The New '10s saw streaming platforms like Twitch rise to prominence, providing a new way for people to record themselves playing video games while interacting with a live audience. However, with these new opportunities came potential problems: many such services began to clamp down hard on any use of copyrighted music, and several players saw the need to protect their personal information for various reasons (even something as simple as their username could invite unwanted attention from trolls).
To this end, game developers began including options specifically tailored for streamers. These can include removing or replacing copyrighted music, hiding personal information, or other adjustments to make streamers' lives easier.
For another set of options meant to help specific demographics of players, see Colorblind Mode.
Examples:
Action Game- Hi-Fi RUSH has a streamer mode that replaces all of the licenced music with original Suspiciously Similar Song replacements; necessary due to how the game's soundtrack dictates the rhythm of combat.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) has a streamer mode that replaces all licensed tracks with either silence or original compositions.
- Life Is Strange 2 has a "Streamer Mode" that mutes most of the licensed music in the game. (A Sufjan Stevens track still shows up in Episode 2. It's unclear if this was a mistake, or a result of Sufjan and his record label being hands-off about how other people use his music.)
- The Quarry also has the option to mute the licensed music or replace it with songs created for the game.
- Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has a streamer mode that censors the player's name and Battletag, as well as their opponent's name.
- The Corridor: One of the options is "content creator mode". All it does is add an intermission level about halfway through, thanking the player for sharing the game and asking the audience to consider buying the game themself even though the playthrough they're watching will contain essentially everything the game has to offer — or rather, specifically because that's the case.
- Back 4 Blood has a streamer mode, which primarily functions to make one level that usually plays licensed music to use original music instead.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has options to alter the matchmaker timer to appear before actual matchmaking starts and to make every visible player's username anonymous, both aimed to stop people from entering streamers' games and griefing them.
- All The New '20s games by Wales Interactive, such as Five Dates and Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?, have a streamer mode that pauses the game at the end of all decision point timers.
- The Jackbox Party Pack, which is designed to be played with a group, has a variety of streaming-based options, such as to hide the room code so that streamers can invite their friends into the game before allowing the general audience.
- Forza Horizon 4 and Horizon 5 have a "Streamer Mode" that removes all the in-game radio stations except for the Hospital Records station, prevents music from said other stations from being played as ambient background music when the radio is turned off (i.e. only Hospital Records tracks will be played as ambient background music), and also prevents any music from being played during loading segments for a race or in the post-race results screen when the radio is turned off (whereas with Streamer Mode off, shutting the radio off does not turn off the music during those segments, and Horizon 4's volume settings does not allow the muting of music). However, in Horizon 4, this option has to be manually re-enabled on each cold start of the game.
- Because of its muting of loading and result screens, Horizon 4's Streamer Mode found a Not the Intended Use functionality with non-streaming players who want to completely mute the music so that they can play their own music in the background. As a response, Horizon 5 allows players to turn off all music by just setting the music volume down to 0, though the Horizon Arcade blimps will still play music regardless of volume setting.
- Gran Turismo Sport has "Transmission Mode", which prevents music from being played when driving, and stops all copyright and licensed menu BGMs from being played. On the flipside, in the place of said licensed tracks, the game will replace them with menu music from previous Gran Turismo titles. Using the Playstation 4 or 5's streaming functionality will automatically turn on "Transmission Mode".
- D4DJ Groovy Mix has a streamer option that thins down the song list to those that have been approved for streaming.
- HoloFunk has an alternate executable available for download that alters its contents to make it safe for use by actual hololive talents.
- Fuser addresses this in its EULA that you can stream any of its content, provided it's not archived.
- The Five Nights at Fuckboy's series has an option to replace copyrighted music with non-copyrighted alternatives that's aimed at people recording or streaming the games.
- One of the settings in LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed is Streamer Mode. When enabled, it disables licensed music tracks.
- The H-Game Legend Of Queen Opala Origins has a streamer-friendly mode which skips all the H-scenes as well as changing some dialogue to be more content friendly.
- Ribbit, a Deltarune fangame, gives you the option to pick two versions of the soundtrack when you first begin the game: the Definitive version, which contains licensed music that is more subject to copyright, and the Alternative version, which replaces the licensed songs with different ones that "prevent copyright UFOs from abducting your channel".
- While most of the radio stations in Cities: Skylines feature original in-house music that can be played without any issues, one station features licensed music and is designed to be disabled if the game is being streamed.
- Fortnite has an option in its Battle Royale mode to hide your name from players outside your squad (instead referring to you as "Anonymous"), as well as a separate option to hide those players' names from you (referring to them as "Player"). These used to be combined as a single option, called "Streamer Mode", but by popular demand, the two aspects were separated. A music copyright-related streamer mode was also added later on after emotes that play licensed music were added to the game.
- Warframe has a setting called Creator Mode. When enabled, it hides the player's email address on the login screen and suppresses several common spoilers that show up in gameplay.
- In Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades the spectator window can be tailored to be either first or third person camera (over the shoulder) and in first-person view mode you can increase the field of view, reduce view pan speed and reduce head tilt angles to make it easier to watch the stream without the motion sickness-inducing effects of the player looking around quickly.
- While Doki Doki Literature Club! doesn't have a proper option for streamers, it does detect if the player is recording the game and alters one event late in the game to protect their privacy. When Monika begins talking directly to the player in Act 3, she will address them by their name which, depending on the version of the game played, will be their PC profile's name, their Steam user name, their PlayStation Network ID, their Xbox Live gamertag or their Nintendo Switch account name. If a PC player is recording and/or using specific pieces of software (eg. OBS), or if they are on PS4/PS5 or Xbox One / Series S/X and are using either console's recording or streaming capabilities while running the game, Monika instead chastises you for bringing an audience.
- In Dream Daddy, the hipster music lover romantic interest's route includes a minigame during which a raucous song by the real-life band PUP plays... unless the player has the game's streamer mode activated, which replaces the track with a slow, goofy, amateurish acoustic guitar number apologizing that copyright striking is a thing and telling the player to listen to the song that's supposed to play for the segment once they can.
- Rust has a streaming mode that hides all server names and randomizes player names as a means of preventing griefing.
Non-video game examples
- The chat client Discord has a set of options geared towards streamers, including hiding personal information (namely, server invite links and username tags) and muting sound effects.
- Stern's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine has an option to replace the game's main theme (a cover of the 1987 cartoon's theme song) with an instrumental version. The README for the update that added it
(version 1.20) specifically notes that "hopefully this will help streamers".
