Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure role-playing video game. Released by Polish gaming company CD Projekt RED, Cyberpunk 2077 is considered the most anticipated game of 2020.
The story that takes place in the dystopian metropolis Night City, showcases the world inside the Cyberpunk universe, an alternate future where crime and murder are high and common.
And here, the game quickly propelled itself to be one of the most viewed game on Twitch.
Twitch is an American video live streaming service operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv, Twitch is the platform of choice by many streamers around the world to stream themselves playing games.
And Cyberpunk 2077 is no exception, as a number of Twitch streamers are quickly streaming the game as soon as it came out on December 10, 2020.
Despite having some issues in some of the game's gameplay elements, AI limitations and some technical issues at launch, Cyberpunk 2077 is praised for its narrative, setting, and graphics.
Cyberpunk 2077 however, is a game filled with nudity.
The ESRB rating summary of Cyberpunk 2077 reads, “The game contains nudity and sexual material: Players can select a gender and customize their character; customization can include depictions of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as various sizes and combinations of genitals."
In the game's character creation for example, players are allowed to customize their character's genitalia and other parts of the human body that are usually concealed. Cyberpunk 2077 also displays nudity throughout various points in the game.
That's something that Twitch doesn't normally allow on its platform.
"Nudity and sexually explicit content or activities, such as pornography, sexual acts or intercourse, and sexual services, are prohibited," according to Twitch's community guidelines.
Since the game's release, and soon after people realized the theme of the game that includes various nudity, a lot of gamers started commenting on Twitter, expressing their concerns on how it will be handled on Twitch, knowing the platform's nudity restrictions.
The concerns mirror those previously held by gamers with the popular video game series, The Witcher, which was also developed by CD Projekt Red.
Twitch maintains a list of games that are prohibited on its platform, which include games that have a ESRB rating of Adults Only and that violate its community guidelines.
For games that have not been banned, Twitch's policy states that "when interacting with in-game nudity or sexual content in a permitted game, users may only spend as much time as is required to progress."
In other words, as long as streamers don't make nudity the focus of their game while they stream, they won't be in violation of this policy.
Streamers that don't comply with the rules will risk "enforcement action" against their Twitch account. This can include account suspension or being banned from the platform.
This is the case in Cyberpunk 2077.
On its community guidelines, despite saying that sexually suggestive content or activities are prohibited, Twitch said that some game can be allowed in "educational contexts" or for "pre-approved licensed content, in each case subject to additional restrictions."
In the hyper-sexualized world where human bodies are commodities, depicting naked human bodies is part of the game's theme. And because the game is so highly anticipated, Twitch had to make an exception for Cyberpunk 2077 streamers.
With a little ease on the restriction, streamers big and small quickly roll through the game, as they’re showcasing the game's many bugs and its epic storytelling.
As a result, Cyberpunk 2077 that has imagery of human genitalia and nipples, quickly propelled itself as one of the most viewed games on Twitch.
"Users can play Cyberpunk 2077 on stream provided they progress naturally through things like character customization and do not spend significant periods of time focused on sexual content or nudity," a Twitch spokesperson explained to CNN Business.
In the game Cyberpunk 2077, players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat.
"V" can either be Vincent or Valerie. V's gender, appearance, attributes, perks, and lifepath are all customizable and have an impact on the whole game.
The story surrounds the dystopian future that followed an economic collapse sometime during the early 21st century, at the time when the U.S. was forced to rely on large corporations to survive.
In the Cyberpunk universe, the many companies that operate above the law deal in a wide range of businesses, including weapons, robotics, cybernetics, pharmaceuticals, communications, and biotechnology.
And in Cyberpunk 2077, the game takes place in Night City, the most violent and dangerous metropolis of the corporate-ruled future.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a continuation of the events of Cyberpunk 2020, that takes place in an alternate path to that of Cyberpunk V3.0.
