Tarkov Drop Exclusivity Is A Problem.

Good afternoon everyone!

I wanted to make this post concerning the recent Tarkov loot drop event and the exclusivity behind it.

I'd like to preface this entire post by saying that, yes, I do stream full time. And this entire post is not meant to be anything related to self-promotion (So I won't be including my personal twitch handle unless asked directly to do so.)

The Tarkov drop event has done wonders for EFT as a whole. It was an excellent business decision to generate a shitload of traffic on twitch and thus new players. Herein lies the problem…

With this many new players, and all of them watching streamers that have never played before. They're receiving a vast quantity of poor information regarding the game and stunting their ability to learn. People are going to watch their favorite streamers regardless, and I get that. But there is an endless list of smaller, sub-100 viewer streamers (Like myself at almost 5,000 hours) whom have played this game endlessly for years, and thus are excellent sources of knowledge regarding the game, and are able teach new players exceedingly well. (More on this later.)

By alienating smaller streamers via not including them in on the drops program, you're effectively shutting down the flow of vital information that could be given to new players. Which in turn, can lead new players feeling frustrated, and ultimately quitting the game, or waiting to play in the future.

Yes, the temporary boost in sales is MONUMENTAL, and the amount of money made in the last few days off new copies of EFT has had to have been insane. But I'm more concerned about the conservation of the player base as a whole here.

These multi-thousand viewer twitch streamers having drops enabled, but never playing the game? Imagine trying to learn from someone who hasn't learned a single thing yet, and just screams about how the game is hard or frustrating. This game isn't casual-friendly, and learning is VERY MUCH up to the player. All these new players watching these huge streamers are basically just learning that the game is hard, and they're going to die a lot. (Which is true, we've all been there.) But receiving no benefit as to how to handle it. The only benefit is the occasional good money drop, and a lot of packs of matches.

Other developers have worked with Twitch and included drops in the past, and made it nonexclusive (Meaning that all streamers have the ability to enable drops for their communities.) And it was incredibly beneficial for ALL parties involved. Some of these games were Warframe, Path to Exile, League Of Legends, Apex Legends (With Prime, so somewhat similar) and I'm sure many more.

If you're going to be doing things like this again in the future Battlestate, please, for the sake of small time content creators, don't leave us floating in the wind. Some of us need that traffic to survive, and seeing this colossal drop in numbers (My personal viewership is down 60% since the event started) across the board is just exceedingly depressing.

TL;DR – The EFT loot drop event is strangling smaller streamers, and their ability to teach new players effectively, unlike the larger (And never played EFT before) bigger streamers.

I'm going to include a list of smaller streamers that I know personally (Just their names, no links unless told to by the admins.)

They're excellent sources of knowledge and information, and their communities are FULL of people who are exceedingly knowledgeable. All of these communities are currently being effected by this same problem I just discussed, and equally deserved to be included in the drop program if they haven't been already. (If I forgot to add someone to this list, I apologize. It may be quite in-depth, and It's not meant to upset anyone. Also; My name is NOT on this list for obvious self promotion rules.)

-Blumpski
-DestroyerProject
-FLornce
-ForecastCold
-OptimusBananas
-KaptainKayy
-DocDominus
-ReavestoneTV
-Rilahhh (English is his second language, but his German is incredible. Kappa)
-CommonWhiteGirl
-Dominanttv
-DabbinWiWi
-Syco__ (Two Underscores)
-TheCanadianReap
-Farmer1989
-FinestXI
-SenseiScav
-A_Honcho
-RedBeardOperator
-BkSal
-DeanoFBabyy
-DeejayQuest
-Z00kalicious
-Taintedsoultv