Twitch Bans Doja Cat

Ennan Zapanta April 8, 2022
Twitch Bans Doja Cat

Doja Cat will appear in a future DLC pack for the popular point-and-click adventure game ‘House Party,’ but she won’t be able to stream it because Twitch has banned the game.

Doja Cat, a Grammy Award winner, will join House Party later this year, a contentious sandbox game in which players interact with party guests. She won’t be able to play it, at least not in livestream.

House Party was banned from Twitch in 2018 and has since undergone a number of adjustments in order to receive an ESRB ‘M’ rating. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to persuade Twitch to reconsider its stance when the studio, Eek! Games resubmitted their request to be unbanned. 

Since its suspension in 2018, House Party has undergone a variety of modifications, according to Ricci. He said noting that both games are allowed on Twitch; “We had to replace some scenes that were a bit too spicey with new ones that are more along the lines of what you’d find in games like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. It is a double-standard that House Party is not allowed on Twitch in its current state.” 

Ricci also doesn’t think the game should have been banned in the first place, claiming that the game’s sexual sequences amount for “less than 5% of the game’s content.” 

He added, citing Grand Theft Auto 5 and South Park: Stick of Truth as examples; “We worked hard to bring our game into compliance with the ESRB ‘M’ rating guidelines, and we have the same rating as many other games that are currently being streamed on Twitch without issue. The game was allegedly banned because of the game’s romance scenes, which because of, they interpret the game as being too ‘sexually focused’. Note, the scenes in question do not contain an explicit depiction of nudity or sexual content. Twitch, meanwhile, has a whole section of their website dedicated to ‘Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches’, which is mostly women hanging out in inflatable hot tubs in bikinis in their living rooms soliciting donations from viewers.”

Despite his criticisms, the CEO stated that he has no beef with hot tub streaming, and that all he wants is for the House Party to be treated equally. Finally, Ricci mentioned that Doja Cat will be unable to stream her own game on Twitch as he explained; “Even though we have communicated to Twitch that Doja Cat herself has expressed interest in playing the game on Twitch, they have made it clear that they will not allow her or others to,”

The singer has had a lot of success with her Twitch streams in the past, but the fact that she can’t play House Party has left the Eek! The CEO of Games is a little upset. 

The Doja Cat DLC for House Party will still be released in the fall of 2022, but given the ban, fans may have a difficult time finding content creators willing to play it.