer to assign.
We’re yet to see a comment from Ubisoft responding to the request for a streamer mode to be added to the popular shooter Rainbow Six: Siege.
Featured image credit: Picuki.com (left), Ubisoft (right)