Thing aren’t looking good for Valve’s card game Artifact. After poor sales and player numbers, the company took a step back on updating it, saying it was overhauling the game in the long-term and holding back regular updates. Now, the game is seen as so unpopular, it’s become the conduit for an attack on Twitch’s terms of service.
Artifact is one of the least popular games on Twitch, which should come as no surprise; few people play or watch the game at this point. Last weekend, however, trolls highlighted this fact and the game’s overall failure, by “hiding” streams that violated Twitch’s terms of service by streaming them under the “Artifact” category. Offending streams included full-length movies from major studios, Game of Thrones episodes, pornography, and, as Motherboard reports, footage of the recent Christchurch shooting in New Zealand.
Today Twitch issued a statement on the matter, saying they are aware of what happened, and that most of the accounts which streamed these videos were automated.
Over the weekend we became aware of a number of accounts targeting the "Artifact" game directory to share content that grossly violates our terms of service. Our investigations uncovered that the majority of accounts that shared and viewed the content were automated.
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) May 28, 2019
As a result, the company announced they are “working with urgency” to have the videos removed and the accounts banned. They have also temporarily suspended the ability for new accounts to stream.
We are working with urgency to remove the offending content and suspend all accounts engaged in this behavior. In addition, we have temporarily suspended the ability for new creators to stream.
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) May 28, 2019
Twitch has not said when new accounts will be able to stream again, but said it would post an update on the matter soon.
[Source: Twitch on Twitter via Polygon]