Recently one of my viewers came in to my stream and told me about how they were (allegedly) scammed in a giveaway. It got me thinking about all the giveaway scandals that have been reported on Twitch lately. I decided to analyze these situations and see what we can learn.
If you are a new streamer or new to doing giveaways please take these lessons to heart. It can prevent a negative cloud from hanging over your channel. As someone who does Twitter and Twitch giveaways this is an important issues for me. Every scam that occurs makes everyone doing giveaways look bad.
Blood Reaper Gaming - Streamdeck Scandal
BloodReaperGaming was called out in March by fellow streamer Vegas4987 for lying about a giveaway. The giveaway in question was for a Stream Deck (a big one). To gain entry in the giveaway you were required to recruit for BloodReaperGaming’s Stream team The Collective.
Vegas4987 was drawn for the giveaway live on Stream. When his name was drawn he was told he won a t-shirt. There is a huge difference between a T-shirt and a Stream Deck. BloodReaperGaming responded with, “A Stream Deck, For Recruiting, Are You Crazy?”.
When approached by Vegas4987 again in private BloodReaperGaming said he was sorry but was having some problems and did not have the money to purchase the Steam Deck. A few days later he posted about how he bought his wife, Mrs. Blood, a Xbox Series S.
Vegas4987 has documented everything and put it out on Twitter. Shortly after BloodReaperGaming disappeared from the Twitch platform.
What Can We Learn From This Scandal?
Always make sure you have a giveaway prize secured before you begin a giveaway. Don’t try to downplay it if you made a mistake. Whatever happens make sure that the winner gets the prize you promised.
BackyardBreaks Rare Football Card Scandal
BackyardBreaks runs giveaways that involve opening Football Card packs and giving away cards to the fan that won them. During one giveaway BackyardBreaks opened a pack and pulled out a rare card worth over $20,000 dollars. These cards were being given away to followers using random rolls.
A message later appeared on BackyardBreaks Twitch channel that they decided not to give the card to the follower who won it. Instead they had decided to donate all proceeds from the cards sale to Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach.
When called out on Twitter BackyardBreaks responded saying no one had won the card. To BackyardBreaks credit, it does appear that they made a donation to Boys and Girls Club, however, it is unclear how much that donation was for. This also does nothing for the follower that won the card.
This controversy will follow their channel for the rest of its channel life.
What Can We Learn From This Scandal?
When someone is chosen to win a prize, send them their prize. Even if they donated the entire amount to Boys and Girl Club, it does nothing for the follower that won it.
The only exception to this is if you put a time limit for the person to respond and they have not or the person who won says they do not want the prize.
Artisan Builds PC Giveaway Scandal
Artisan Builds was a boutique custom computer outlet that used Twitch Giveaways for promotion. The company had several small streamers which it called “Ambassadors”. The qualification to be included in these giveaways were only that you were an Artisan Builds Ambassador.
Steamer Kiapiaa (pictured above) has her name drawn in one of their giveaways. CEO Noah Katz then said they had changed the qualifications for the giveaway and the were rerolling. He then proceeded to belittle the streamer on stream.
Kiapiaa called Artisan Builds out on Twitter for their unfair (and also illegal) rule changes. Kiapiaa received massive support. In the aftermath Artisan Builds shut down business operations a week later and Kiapiaa gained over 20,000 followers.
What Can We Learn From Artisan Builds Scandal?
You must make you rules clear and concise before beginning a giveaway. Changing rules after a giveaway is not only wrong, in the United States it violates Federal Sweepstakes Law.
Anonymous Twitch Giveaway Scandal
This is the (alleged) giveaway that was brought to me by one of my followers. My follower claimed that twitch streamer had a giveaway for a Horizon Forbidden West game key. My follower claimed that after their name was drawn, the streamer then picked a different winner.
Since I did not have a second statement to verify the accuracy of this claim I did some snooping on the streamer’s Twitter account. When doing so I found this response from the streamer when my follower accused the streamer of selecting his winner unfairly. Their name has been redacted from all of the tweets for their protection.
While this Tweet does not directly say that a new winner was drawn, it does imply it. In reality, the intent of being there doesn’t matter. Also, if the drawing is done and is random, there is not a decision to make. As such, I asked the streamer about directly.
Now to be fair to the streamer, I did this publicly. I did so because I didn’t want any confusion to make sure everything was reported accurately and that I did not selectively change the narrative of the conversation.
I can understand them being a little hostile when being questioned by someone that he has never heard of before in a public forum. Please be aware, there is some graphic language from the streamer in this conversation.
I can understand the hostility. What I don’t understand is claiming he did a giveaway and didn’t ask anyone to participate. So I asked about it, with a copy of his Tweet asking people to join his giveaway.
There was no question whether he choose the winner or whether they got the game. It was apparent from the tweets and replies that someone did receive the game. What is still unclear is how the winner was chosen or was there a redraw. I again asked directly.
After which the streamer made all the tweets private relating to any scandal in the giveaway. He also sent me a DM threatening legal action if I included him in this article which I did not respond to.
Let me clarify something. In writing this, I do not want anyone to be negative towards this streamer if you know who they are. I hope that he has learned from the experience just from the series of events.
From the information I have, I can’t tell if there was an actual scandal or not. What I can say is that with a little transparency there wouldn’t even be a question to whether a scandal occurred or not.
When someone asks you your selection process it should be a very easy answer such as Gleam selected the winner or Streamelements selected the winner. There should never be a question of how the winner was selected and you shouldn’t state multiple times that “You” selected a winner.
Blocking the tweets makes even less transparency and makes it appear more scandalous.
Things We've Learned From These Twitch Scandals
- Make sure that you have secured the giveaway prize prior to doing the giveaway
- Don't change the giveaway prize during or after the giveaway.
- Make sure your winner receives the giveaway prize.
- Make sure all of the rules and regulations for entry are defined when the giveaway begins. Do not change rules mid-giveaway.
- Be absolutely transparent in what method you used to draw for your giveaway. If you did redraw, what was the reasoning? If you redraw please make sure your reasoning is valid, legal, and defined.
Following these lessons learned by other Steamers mistakes can prevent you from bad publicity or even getting your channel cancelled. Please utilize these lessons when doing Giveaways. Every time a new giveaway scandal comes out it hurts everyone who is doing giveaways properly.
You must log in to post a comment.