Twitch had, let's call it a complicated Relationship with adult content in recent months. In case you're completely uninitiated, the rough timeline is as follows: In 2021, the “Hot Tub Meta” was born – with streamers luring viewers by, you guessed it, streaming into a hot tub. Twitch played along after a brief controversy in which a Whirlpool streamer had their monetization revoked without warning despite operating the game in accordance with the platform's laws at the time.
Then, late last year, Twitch decided to take things a little easier by allowing “artistic nudity” on the platform. This went on for 48 hours before Twitch actually decided, no, no, wait, whatever, that was a bad move, and called the whole thing off.
The arms race between sexy entrepreneurs and Twitch is back with a vengeance in 2024 – first, Twitch had to step in and add implied nudity to its list of sexy no-nos after streamers broke the rules with black bars that gave the impression of nudity.
“While most streamers have appropriately labeled this content with a 'sexual theme' label and wear clothing behind the subject or out of camera frame, for many users, the thumbnails of this content can be disruptive to their experience on Twitch.” Which… okay, sure . But I submit that if you have the “Sexual Themes” label enabled, you are probably okay with sexual themes disrupting your experience on Twitch. Isn't that the whole point of turning on?
Then, in what I can only describe as a divine act of creative inspiration, streamers Morgpie (Thanks, Kotaku) has improved her game. Her butt is a green screen. Man and machine are moving ever closer together, like Icarus, who puts on wax wings to get close to the sun.
I've officially seen it all 💀pic.twitter.com/gZ96jSa3hDMarch 16, 2024
There is also a clip of her reacting to the popular YouTuber MoistCr1TiKaL in stream.
Nobody does it like Morgpie https://t.co/uhWCLZ25dm pic.twitter.com/7XoN5XgNJqMarch 16, 2024
This has encouraged an avalanche of (mainly VTubers) to emulate the new big-bun Strat – sorry, big-brained ones – with a quote-tweet of an anime fox girl playing through a literal boob window with the caption: “This will save Overwatch.” I finally started to worry about this game.
Funnily enough, Morgpie was one of the leading soldiers in the world Censorship trenches already in January. Personally, I find the whole thing disgusting – not because of the sexual themes. I believe that grown adults can make a living however they want within the limits of the law, and there is clearly an audience for that. I'm not a Puritan. However, I am a PC gamer. And I have several notes.
Firstly, the aspect ratio here is terrible. Not only can Morgpie's viewers not see half of their screen, but several key UI elements are blocked by the frame used. The optimal field of view for third-person shooters becomes completely useless and destroys any situational awareness that is essential to the core gameplay loop of a good battle royale. Secondly, the giant anime girl doing a sexy dance completely destroys, I estimate about 30% of the already suffering screen space.
Admittedly, Morgpie himself doesn't suffer from this. You can clearly see in the footage that she's using a standard monitor, but I still think she's setting a bad example for the next generation: we can't allow the gaming public to be convinced that the most efficient way to play a game To play is to make your own ass green, that's just madness.
The best body part for playing video games would clearly be the stomach – or perhaps a leg – with an unflattering, genderless front camera. Ideally with green elastane to prevent visible wrinkles. You can still see all the UI elements you need and can even go ultrawide with the right setup. We can do better, people.
