So there was a race and here are my thoughts about it

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Kaia_PP wrote:

I was shocked and appalled to see those young contestants go on racing during insanely lengthy sessions. To my knowledge, most of the top contestants played for more than 30 hours straight in one sitting, slept a maximum of 5 hours, then resumed playing for another 24hours. And here is the crux of my beef with this race. I watched worrying for players who already stream long hours every day. I watched as they played for litterally days without eating, sleeping and drinking insufficient amounts of water, forgetting to stretch legs, rest eyes and relax. I watched as they went from easygoing and excited to zombified legumes.

You must be shocked and appalled at all sorts of behaviour. You should see what these crazy people are doing in order to hand in their university papers on time.

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Kaia_PP wrote:

Turns out if you are dangerously sleep deprived, dehydrated and under stress, you are not the most efficient and alert player. Turns out many top contestants RIP, some abandoning the race. Was that worth it? Is it ever worth risking your well being, let alone your life over very meager earnings and interwebs bragging rights?

Sounds to me like you've already identified a deterrent for this behaviour; if an experienced player is willing to accept risk and ignore the deterrent then that's on the player. Problem with your post is that you want to remove that choice from the player.

All the good intentions and idealism aside, you seem to forgot that s not just about fame and glory. For most of the contestants it s their job. Their lives literally depend on streaming.

And i would guess that some of them may worried too about their health, but what choice do they have? If they are not competing, it means loosing viewers and by that, loosing profit.

At the end, the real responsibility lies in you, the viewer. As a consumer of this entertainment you make up the market.

It s like with clothing IRL. If you choose to buy a shirt for 2 dollars, you might be ok with slavery. And if you watch a stream like this, people will stream it. Just to satisfy your needs. It s demand and supply. If you demand something, there might be somebody poor enough to satisfy this particular need for the given costs.

So if you want those streams/contest to stop, just stop watching it and streamers will turn to more profitable formats. But ofc it s not as easy as this, isn t it?

If the race’s rules give such significant advantages to sleeplessness and other forms of self-deprivation, then it’s just a contest of physical endurance and not one of skill in PoE! What is the appeal of watching if the results show little about who is actually better at playing the game?

I’m baffled by all these knee-jerk responses about individual freedom, responsibility, etc. This isn’t about politics or the role of regulation in our lives, this is about setting up sensible parameters for a competition that yield a meaningful result.

Who cares about comparing streamers’ personal schedule management and ability to efficiently eat while playing, hold their pee, endure headaches, or consume high amounts of caffiene? That’s what was being tested and awarded!

Nobody’s trying to trash the sacred principle of personal responsibility, just make a better contest that doesn’t torture participants; this is common sense.

With any gaming race like this, it’d be better to limit sessions’ length (even if it’s as high as 12 hours) or simply calculate total hours each contestant needed to reach the goal after a week-long event. The latter would actually give viewers more content to watch as streamers choose to play at different times.

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demon9675 wrote:

If the race’s rules give such significant advantages to sleeplessness and other forms of self-deprivation, then it’s just a contest of physical endurance and not one of skill in PoE! What is the appeal of watching if the results show little about who is actually better at playing the game?

just like some IRL runners do marathons or even ultramarathons instead of just doing 200m sprints over and over, some poe racers do races to 100 instead of just doing 4 hour kitava races over and over.
endurance, dedication and consistency are part of the skillset that they compete in.