Hi! Earlier this year, I began posting sponsored Streamlabs Desktop tutorials to my main EposVox YouTube channel, which sparked some big discussions about sponsor integrity, consistency, SL’s history, etc. I wanted to address some things.
First and foremost: My history of focusing on advanced settings, DIY-ing things, etc. is NOT in conflict with my original, primary goal of making tech (and streaming) easier and more accessible. Not everyone needs to pixel-peep their streams, optimize encoder settings, etc. - and TBH these days I find it all completely unnecessary. Twitch Enhanced Broadcast and otherwise throwing a decent HEVC/AV1 profile at YouTube killed every ounce of giving a fuck about optimizing stream settings in the modern era. No one’s watching for image quality.
(I’ve also done similar tutorial courses for X-Split, etc. in the past. People like to cherry pick their interpretation of someone else’s history.)
But secondly, the sponsorship. When these conversations arose, I promised to have a dedicated episode of the course talking about Streamlabs of old vs. today and why I agreed to work with them (I actually posed the course to them!) It took a while for everything to get approved, but Logi/SL did approve my video with no changes requested to the core content discussing the history.
That video is here:
For those who missed it, I did already do a big write-up on my Posts tab on YouTube answering a lot of the questions, but I thought it would be worth compiling WITH the video here!
I hear your concerns, and it appears the main source of friction is no sort of “announcement” or coverage of things changing, so the last word you had from me was covering negative news. So here’s where things stand now!
Streamlabs got acquired by Logitech right before the pandemic. Things didn’t change initially, and some of the long-running problems really came to a head immediately after this. I’ve covered them before.
On a personal level, I was blacklisted by both Logi and SL at the time, and was not allowed in the Logi/SL booth at CES 2020, even. A year or so after acquisition, Logitech and Streamlabs both cleaned house, and (more or less) an entirely new team manages Streamlabs, does PR for Logi, etc.
This has resulted in a few important things:
- “Streamlabs OBS” renamed to “Streamlabs Desktop” and all past efforts to muck up the brand confusion reversed and efforts made to patch up the bad blood with the OBS devs.
- Logitech became the first “Diamond Sponsor” of OBS Studio on Open Collective - meaning they were contributing $50,000 per year (or more) to the project, and have since been elevated above that to “Premier Tier Sponsor.” This means that SL/Logi are *directly funding OBS Studio development in some of the most-significant ways possible.* Many of the massive structural changes made to the OBS team (to allow them to go full-time, etc.) are a direct result of the money coming in from SL/Logi (among other sponsors in those tiers). That is incredibly important.
- Streamlabs made a plugin for OBS Studio to allow users to use Streamlabs tools/content without feeling locked into Streamlabs Desktop. (My video from last week.)
- I am no longer blacklisted by either company. But MUCH more importantly: The OBS developers are now on good terms with Streamlabs team.
It’s disappointing to me that after 12 years of teaching streaming, before anyone else, and holding these companies (including/especially Logi and SL) accountable that people just… assume the worst and assume I haven’t thoroughly vetted the situation, but I also understand that no “Streamlabs is great now!” video ahead of time might cause some confusion.
I didn’t do this for a few reasons:
- Some of it is not being sure what I can/should share b/c of NDAs and etc.
- Some of it is the fact that (to me, with incredibly limited time for production these days) such a video is just not “good content” and boring to make/watch and may perform poorly.
- Most naysayers would just take it as the ultimate “shill” video and not believe me anyway
All that being said, I do have a video in the course about choosing between OBS/Streamlabs and based on these conversations, I may see if they approve me adding a segment to that video talking about the change of guard, their massive support of OBS, and etc. (Already live, see above.)
Thanks for your support and for holding me accountable! Just try to be a little open-minded. ^^;