Twitch Updates Guidelines After Valorant Streamers Exploited Beta Drops

Twitch responded this week to concerns about people farming Valorant views by updating its community guidelines pertaining to "Spam, Scams, and Other Malicious Content." Though one would think it'd be understood that exploiting loopholes in a system like Valorant's beta drops wouldn't be allowed, the community guidelines for that section now state that cheating any of Twitch's rewards systems qualify as a prohibited activity. The change, legit Twitch streamers hope, will cut down on the VOD streams of Valorant and return the spotlight to those putting in the work to actually stream the game and put keys in their viewers' hands.

Those who've been trying to get Valorant beta keys or who've been tuned into conversations among Twitch streamers over the past few days may have seen some discussions about how streams were exploiting Valorant for views. Since the demand for Valorant keys has caused peopled to flock to Twitch in record-breaking numbers with many of those viewers finding homes in 24/7 streams. Those hosting the streams weren't really streaming throughout the whole day but were instead throwing up a VOD for the majority of the time and marking the channel as "live," thus farming views for free while viewers could increase their chances of getting a beta key.

Bot accounts made with the purpose of farming keys have also been on the rise recently. It became a win-win for the bot accounts and the streamers since viewers got keys and the streamers got views, but it's not how the system was intended to work.

This practice dominated the Valorant category on Twitch and took away views from those who were actually streaming the game. To combat this, Twitch announced that it's now updated its streaming guidelines for situations like this.

📢 We’ve heard concerns about creators continuously streaming VODs while tagging the channel as "Live" to farm Valorant Drops. This harms the integrity of our Drops Program so we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to clarify that cheating any Twitch rewards system is prohibited.

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) April 28, 2020

📚 Read up on the Community Guidelines here: https://t.co/sPjUodddsD

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) April 28, 2020

In the updated community guidelines referenced above, you'll notice a new line listed under the examples of prohibited content in the "Spam, Scams, and Other Malicious Content" category. It says "Cheating a Twitch rewards system (such as the Drops or channel points systems)" qualifies as a prohibited action which means no more gaming the system to inflate your views.

The Valorant closed beta is still underway now with no end date announced which means there's still time to get your key fairly and watch your favorite streamers play.