Craig Williams, content creator and official race engineer for G2 Esports, has been unbanned from Twitch following public outcry after he was falsely accused of generating fake subscribers by support staff.
“Twitch have removed the ban from my account but I’ve received no email,” Williams tweeted just four hours after initially posting about being banned.
“Hopefully with all the support from you guys they’ve got people looking into it and hopefully some news comes my way soon, I cannot thank each and every single one of you enough,” he wrote.
The controversy swept throughout the streaming community thanks to a r/LivestreamFail post that made it to Reddit’s front page.
Aside from the fact that Williams had been improperly punished, the outrage was largely in part due to the accusatory email that Twitch Support sent the streamer, alleging he was generating fraudulent subscription revenue.
“We do not pay out fraudulent revenue, this is why you have not been paid out,” the email (dated July 25) read. “Do you not notice how you have well over a thousand subs but when you stream no one talks? Then when your stream is offline you have hundreds of subs?”
Williams’ stream is non-traditional at first glance since subscribers aren’t just supporting the creator, but gaining access to his racing simulator video series called “Setup Shop,” posted on his website. While he does stream on Twitch once a week, the bulk of his content creation is behind that paywall.
This explains why, in comparison to the typical full-time streamer, the success of Williams’ stream doesn’t appear normal. When taking his full operation into consideration, however, his channel’s stats make sense.
Williams has apparently been having payment issues with Twitch since July 23, when the Setup Shop Twitter account posted, “Due to Twitch refusing to pay us/respond to our support tickets, we unfortunately have to pull the plug on Twitch (Prime) subs.”
Twitch has yet to provide Williams with a formal explanation of his brief ban.
