The Sea of Thieves Stream Team program has thus far attracted more negativity than positivity from the communities after the latest Captain’s furniture giveaways event. The developers said that the official Stream Team will give builders special items that they can toss to their communities for giveaways at their discretion. Players opposed the way the matter was handled: accusations of baiting, unfair practices, and just outright lies were hurled through social media.
Moderator Aunt An – Well, the deal is Rare gives these streamers special cosmetic items that aren’t available anywhere else in the game. These pieces are meant to complement sets that players have been collecting; then suddenly parts of the sets get locked behind streamer giveaways that may or may not happen for sure. And that’s when the problems start piling up like treasure chests on a sinking ship.
There have indeed been polls for and against streamers putting “!giveaway” in their streams’ titles but then not hold any giveaways in stream. One player by the name of HansSprungfild accused the streamers of baiting their audience with prizes, citing “impossible conditions” and one instance when there was allegedly no such thing as a “secret word”: it was just a way to lure people into the stream to artificially bump up viewer count.
The controversies go on and on, though. There have been reports by players that certain streamers might be giving perks to their subscribers, which explicitly goes against Stream Team regulations forbidding such preferential treatment by subscriber status in giveaway contests. And lo and behold, discussion then proceeds onto a few streaming services, which unbeknown to Rare automatically increase subscribers’ chances or entries to win; this is contradicted by the equal opportunity principle Rare supposedly espouses.
Gholdyi positioned himself as Travis Touchdown before sharing his grievances, saying that he would consider dropping Ancient Coins on these items if it weren’t for the fact that “random giveaways that sometimes happen to not be giveaways but in fact auctions behind the scenes or straight up gifts to their friends” locked the items. – Now that’s an accusation!
Even the items’ quality stirred up some ire. Thornbush42 named them “some of the most bland drops I’ve seen since the reskinned sailor eye of reach,” which could hardly be considered unfair for a little Sea of Thieves grit to and fro. Zeppy494 shared the greater frustration about these being parts of existing sets and so players would never be able to complete cosmetic collections they’ve been working on unless by some lucky odds they get one through a streamer giveaway.
Public sentiment is at odds with the concept in a heavy manner. Jamaican Megaman puts it well: “Once again the devs fail to listen to its community. Everyone is against the distribution system. Please reconsider.” So many comments follow the same script, accusing Rare of not listening to what players really want.
Here’s also a bit of a “beef” concerning Stream Team memberships. Slimey_Pigeon inquires, “Could Rare invite @refurius into the Stream Team now that they have removed two people?” L1ving_D3d_Girl further supports this by saying refurius is “the chillest chiller who ever chilled.” So, in the middle of all this drama, there is still some positive community-building going on?
A matter dear to KombatMustang’s heart is that all he wants is Sea of Thieves 2 for Unreal Engine 5, and honestly, same brother, same. But these issues have little to do with the current giveaway folly.
Now the most interesting would be how the giveaways are being organized by all the various streamers. Div_And_Inc said that they are running secret word giveaways over multiple streams, giving out clues each time and basically turning it into a game of clue-finding rather than a purely random draw. They admit this may not appeal to everybody, but like, at least they’re trying to make it fun instead of just baiting viewers.
Shenanigoon (Floidberger) said that they’re working out a “fun and fair way” to do the giveaway, but if it’s just somebody who comes in typing “!giveaway” without the basic courtesy of saying hello, they’re going to “tell you to fuck off.” Which, uh, is a choice, I guess.
And therein lies the entire dilemma in the ongoing tension between this whole deal of game developers using streamers as a marketing tool and keeping fair access to in-game content. When top-tier cosmetics are tied to watching given streams instead of gameplay achievements or even a simple purchase, a strange class environment is created wherein players feel compelled to engage with content creators they might even dislike to procure a digital item they want.
Rare might have the heart in the right place wanting to support budding streamers, but the Sea of Thieves community is more frustrated than excited about how it’s being executed. Players want to have transparent and fair access to cosmetics without feeling like they’re just filler on a viewership count for streamers who may or may not fulfill their promises.
At the very least, the unrolling drama on Twitter and streams will have probably caused Rare to decide whether to address these concerns or maintain the status quo. In light of the heated antagonism from the community, one should expect an adjustment to the Stream Team giveaway system is probably on the table-if only to avoid losing more of their player base. The sea may well be full of thieves, but the sea shouldn’t be filled with disappointed players.
