- Popular Dota 2 streamer, Gorgc, has expressed his displeasure with ONE Esports' community broadcast guidelines for the Singapore Major.
- His concerns revolve around the requirement of a 10-minute delay for streaming via DotaTV which was communicated by the TO after the first series of the wild card had already begun.
- His opinions have received mixed reactions from members of the Dota 2 community.
Gorgc, one of the most popular Dota 2 Twitch livestreamers, has expressed his displeasure with ONE Esports’ community broadcast requirements for the Singapore Major. ONE Esports informed the public about its updated broadcast guidelines after the first series of the Major wild card had already begun. One of these guidelines requires streamers to set a 10-minute delay when streaming via DotaTV. Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski stated on his livestream that this was not “okay” and that he was not going to follow the rules.
DotaTV allows organizers to set a delay within the game at the time of hosting the match lobby. Since this was not done, viewers could watch the stream in-game without the delay. Gorgc had the option to tune into the game and pause it for ten minutes before starting to stream it.
However, a bug, which has reportedly been fixed now, kicks a player watching the game inside DotaTV when the game is over. This prevented viewers from being able to watch the final ten minutes of the match. So, the only option available was to put a delay on stream but Gorgc expressed his reluctance with this since it would make it hard for him to communicate and engage with his chat. Further, he also stated that in order to set the 10-minute delay, he would have to restart his livestream, which in turn would cause him to lose a portion of his viewers.
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Gorgc refuses to follow ONE Esports’ Singapore Major community livestream requirements.
After the Swedish streamer discovered the updated guidelines by ONE Esports for streaming the Singapore Major games, he expressed his discomfort with them.
“All I wanna do is watch the game. Please. Since when it is okay to force chat delay, it is not okay at all. There’s an option to add a delay to the game inside the lobby. There’s no reason they can force this upon us and furthermore and it is not okay to do this one hour into the onset of the actual tournament and expect streamers to instantly bend down and do it. I cannot restart my stream. People leave and never come back and then they start watching this janky ass production (ONE Esports’ streams) where it just lags and I am at fault? No. I don’t think so.”
The ONE Esports' Singapore Major livestream started off with some hiccups and lag. The initial streams frequently experienced frame drops which made it rough for the viewers. However, these issues were quickly resolved as the day progressed - a phenomenon that is not uncommon given the challenges of hosting large scale Dota 2 LANs.
Gorgc also expressed his displeasure with the short notice provided to streamers regarding the new rules. He mentioned that it would have been alright if the rules were announced a day earlier but considering the short notice, he was not going to follow them. He also feels that they added the last-minute delay because he was getting a lot of viewers. The streamer communicated that he was even ready to host ONE Esports’ stream after he finished but the way the organizer approached this situation “alienates and kills Dota.”
Community reactions to the ONE Esports’ Singapore Major community livestream requirements.
Host and commentator, Leah” Reinessa” Blake has countered the argument put forward by Gorgc, implying that tournament organizers like ONE Esports are the ones bearing the costs and the associated risks, and therefore should have the choice to make rules that attract viewers to their official stream.
During previous online Dota 2 tournaments, the delay was added to the game from the lobby. Seemingly, since the Singapore Major is a LAN event, ONE Esports did not add the delay.
Additionally, professional Dota 2 player and streamer, Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann, communicated through a tweet that ONE Esports had allowed streamers to cast the game on their personal channels without a delay for the first day. Henrik "AdmiralBulldog" Ahnberg had informed him about this.
Valve had stated in a blog post on Sept 4, 2020, that streamers are an important aspect of the Dota 2 ecosystem as “providing their own commentary of a tournament is a net positive value to fans and the competitive scene.”
Their rules state,
“Organizers that run Dota 2 Tournaments will have to provide community streamers with a reasonable and simple to execute set of non-monetary requirements, such as displaying the organizer’s sponsors on their streams or having a slight delay on the games.”
However, if any community streamer has an issue with the rules of the organizers, they should “feel free to contact Valve at dotaprocircuit@valvesoftware.com.”
