GTL: Unpaid Esports Pros, The Reformed LoL Troll, & AGDQ Paygates

Game Talk Live panelists discuss the latest and hottest topics in gaming! This January 10 edition's guests feature Twin Galaxies’ own Head of Editorial Jesse Collins; Co-Creator, Executive Producer and star of YouTube Red’s esports comedy Good Game, Michele Morrow; and producer of the YouTube channel DaveControl and host of Obsev Entertainment Dave Klein.

Today’s show features topics such as Hi-Rez Studios recent conduct regarding the pay of esports players. In a story broken here on Twin Galaxies, pro Paladins players in the esports scene such as Patrick “sleeppyy” Ratzow claimed they had not been paid for tournament appearances and winnings. After the story broke, Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris reached out to players and began to investigate the matter directly. Who is at fault for these lapsed payments?

This follows on the trail of Hi-Rez’s announcement of the new game mode for Paladins, dubbed Paladins: Battlegrounds. Clearly a take on the famous battle royale style of game being championed by PLAYERUNKNOWN’S Battlegrounds and Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, Hi-Rez seems set to capitalize on this style of game. Is it copycat and if so, is it acceptable?

Today’s show also features discussion of the infamous Tyler1 and his return to League of Legends. Tyler1 was known as one of the most notorious trolls in the game, banned in 2016 for player harassment, verbal abuse, account buying and sharing, and further offenses. However, on January 4, Tyler1 announced that he had been unbanned on his Twitter account.

AFTER 613 DAYS OF INTENSE REHAB I AM FINALLY UNBANNED FROM LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

— loltyler1 (@lol_tyler1) January 4, 2018

Tyler1 has claimed to have reformed at the behest of various authorities in the League of Legends scene, which may have led to the lifting of his ban. In any case, he immediately streamed, garnering the single largest viewership of a Twitch livestream at about 300,000 viewers in 20 minutes. Is Tyler the result of a toxic community or is the community toxic because of players like Tyler?

Finally, the show will be discussing the controversial new decision to place a paywall on viewership of the AGDQ 2018 stream. Games Done Quick has generally been free to view and engage in almost all of its past events, relying solely on the donations of its viewers as any sort of income. However, this year for Awesome Games Done Quick 2018, chat is been placed behind a $5 paywall which keeps viewers from being able to comment on the livestream without first subscribing. This has left a sour taste in the mouths of some of the audience, who feel that chat and commenting on the Twitch channel are an integral part of the Games Done Quick experience. Are they right to be mad or is the GDQ committee fair in attempting to limit the flood of comments which often run rampant through its chat channels?

The live broadcast of the January 10 edition of GTL is finished, but you can still see the archived video above!