Twitch Bans Adults Only Games

An update to Twitch's policies results in some bad news for anyone to planning to stream Hatred or any other games given an Adults Only rating.

Destructoid reports that Twitch has updated its rules of conduct. One of these new policies includes a ban on all games rated for Adults Only by the ESRB. Previously, the streaming service would remove certain games on a case by case basis based on their content, but now any game with an AO rating will be banned.

If a game’s US version is rated Adults Only by the ESRB, you should not broadcast that game on Twitch. However, ESRB rated Mature versions of Adults Only titles are permitted for streaming, such as Mature versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy.

Games rated 18+ by other rating systems are fine to stream, so long as they are not rated AO by the ESRB, and they don’t violate the standard language of our RoC and ToS.

While the ESRB ratings apply exclusively to US titles, our policy extends to versions of these games inall territories. Generally, if the US version is rated for Adults Only (18+) or has an equivalent rating in your territory, you should not broadcast that game on Twitch.

One of the games that will be affected by this is the controversial and genocidal twin-stick shooter, Hatred. While we were certainly worried for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Indigo Prophecy, we're glad to hear that the Mature versions of AO games are not blacklisted. We're sure there are some of you out there who are into AO games, especially the visual novel-based ones, who are going to be affected by these new policies. Well, there's always YouTube, but you'd still have to censor some parts.