Should Twitch really have separate categories for DS & DST?

[Misuto]

4 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

But these are game modes that are all part of the same game, right? What's being suggested in the OP is more akin to merging all the Call of Duty games or all the Sims games into one category. Are there any instances of something like this?

I believe this is a false equivalency argument. Call of duty and Sims games are released in cycles and are updated versions of the previous; direct sequels while DS and DST are the same game being updated in parallel with the primary difference being the multiplayer aspect.

 

It'd be more correct to talk about how CoD single player and multiplayer don't have different categories on twitch despite having separate launchers in steam. CoD was even balanced separately between the single player campaign and multiplayer mode, is a radically different player and viewer experience, and through separate updates they hardly even resemble the same game, much like DS and DST. Yet CoD does share a category for it's two separately launched games while DS and DST have been forced apart despite a remarkably similar situation. 

 

So thank you for bringing up CoD, it is a great example in support of a merged DS and DST category and acts as a great example of precedence. 

 

18 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

I feel like you might've just found your solution right here.

Just because some people break the rules doesn't make it ok for others to do it. We're asking for a proper solution, not a work around or a technicality; Something that won't potentially risk a streamers account. 

 

Consider this, even if the big streamers just start streaming DS on DST, what about small streamers who don't know about this agreement and attempt to stream DS in the correct DS category? What about foreign language streamers who don't get the memo or read the titles of English streams? They'd basically be by themselves with no viewers able to find them and not realize their "mistake" of trying to do things properly. An actual and official solution fixes these problems before they happen and prevents any conflicts with Twitch admins later down the road if they do decide to be more strict, or are just having a bad day and take it out on someone streaming the wrong game in a category. 

 

 

 

[wigfrids hat]

has anyone with a twitch account contacted a twitch moderator to tell them that the search function doesn't work? i think that might be a helpful thing to do

[Rinkusan]

33 minutes ago, Misuto said:

I believe this is a false equivalency argument. Call of duty and Sims games are released in cycles and are updated versions of the previous; direct sequels while DS and DST are the same game being updated in parallel with the primary difference being the multiplayer aspect.

 

It'd be more correct to talk about how CoD single player and multiplayer don't have different categories on twitch despite having separate launchers in steam. CoD was even balanced separately between the single player campaign and multiplayer mode, is a radically different player and viewer experience, and through separate updates they hardly even resemble the same game, much like DS and DST. Yet CoD does share a category for it's two separately launched games while DS and DST have been forced apart despite a remarkably similar situation. 

 

So thank you for bringing up CoD, it is a great example in support of a merged DS and DST category and acts as a great example of precedence. 

 

Just because some people break the rules doesn't make it ok for others to do it. We're asking for a proper solution, not a work around or a technicality; Something that won't potentially risk a streamers account. 

 

Consider this, even if the big streamers just start streaming DS on DST, what about small streamers who don't know about this agreement and attempt to stream DS in the correct DS category? What about foreign language streamers who don't get the memo or read the titles of English streams? They'd basically be by themselves with no viewers able to find them and not realize their "mistake" of trying to do things properly. An actual and official solution fixes these problems before they happen and prevents any conflicts with Twitch admins later down the road if they do decide to be more strict, or are just having a bad day and take it out on someone streaming the wrong game in a category. 

It's not false equivalency; much like how Sims 2 and Sims 3 or Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and the rebooted Call of Duty Modern Warfare are separate games, DS and DST are entirely separate games that belong to the same franchise. I feel like you're trying to make the argument that DS is really "Don't Starve's single player mode" and DST is really "Don't Starve's multiplayer mode" when that is not the case at all; they are separate games, not separate game modes. Even excluding the clear differences in gameplay and game content, I don't know how you'd think that these are the same game in the first place, especially when DST is a direct sequel of DS. 

You certainly can talk about CoD single-player and multiplayer, but that would be false equivalency since those are game modes, not entirely separate games. You wouldn't call Halo 3 campaign mode and Halo 3 online mode separate games, would you? 

As I previously stated, making Twitch straight-up change their "rules" to specifically accommodate a sub-community like us is a mountain to climb, which is why I suggested this workaround as a solution. I put "rules" in quotes because at the end of the day, there are technically no proper rules and therefore no proper solutions because Twitch mods have all the power when it comes to making and enforcing their guidelines, which is why I called the paragraphs preceding the guidelines a "cop-out" on Twitch's part:

"To protect the integrity of our community, as the provider of the service, we at Twitch reserve the right to suspend any account at any time for any conduct that we determine to be inappropriate or harmful".

There is no solution that exists that will prevent a Twitch mod from coming down on you for having a bad day based on these loose non-rule rules that are entirely interpreted by Twitch and merely serve as something to help the streamers and viewers stay out of trouble. 

[Ispin69]

If you have to click a different icon to play the game, they are different games. For example, league of legends has different modes: Summoner's Rift, ARAM, URF etc. It's still league of legends because it's all one client. They are not separate games. But DS and DST do not use the same client/platform. They are entirely different games. Don't Starve has Vanilla, ROG, Shipwrecked, Hamlet. DST cannot load from loading the Don't Starve client. That's how you tell they are different games.

[Misuto]

7 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

You certainly can talk about CoD single-player and multiplayer, but that would be false equivalency since those are game modes, not entirely separate games.

But steam and other platforms treat them as entirely different games. You have two launchers, CoD Black Ops and CoD Black Ops - Multuplayer. They track separate play time, separate achievements, separate discussion boards, separate patches and balances. Sure at launch they were very similar, but the multiple updates to the multiplayer game has made them very different with time. Exactly the same as DS and DST. RoG and Launch DST were nearly identical aside from tiny changes to accommodate multiplayer. It was just the multiplayer client for DS. These are just objective facts. Yes, with separate patches the games have grown apart, but that never lead to twitch splitting CoD campaign and multiplayer games into two categories. 

2 minutes ago, Ispin69 said:

If you have to click a different icon to play the game, they are different games.

You literally have to click a different icon to play CoD multiplayer or CoD campaign. Yet they are the same category on twitch. The precedence exists. 

 

But as others have stated, this has nothing to do with how similar the games are (because to the average viewer they are indistinguishable, you are just biased because you personally know the differences) or about DST being just a mode vs a stand alone game. This has nothing to do with them being different games or the same. This extends outside the game and deals with topics of search-ability and marketing. There exists a market of people who want to find DS content but can't, and there exists a market of people who want to create DS content but feel that they can't because it isn't searchable. And all the while a layperson literally cannot distinguish between the two games and streamers spend countless times every single stream answering whether this is DS or DST or does this also work in the other or how do I do X in the game you aren't even playing. 

[Rinkusan]

38 minutes ago, Misuto said:

But steam and other platforms treat them as entirely different games. You have two launchers, CoD Black Ops and CoD Black Ops - Multuplayer. They track separate play time, separate achievements, separate discussion boards, separate patches and balances. Sure at launch they were very similar, but the multiple updates to the multiplayer game has made them very different with time. Exactly the same as DS and DST. RoG and Launch DST were nearly identical aside from tiny changes to accommodate multiplayer. It was just the multiplayer client for DS. These are just objective facts. Yes, with separate patches the games have grown apart, but that never lead to twitch splitting CoD campaign and multiplayer games into two categories. 

Steam doesn't treat the Black Ops game modes as separate games, though.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/Call_of_Duty_Black_Ops/

Having separate launchers doesn't inherently make those game modes separate games; if anything, from what you're telling me, it sounds like those separate launchers are there specifically for those separate statistics being tracked. At the end of the day, you're still playing "Call of Duty Black Ops" when you hop into "Call of Duty Black Ops single player campaign" or "Call of Duty Black Ops multiplayer". 

In contrast, DST was released as a sequel and an entirely standalone game from DS.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/Dont_Starve/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/Dont_Starve_Together/

Whatever similarities and differences in content exist between the two games past or present is irrelevant to whether they are separate games or not. I personally believe DS and DST are wildy different games in content for the reasons I explained in a previous reply, but it still changes nothing with regard to whether they are or aren't separate games. 

1 hour ago, Misuto said:

But as others have stated, this has nothing to do with how similar the games are (because to the average viewer they are indistinguishable, you are just biased because you personally know the differences) or about DST being just a mode vs a stand alone game. This has nothing to do with them being different games or the same. This extends outside the game and deals with topics of search-ability and marketing. There exists a market of people who want to find DS content but can't, and there exists a market of people who want to create DS content but feel that they can't because it isn't searchable. And all the while a layperson literally cannot distinguish between the two games and streamers spend countless times every single stream answering whether this is DS or DST or does this also work in the other or how do I do X in the game you aren't even playing.

I agree that the similarities are irrelevant, but whether the two are a game or a game mode is VERY relevant because the OP's solution is merging two separate games from the same franchise into one category on Twitch. From what I've seen so far, there is no precedent for that, nor do I see an incentive for Twitch to make these changes, nor do I see a path for these changes to happen considering Twitch's negative reputation with regard to making systemic changes in response to feedback from the Twitch community let alone our little sub-community. Also, keep in mind that merging the two games into one category (i.e. making streams more ambiguous) will, if anything, force streamers to clarify more often whether the game being played is DS or DST.

To me, the best option would be to stream DS content under the DST category much like what the Pokemon streamers are currently doing, and if people actually do get suspended by Twitch mods for doing something so harmlessly common-sense and clearly grey-area per the vague cop-out guidelines, we can by all means climb that insanely arduous mountain assuming the thing at the top is worth the climb. 

[Cheggf]

38 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

To me, the best option would be to stream DS content under the DST category

So despite the fact that you said just one paragraph ago that you don't want to confuse people, now you're saying you want people to be straight up lied to about what game they're watching and be completely unable to tell whether they're watching a DS stream or DST stream until they do something game exclusive, which the average viewer might not even notice. You think the best idea is to basically do what @JazzyGames, @Misuto, and others are saying, except instead of clarifying what game is being played and bumping the numbers up so the game is more popular, you don't do that and instead have a chance to get banned.

What?

[Rinkusan]

3 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

So despite the fact that you said just one paragraph ago that you don't want to confuse people, now you're saying you want people to be straight up lied to about what game they're watching and be completely unable to tell whether they're watching a DS stream or DST stream until they do something game exclusive, which the average viewer might not even notice. You think the best idea is to basically do what @JazzyGames, @Misuto, and others are saying, except instead of clarifying what game is being played and bumping the numbers up so the game is more popular, you don't do that and instead have a chance to get banned.

What?

When did I say any of this? The solution I was suggesting was to stream DS content under the DST category instead of trying to change the Twitch guidelines, which themselves aren't even inherently concrete rules to begin with. My argument had absolutely nothing to do with "confusing people", nor did I advocate streamers to straight-up lie to their viewers "about what game they're watching". 

[Cheggf]

8 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

When did I say any of this? The solution I was suggesting was to stream DS content under the DST category instead of trying to change the Twitch guidelines, which themselves aren't even inherently concrete rules to begin with.

What's the difference between streaming DS and DST under a neatly organized category that has tags for DS and DST, or just streaming DS under the DST category? Other than the things I laid out in my post like people getting banned, of course.

8 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

My argument had absolutely nothing to do with "confusing people", nor did I advocate streamers to straight-up lie to their viewers "about what game they're watching". 

Streaming games in the wrong category is confusing and lying to people. You aren't streaming DST, you're streaming DSA. You put it well yourself, here, before you seemed to change your mind and suggest something that would require way more clarification:

51 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

force streamers to clarify more often whether the game being played is DS or DST.

 

[fimmatek]

5 hours ago, Ispin69 said:

[pics about searching for "don't starve"]

I just went on twitch and searched for the game, like you did and I also found the categories. However, if you leave out the apostrophe and search for just "dont starve" (which many people do, because it's more convenient and usually leads to the same results), twitch doesn't show the DS category, only DST. 

Might be just a bug at twitch's side, but still, this will lead to a lot of viewers not finding DS streams.

[Rinkusan]

Just now, Cheggf said:

What's the difference between streaming DS and DST under a neatly organized category that has tags for DS and DST, or just streaming DS under the DST category? Other than the things I laid out in my post like people getting banned, of course.

Streaming games in the wrong category is confusing and lying to people. You aren't streaming DST, you're streaming DSA.

The difference between the two situations is that one requires going out of your way to either systematically change Twitch's guidelines or systematically change Twitch's game categorization system to allow separate games from the same franchise to be lumped into the same game category. This is why I was asking those precedent questions in my previous replies in the hopes that maybe you can lump separate games from the same franchise into one category and call it a day. If there is a precedent, GREAT, let's get Klei to ask Twitch to do just that; so far though, I've seen no examples of this. What there seems to be a precedent for, however, assuming the accuracy of an earlier reply, is streaming older games from the same franchise in newer game categories. 

I don't think it's dishonest or nefarious to stream DS in the DST category and then clarify that it's DS singleplayer in the title of the stream, especially given that viewers look for DS content in the DST category according to earlier replies. I absolutely agree that streamer suspension is possible, which is why I asked if there were any old-Pokemon-game streamers or DS streamers who were ever suspended for streaming on their respective new-game categories. If there aren't, I don't see any problems with streaming a different game from the same franchise given all this context about the dead DS category and Twitch's grey-area, non-rule guidelines. 

[Cheggf]

22 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

The difference between the two situations is that one requires going out of your way to either systematically change Twitch's guidelines or systematically change Twitch's game categorization system to allow separate games from the same franchise to be lumped into the same game category.

But this thread isn't titled will Twitch merge the two categories, it's titled should Twitch merge the two categories. You seem to be in the should camp, but don't want to admit it because you think it's unlikely to happen.

It also doesn't require "systematically changing Twitch's guidelines and game categorization system", either, since every argument that's been made about them being separate games isn't really definitive and could be interpreted either way.

There's games with tag filtering like Hearthstone and Fortnite, and there's categories with multiple games in one like the retro category. That's enough precedent where nobody could say they're suddenly breaking their own rules by making this change, and even so I don't even think anyone would really care.

[Rinkusan]

48 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

You put it well yourself, here, before you seemed to change your mind and suggest something that would require way more clarification:

How does that quote from me imply that my argument had anything to do with confusing people? That statement was a direct response to one of Misuto's complaints about streamers spending "countless times every single stream answering whether this is DS or DST or does this also work in the other or how do I do X in the game you aren't even playing". I was saying that the solution presented in the OP, if anything, would escalate those questions. 

I'm looking back at your response, and I'm not quite sure how you interpreted my "previous paragraph" as me taking any stance on confusing people. All I'm basically saying is "hey, if anything, people are gonna ask you MORE questions about whether you're streaming DS or DST if you lump the two games into one category", if the paraphrasing helps.

Don't get me wrong; I'm 100% in favor of minimizing confusion and being as honest with the viewers as possible. However, in a situation like this where both streamers and viewers want to engage with each other more through single-player DS content, even though you can't completely eliminate the confusion on the viewers' part, you can still stay honest by clarifying the game in the stream title. Either way, this part of the conversation was not part of my central argument about issues with the solution in the OP and what I believe to be a more realistic solution.

[Rinkusan]

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

But this thread isn't titled will Twitch merge the two categories, it's titled should Twitch merge the two categories. You seem to be in the should camp, but don't want to admit it because you think it's unlikely to happen.

It also doesn't require "systematically changing Twitch's guidelines and game categorization system", either, since every argument that's been made about them being separate games isn't really definitive and could be interpreted either way.

There's games with tag filtering like Hearthstone and Fortnite, and there's categories with multiple games in one like the retro category. That's enough precedent where nobody could say they're suddenly breaking their own rules by making this change, and even so I don't even think anyone would really care.

Discussions, especially nuanced discussions like this, SHOULD NEVER boil down to what you seem to be implying to be a straightforward and tribalistic "are you in this camp or that camp?" I certainly do believe that, if we had the power to situationally lump games in the same franchise in one category to benefit the dying category on Twitch, doing so would be GREAT. However, my position is more nuanced than this because I don't agree with a few of the points being made to justify lumping the games into one category, and I'm very pessimistic about the viability of the merge itself being successfully implemented given all the things I mentioned in the previous replies about Twitch. I did say that I believed this merge would help streamers in my very first reply in this thread, and I even encouraged Jazzy to justify the solution with a different approach because I was very much open to this solution but unconvinced by the OP. Regardless, whichever "camp" I'm in doesn't and shouldn't matter unless I'm totally fine with letting my natural biases in favor of "the people who agree with me" skew my views on this topic. Consider me in an entirely different third camp if that helps. 

Part of my argument is that the games ARE definitely separate games, which is what a good chunk of the conversation on page 2 carrying over onto page 3 was about. It's part of why I don't have faith in this solution actually becoming reality, and it's something that I disagree with as one of the OP's justifications for this merge happening.  

Absolutely; there are games with tag filtering. However, I've yet to see separate games from the same franchise being merged into one category and then being tag-filtered. Again, as I tried to emphasize in the responses where I asked questions, if there is a precedent, please share it, and I'll be 100% on-board with the solution from the OP, including encouraging Klei to take action. Otherwise, I'm very much unconvinced.

[JazzyGames]

10 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

I have to disagree with the premise of this statement. This change involves both the streamer streaming DS and the viewers who watch DS content; both are affected by the outcome. I hope the implication here isn't that being a streamer with high "stakes in the outcome" alone inherently makes the streamer's take any more valid.

My reference there was to users taking place in the conversation here who have themselves admitted that they do not watch Twitch streams nor are interested in doing so. Those players do not have any stake in the outcome while those who watch Twitch streams certainly do.

[Rinkusan]

4 hours ago, JazzyGames said:

My reference there was to users taking place in the conversation here who have themselves admitted that they do not watch Twitch streams nor are interested in doing so. Those players do not have any stake in the outcome while those who watch Twitch streams certainly do.

Gotcha; thanks for clarifying. But why did those people need to be referenced?



 

[Fictitious]

I agree they may as well merge the categories. The title of the stream and interactions with the streamer should clear any issues regarding the discrepancies between the games. 

[MagzUnleashed]

I would say I'm a casual twitch viewer but when I do watch ds/dst stream I really want to know which one it is, and it is not simple at all to tell them apart since most streamers mod dst heavilly and it takes a moment to see that they actually do some hamlet mod on a dst server. No one bothers to describe what mods they are using, not in title description and not in channel descriptions, everyone assumes that their viewers just know everything about the game and mods and I can only imagine how confusing this must be for people who just want to check out the game before buying it.

I remember a streamer using a mod for some overland bosses characters and I was so confused about it, had to google it myself and search forums until I found out it is a mod and not a new game patch or something. So just assume your viewership does not consist of people who are always uptodate with the game and follow everything on forums, if it is someone like me, mostly they know nothing about the mods you are using and it is essential to tag ds/dst, I don't want to waste my time having to research it myself.

[Terra B Welch]

If other categories already have something like this implemented then I don't see why Don't Starve shouldn't also have it. I wish you luck with getting twitch to listen though.

 

[Griver84]

I honestly don't have the brain power atm to add anything meaty to this conversation. But, that being said, I am adding my name to the hat of streamers greater than myself in this thread about merging the two categories. I started my streaming career off on the Solo Don't Starve adventure and only switched to DST because of the drop system (DS didn't originally get it on launch) and the massively increased viewer pool for DST. Which lead to me growing my audience. 

I'll probably come back and edit this post later tonight after I stream (and when my brain is working better) but I just want to say thanks to everyone who's saying this would be a good thing. Its something I've wanted for a long time.

*stares longingly at my old abandoned solo mega base*


Ok so edit/update to my post here.

I said something about this thread on twitter and apparently Klei has already asked to do this once. When hamlet came out (@Klei_Corey stopped by my chat to explain). Twitch gave the response that they were separate games thus needed to be in separate categories. So I guess now as a community, can we raise enough awareness that we want this to happen to make Twitch make the change?

My response to Klei's tweet: