Twitch streamer Kurt (Kurt0411) has thrown in the towel after being constantly targeted by FIFA developer Electronic Arts (EA) and says he’ll no longer be streaming the game.
Ever since Kurt criticized FIFA, EA, and some of its employees in mid-February, he’s been hit with copyright complaints, privacy complaints, and bans.
First, several copyright claims and privacy complaints were filed against Kurt’s videos.
Then EA banned Kurt’s 10-year old FIFA account – a decision that many FIFA fans said was an attempt to silence him.
Kurt blasted EA for banning his account, described it as a “witch hunt,” and said the developer had “lied multiple times” in its statement about the ban.
A few days later, Kurt set up a new FIFA account but it was swiftly banned, despite EA support telling some users that players are allowed to make new accounts to play FIFA if their old accounts are banned.
And then just a few days ago, Kurt set up a third FIFA account, started streaming on Twitch, and was hit with an EA copyright strike which resulted in him being banned from Twitch for 24 hours.
“I’m not gonna keep playing this game of going back and forward with them, of making new accounts and then they ban them,” Kurt said before announcing that he’s done streaming the game he loves. “That’s it. I’m not allowed to stream FIFA again. That sounds crazy saying that.”
Since he can no longer stream FIFA, Kurt has announced that he’ll be streaming other games and plans to mainly stream eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer (PES).
His first eFootball PES 2020 stream was broadcast earlier today and drew in 18,300 live viewers on Twitch.
While he was streaming, the total number of Twitch viewers watching eFootball PES 2020 surpassed the total number watching FIFA 2020 and Kurt’s stream brought in 98% of the PES views.
Despite the huge success of his first PES stream, Kurt still warned against the huge power big video game developers such as EA have and suggested that a third-party should perhaps monitor situations where a large publisher uses its power to target a player.
He also thanked his followers for all the support they’ve shown to him.
“I just can’t thank you guys enough,” Kurt said. “It’s been insane, insane, insane support and I really from the bottom of my heart cannot thank you guys enough for this. We will see what the future holds but I know I’ve got a strong, strong community and I do thank you guys for everything.”
