FIFA streamer Kurt (Kurt0411) has blasted EA for the way it suddenly banned him from its services last week and described the situation as a “witch hunt” which is based on lies.
In his latest YouTube video, Kurt pushed back against EA’s claims that he’d “posted abusive and threatening messages” and engaged in “threatening behavior” and said EA had provided no evidence of him doing this.
“I have not threatened anyone,” Kurt said. “There is not a single example of me threatening anyone.”
Kurt also criticized EA for suggesting that he’s encouraged this type of behavior:
“Go find a video of me encouraging anyone to go and do the same or go and say these things or whatnot. Please once again do find an example. It’s another, yet again another lie.”
Additionally, Kurt criticized EA for accusing him of threatening real life violence and described how the subsequent news coverage has affected his friends and family:
“The reason I’m honestly the most annoyed with all of this apart from the fact that they’re lying is I have to sit here and explain every single time one of these [bans] comes,” Kurt said. “They [friends and family] think I’ve murdered someone.”
Overall Kurt described EA’s behavior as a “witch hunt” and summarized his feelings on its statement as:
“This is not OK, this statement. This is absolutely not OK. You have lied multiple times over here. Funny thing at the end of it all is they’ve made more statements about me than they have about the state the game is in. I should feel honored but really that’s just sad.”
Kurt acknowledged that while he had insulted other players and EA community managers, this does not constitute threatening behavior.
He described these insults as “stuff that I 100% stand by” and said he was voicing his opinion of the whole situation.
Additionally, Kurt pointed out that EA community managers are public figures and that he only shared public information in the video that EA took issue with shortly before banning him from its services.
Kurt also blasted EA for the way it has treated the most loyal members of the FIFA community and said: “EA never really cared about the people who stuck by their game year in year out.”
He added his ban was likely “years in the making” and that despite trying to explain to EA the direction he feels FIFA should be heading, the communication has always been one way.
Kurt said this one-way communication isn’t just limited to him and pointed to examples of EA blocking others that attempt to provide constructive feedback on the game and EA blocking users that mentioned dynamic difficulty momentum scripting in its forums.
Kurt acknowledged that he’d underestimated his influence because of the rapid growth of his social media channels over the past few months and admitted that his criticism of an EA community manager had resulted in the community manager’s account being spammed.
He said this wasn’t something he condones or wants to see and added: “As much as I stand by what I said, I need to understand the influence I also have, as I mentioned, and I just need to be a bit more careful in what I say and in how I word things.”
Kurt finished the video by discussing his plans going forward:
“I need some time off, not a lot, but I need some,” Kurt said. “It’s not easy to take this man. One [ban] after the other after the other. It, it f* cks with you. It f*cks with you. It really, really does man. So I just need some time off.”
