Banned streamer sues Twitch

In July 2016, the successful and hugely popular streamer James "PhantomL0rd" Varga was banned from Twitch indefinitely.

Th streamer had 16,000 paid subscribers and over a million followers, but was kicked off of the platform when it was discovered that he was involved with skin gambling and promoted a Counter-Strike skin gambling site without disclosing his ties to the business.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, Varga has now filed a lawsuit against Twitch for loss of income and damage to his reputation, claiming the reasons for banning him were unsubstantiated, false, and illegal, and that the termination of his account was done improperly.

The complaint lodged against Twitch states:

"Twitch never provided any formal explanation for his suspension. Instead, Twitch has made only vague and ever-changing allegations of breaches of the Terms of Service.

"Twitch has attempted to excuse its conduct by alleging that Varga broadcast improper content. Yet, Varga broadcasted content similar to what many other popular Twitch content providers also broadcast, and in fact, during the course of Varga's performance of his contractual obligations as a content provider, representatives from Twitch repeatedly informed Varga that he was permitted to broadcast the very content that they later used as an excuse to illegally terminate his contract."

The complaint goes on to state that Twitch knew about the gambling, did nothing about it, and is now using Varga as a scapegoat to deflect negative press from themselves. Some serious allegations on both sides here, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Do you think Varga has a case?