20
votes
Multiplayer games and privacy
So I've been playing a lot of WoW lately and that includes a ton of raids, always with voice chat on discord. Just now I found out that someone is a streamer and broadcast a full raid + the voice chat.
I was not part of this particular raid thankfully. And as far as I can tell he doesn't have a lot if any viewers. But it still made me uncomfortable that someone has been streaming my voice without my consent, without my knowledge even. I do not feel that it is unreasonable of me to expect someone to ask for permission before doing this, but maybe I am just completely out of the loop about streaming?
Is it naive to expect privacy in this regard? Is this what one should expect from online gaming nowadays?
As a viewer, I would expect and prefer to hear the entire raid team chat, rather than just the streamer.
But I would also expect all the team to be in the know about it.
Is there no discord integration for the person streaming that will let you know they are doing so?
This is basically what this discussion boils down to. The team of raiders first needs to sit down and decide whether they all consent to have their voices appear on stream in case one of them decides to stream.
I wouldn't say it's naive to expect privacy but it is also somewhat unrealistic.
I stand by the assumption that online multiplayer games are, for the most part, essentially equal to "public" spaces. Complications arise from the fact that the Discord should at least be considered 'more' private and a polite person would've informed you they were streaming but there's always the possibility that they informed 'the group' a while ago and 'the group' is okay with it.
Though, for me personally, this would more likely be a "lol how long has their been someone streaming all the raids?" in guild chat with a "let me know next time so I can talk about my medical problems and give everyone my credit card number." or a "Hey man, get an on air light or something so I know you're wearing a wire."
I mostly agree, but it becomes less defined if you're included in a stream or video from anyone with a decent level of popularity. Let's say a streamer is playing a multiplayer game and keeps losing to a specific player. The streamer comments "this person must be cheating!" Their community agrees, and a subset of the community goes on a witch hunt.
Obviously this isn't the type of behavior people should engage in. The streamer could publicly say it isn't right. But it can still happen. People love to get angry over anything it seems.
I wouldn't be okay with that. Most streamers I've seen might stream text chats but not other voices, except if they're playing with a select group where everyone's aware, like for Among Us or something.
Yeah, my character and my text chat is much different and 99% removed from my voice which is an identifier.
I think if you are in a public or random raid/voice group you should not expect privacy. If you are in a members only group or guild you should 100 percent have a discussion about streaming your actives and reach a group consensus.