'Realm Royale' Removes Player From $25,000 Tournament For Tweeting
Realm Royale esports might not be ready for primetime yet. Dreamhack Atlanta and the Hi-Rez Expo hosted a Founder's Tournament with $25,000 on the line. 100 people fought it out in three rounds of the battle royale to determine which victor would earn the cash prize. One of the contenders was Overwatch streamer Brian "Kephrii" St. Pierre, who noticed something a little odd when he sat down at his station and set up for the tournament. If he looked over his monitor, he could see the entire game map and the locations of everyone in the game. Half of the players in the tournament were set up in the direction of the jumbotron, giving them a ridiculously unfair advantage.
There was no delay on the stream, meaning players could see in real-time where there opponents were. Location is paramount to success in a battle royale and you can't trust players not to use every advantage they can get when a large amount of money is on the line. Kephrii tweeted about the situation and how the admins said there will be no changes.
Imagine being @RealmRoyale and hosting a $25,000 Tournament where the main spectator POV and IN GAME MAP are on display IN REAL TIME with NO DELAY, right in front of the competitors. I was advised by admins there will be NO CHANGES OR DELAYS added. pic.twitter.com/D29swhL6KP
— Brian St. Pierre (@Kephrii) November 18, 2018
Hi-Rez DryBear, the Design Director of Realm Royale, tweeted that they "had many admins walking the rows and disqualifying players who turned around or lifted their heads." One of the admins on the Mixer stream, said that "we've been down in the area and if the player is focused on playing, it shouldn't be a problem." Kephrii continued to tweet, causing the Realm Royale admins to tell him that he would get disqualified from the tournament if he didn't stop. He chose to quit the tournament, alongside his partner Gale_Adelade.
I was advised by @RealmRoyale if I continued to tweet I would be removed from the tournament. I said I wouldn't stop tweeting about it. @Gale_Adelade and I are officially out of the tournament.
— Brian St. Pierre (@Kephrii) November 18, 2018
Realm Royale just entered Closed Beta and is still trying to figure itself out. When the game was first released in Early Access in August 2018, players flocked to the new magical take on the battle royale genre. Streamers like Tyler "Ninja" Blevins thought the game offered competitive gameplay with chickens while still being fun to watch. As the months went on, patches were released that fans weren't particularly fond of. Realm Royale pulls in around 4,000 players a night, very far off from it's all-time peak of 104,000.
Newsweek has reached out to Kephrii and Hi-Rez and will update this story with their comment.
