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Warzone pro and content creator Ethan “Fifakill” Pink recently discovered that a lot of stream snipers are paid to ruin the experience for others. He revealed that there is a Discord server were Warzone fans put up bounties to ruin the experience for content creators and pro players. Any headhunter that successfully gets a creator to end stream out of frustration gets the bounty reward. In many cases, it is cheaters who take up these bounties as the illicit use of third-party programs makes it easier to eliminate streamers.
There are dedicated Discord servers for stream sniping
IHACKFORTHEWIN is a notorious stream sniper and cheater who is known for hunting down and eliminating creators and pros who stream on Twitch and YouTube. Fifakill revealed on Twitter that he got to speak with IHACKFORTHEWIN and found more about how these stream snipers operate. There is a Discord server where people pay bounties for streamers and anyone can snipe them until they end their stream. If a streamer gets frustrated and ends stream, money is handed out to the stream snipers.
Some of the people targeted by the stream snipers include 100 Thieves content creator Timothy John “Timthetatman” Betar, 100 Thieves pro Thomas “Tommy” Trewren, Fifakill and more. The use of cheats has made the problem even worse as content creators have to not only deal with players who are aware of their locations, but also have access to cheats for an unfair advantage.
Even Warzone tournaments get affected due to stream sniper, such as the $100K Warzone Nadeshot Invitational being marred by controversy as competitors got stream sniped. The streamer mode in Warzone does not completely hide your name in-game which makes it even harder for streamers to keep stream snipers away.
In game settings like streamer and anonymous mode are not good enough deterrents as stream snipers simply watch content creators live and head to their locations to potentially eliminate them. Some esports events like Apex Legends Global Series require a mandatory delay in streams to avoid breach of competitive integrity. Stream sniping is also considered a bannable offence in some games like Apex Legends if it can be proven. It remains to be seen if Raven Software makes improvements to its streamer mode or takes action against stream snipers.
