Stream sniping is a practice that has grown alongside the expansion of streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. Snipers watch streamers play a game online and use that information to join the same game with the goal of either assisting or foiling the streamer’s efforts.
On Saturday, during aFall GuysTwitch Rivals competition, streamer xQc’s team intentionally queued into the game and interfered with a match between DrLupo’s and Shroud’s teams. Initially, after intense backlash from the other Twitch streamers involved in the game,xQc apologized on Twitter, stating that his actions were wrong and that what he thought would be funny turned into something malicious.
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Now, however, it seems that there was perhaps another motivation behind xQc’s interfering behavior during theFall Guyscompetition. In a recently released Twitch clip of the end of a match, a sniper can be seen running ahead ofTwitch streamer DrLupo. Yet instead of going for the win and grabbing theFall Guyscrown, the sniper simply stopped and waited, allowing DrLupo to snag the win instead.
xQc caught the behavior and was clearly not happy with the blatant sniping that enabled DrLupo to unfairly win theFall Guysmatch. “Did you guys see that?” xQc asked incredulously in the clip. “The sniper gave him the win.” He then rewound the footage and pointed out the sniper, who clearly could have gone for the crown and instead allowed DrLupo to get it. “That is unbelievable,” xQc exclaimed.
This unfairness might indeed be what spurred xQc and hisFall Guysteam to queue up for the same match as DrLupo andShroudeven after his team had been eliminated. They proceeded to snipe the players on the other teams, grabbing them to prevent them from proceeding, and otherwise interfering with the match. It’s not clear whether this behavior had any significant impact on the outcome of the competition, but it was still not taken kindly by the competitors on the receiving end of the meddlesome sniping.
While many people defended xQc’s actions, Shroud pointed out thatxQc could be banned from Twitchas a result of his actions, either because sniping is a violation of Twitch’s terms of service or because it was directly interfering with the outcome of an official event with cash rewards on the line. Nevertheless, xQc has so far not been banned by Twitch for his behavior. But the situation does bring to the forefront the need forMediatonic, the developers ofFall Guys,to perhaps add private lobbies to the game to prevent sniping in the future.
