As you probably know by now, Ninja is hosting a massive Fortnite event in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
The event will begin at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 AM GMT and will run for 12 hours into the morning.
Besides the normal amount of backlash that comes with anything Ninja does, other Fortnite streamers and the community were in support of the event.
Now, that has gotten a little more complicated. With ads for the event popping up on other streamers channels, some are not happy about it.
Dr. DisRespect led the way and called the ad rolls “ugly.”
Dear @Twitch , get these ugly looking New Years Eve ad rolls off my page.
Don’t ever do it again either.
Ever.
— Dr Disrespect (@drdisrespect) December 28, 2018
While Dr. DisRespect was the biggest name to call out the ads, he wasn’t the only person upset.
I will register my opinion on Twitch advertising Ninja’s New years Eve stream on other broadcaster’s ad rolls, and likely my own channel. I don’t like that. It is a direct conflict of interest and I am not a fan of it. This should be a given, and just common sense. @Twitch
— BikeMan (@BikeManStream) December 28, 2018
Ninja didn’t exactly help matters when he responded to BikeMan’s tweet when he said the event will bring “exposure to Twitch.” He quickly deleted this reply, but not before it was screenshot.
So who’s in the right here? They both have valid arguments but I’ll try to lay out some points here.
The Doc and Bikeman, they don’t want to directly promote a competitor’s channel, especially when the event is tied to a specific holiday. If either was planning a special New Years Eve event for their followers, this feels like the ad does more harm than good.
Despite them having the channels and bringing in most of the revenue from the stream, they don’t control the ads. It seems like just a small fix of being able to blacklist a small number of ads would be a reasonable solution to give streamers some control.
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On the other hand, what Ninja (or probably Red Bull) was doing was just buying ad space. That’s well within their rights to negotiate a deal with Twitch, and it isn’t exactly unique.
The Doc has a popular ad for GFUEL energy that runs on Twitch and other streamers – like League of Legend’s Tyler 1 – appear in ads as well. So just how much different is an ad promoting Ninja’s event vs. ads promoting personalities in general?
Tell us what you think in the comments:
