Twitch Denies Claims of Hiding CS:GO From New Users, Faces Community Backlash

On 12^th December 2021, North American CS:GO talent Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenberg highlighted that Twitch does not promote CS:GO well organically, as he could not spot the title under the 'Recommended Games' section on his new PC.

Despite the ESL stream (IEM Winter 2021) being the sixth most-viewed stream at that point in time, it was not showing up under the 'Recommended Gaming Streams' section.

This sparked off a debate within the CS:GO community and a few hours later, Tom Verrilli - Chief Product Officer at Twitch, responded by providing an explanation as to why CS:GO might not be recommended to newer users.

Twitch criticized for suppressing CS:GO streams and hiding the game from new users

Twitch, has faced a lot of criticism from the CS:GO community following Mauisnake's remarks claiming that the streaming platform hides the Valve shooter by not showcasing it under multiple recommendation sections like 'Recommended Games' and 'Recommended Gaming Streams'.

The 28-year-old North American talent did specify that he was using Twitch from a new PC, while also highlighting the following points:

1. He was not able to locate CS:GO under the 'Recommended Games' section where other popular titles like Fortnite, Valorant, Warzone, Apex Legends, and many other games were highlighted.

2. Mauisnake was not even recommended the livestream of the CS:GO tournament IEM Winter 2021 under both 'Recommended Gaming Streams' and the more specific 'Browse - Shooter Category'. The tournament was live at that point in time while also being the sixth most viewed broadcast.

This resulted in quite an uproar as multiple users from the CS:GO community stepped forth, providing accounts of similar incidents encountered by them.

A few hours later, Chief Product Officer of Twitch - Tom Verrilli, acknowledged the discussion and denied all the allegations while stating that, "This is my first time hearing 'Twitch nerfs CS:GO' but I can assure you it ain’t true".

He went on to explain that new Twitch users are recommended what other new users, who stick around for a while, generally tend to watch. That is how the Twitch algorithm is made to work and this is probably the reason why Mausinake was not able to view CS:GO along with the IEM Winter 2021 livestream by ESL.

However, the explanation did not sound convincing and resulted in the community criticizing the platform's actions even harder.

• One main reason was the recommendation of almost every other popular game except for the two Valve titles, CS:GO and Dota 2.

• The other reason is VALORANT's livestream of the VALORANT Champions 2021 being recommended, but that of IEM Winter 2021 by ESL was being ignored or suppressed.

_{Note: The above points are made in reference to Mausinake's screenshot as the response was based on his statement.}

Many other popular CS:GO personalities like Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett, Casey "caseyfoster" Foster, Anders Blume, Duncan "Thorin" Shields, and more presented their opinions on the matter, not satisfied with Twitch's response.

When we checked out our Twitch feeds, CS:GO did not appear under the 'Categories we think you’ll like' recommendations on Twitch, neither did it appear in 'Recommended Games' under browse.

However, both CS:GO and Dota 2 did appear in 'Esports' under browse along with the livestreams of their respective tournaments.