For many Twitch streamers, the act of stream sniping can be a good or bad experience. While some stream snipers only want the brief attention of their favorite streamer, others have malicious intentions that serve only to ruin the fun. This wasn't the case at first when it came to fans of Asmongold watching him trying out Final Fantasy 14 for the first time, though Asmongold's stream quickly descended into chaos. Now, Square Enix began taking initiative by handing out bans to the offending stream snipers.
As one of Twitch's most popular World of Warcraft streamers, Asmongold is far from new to the attention the job brings. The streamer has tens of thousands of fans that tune into each of his streams, and when Asmongold announced he'd be trying out Final Fantasy 14, an overwhelming 200,000 viewers tuned in. While some only intended to try the game out for the first time alongside Asmongold, an overwhelming number of players only resorted to spamming moves and showing off their Final Fantasy 14 mounts.
To make matters worse, a lot of players followed Asmongold around the entire time the streamer played the game. Not only was the sheer number of players attempting to join beginning to affect the Cactuar server, but the stream was consistently covered by new and even veteran players only seeking to grief Asmongold as he played. Square Enix takes matters of griefing and toxicity extremely seriously, and it has begun banning the offending players.
What's interesting is in the notice given to banned players, Square Enix notes that the world of Final Fantasy 14 is much like the real world in regards to the fact that people just want to relax and enjoy themselves. As such, per the Final Fantasy 14 User Agreement, any type of disruption or interference with the game experience of other players, including disrupting the servers results in account suspensions. Furthermore, Square Enix notes that the accounts in question are subject to further investigation and may be considered for termination.
In short, Square Enix takes stream sniping very seriously. In general, stream snipers aren't welcome by most Twitch streamers due to the high probability that the sniper may only want to cause trouble. In this case, it's worse, as many Asmongold fans were genuinely curious to try an MMO that wasn't World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy 14 fans were excited at the game's newfound popularity. Thankfully, it would seem that Square Enix is far more in favor of the player experience, much to the benefit of Asmongold's dedicated Twitch fanbase.
Final Fantasy 14 is out now on PC, PS4, and PS5.