The popular VTuber and Twitch CodeMiko streamer is known for their creative streams that allow viewers to get involved by influencing parts of the broadcast. She uses her virtual character setup and rig to interact with her audience – which averages nearly 8,000 viewers per broadcast – and other content creators through various segments and interviews.
The technician, or the developer behind Miko and the stream, does all the coding, engineering and manipulation on his own and is always increasing the level of interactivity with the broadcast, describing it as “an almost interactive RPG”.
The nature of some interviews, however, prompted Twitch to ban Miko from the platform, including two short-term suspensions in September 2020. She found herself suspended from the platform again when her account was banned on January 19 – this time to two weeks. Neither Miko nor Twitch informed the streamer’s audience of nearly 360,000 followers what caused the ban.
After her third ban, Miko spoke to Dot Esports about what led to the suspension, how she addresses content creation and her future plans, including details about her planned return flow for February 5 at 2 pm CT.
You said you had more details about why your channel was banned, and not because of the use of the word “simp”. What was the reason this time? How long does the ban last?
Miko: It wasn’t because of the word simp. It’s a long story, but in short, I was wrong when I was talking to a streamer friend and colleague and I kind of got lost in the moment.
Was it something specific that broke Twitch’s Terms of Service?
So, I have this interview content and I basically introduce other streamers. During an interview, they usually share things with me and send them for me to show in the stream. So, they will share and I will put on the screen.
At this particular time, we were talking about female harassment online and I asked her what was the worst comment she has ever received. When I saw the email, it was very bad and it felt more like a threat than a comment. In my experience, threats almost never come from the user’s real email address, but when I played the screenshot, that’s basically what banned me. I violated the terms [of service] around privacy.
Obviously, my friend did not want this to happen, she is very sweet, and I think we both forgot because we were so focused on the threat of email, but I learned my lesson.
What differentiates this ban from the two that your channel received in September?
Yes, those were also minor slips. It’s a shame, but I just need to be more careful with things like that and work to prevent them from happening in the future.
My content is not about these things, it is about the innovation behind livestreaming and I just want to show you what I can do and the innovative side of my stream. I’m actually really excited to be back, because I’ve been using that time to work on some new things and it’s been good.
The suspension is awful, but at the same time it kind of gave me that time to really work on my stuff and I’m really excited to show it off when I get back.
How has Twitch communicated with you since your ban?
I’m hiring an account manager and I think this will help a lot when it comes to communicating with Twitch. As soon as I get one, I hope that communication will be much easier in the future.
Will you approach streaming differently when you return?
I want to focus more on the innovative side of my content and really push more towards creating fun things to drive this live interaction, in terms of mini-games that I can play with the chat and the guests during our interviews. I imagine it will be like my interviews, but with steroids.
Basically, I want to focus on adding more interactive aspects to the chat that help the mood of the interviews and the situations within the interviews, and just adding a lot of color to the content.
I’m always super excited about new things. Currently, I was only working on the content of the interview, but now, I will implement aspects of the game show as well. I have gone head on with the live and interactivity part of it. I am planning my return flow to have great streamers that I have worked with and make it a really fun event.
I am also just planning my daily content and there will be different things besides interviews.
You touched on the subject a little, but with the way you’ve been working on your content during the ban, what are your plans for your return stream?
I want it to be a great game show with my great streamer friends and I will cheer you up! It will be something that has never been done before on Twitch, in terms of how I will execute my version of the content.
Twitch has done game shows before, but they did it in a way that is very 2D with cameras and a kind of overlap where it is flat. But with my VTuber capabilities in 3D space, I can get the feeling that they are really inside a studio.
In my interviews, the streamers come on a monitor and this is how I interview them, but this way I will do this by giving them robot bodies, but their heads will be like the computer screen. Therefore, they will have certain controls on how they can move their robot bodies and will appear to be more in space, because they will have additional elements that are used in game programs, such as a podium and there will be camera cuts on the streamer with the face on the robot’s head. It will be much more engaging that way.
They will be able to interact with a wheel that they spin, there will be animations, so when they spin their character spin the wheel we will still be able to see the streamer’s expression, as their camera is being powered on the robot’s PV screen. Things like that are the feeling that my game shows give and chat can always throw fun things at us during the show, to deflect tapes or make things happen with avatars. I’m excited to debut this when I get back.
Its content has increased dramatically in recent months. How did you manage to develop your channel? What have you been doing that you think works?
I have been streaming since late March, early April and over those first few months, it was just me trying new things every day. My schedule used to be very crazy, where I would go to sleep around 9 pm, wake up at 2 am, develop until 12 pm and then broadcast. I would broadcast for about four or five hours and then eat and do other things and then repeat it all over again.
During that time, development was very difficult because I quickly coded things to just see what would happen in the chat. I was just testing it because there was no rule book when it comes to this kind of live content that says things like “chat prefers when it can generate random things, mini games and interaction that is more in the background”. I had to find out what the chat likes in that interactive space because many things worked, but many things that I built had to be discarded because in my head it worked, but when I tested it live, the chat was very bored.
Those first few months were very RnD and trying to figure out how I could have fun with the chat. And then I got to the point where I was doing the content of the interview, just during a Discord call, and I realized that the chat really liked to just sit around and watch me talk and interact with another person while being able to affect the interview for several comic ways. So, I just pushed it more and created a new environment for it with the TV and the format I use and the chat I really liked.
It was very good, so I decided to keep it for now, but I’m still researching and developing more things that I can do. One of the biggest projects I have is to create an RPG world where Miko can venture out and the bosses are like big streamers, and talk and Miko need to work together to defeat the boss, like Hasan [HasanAbi], maybe it was a giant Hasan.
It is a process that I am constantly going through and this idea may not even work. Chat may not seem like fun, in which case, I’m going to discard it and try something new, but it’s been a process of continuous development and I think that’s what I like most. I love to do things and see if they are fun, and if they are not, I throw them away. If it’s fun, I keep it and keep it that way.
In addition to the chat enjoying the content, what made you work so hard in the interviews in the stream? What was the idea behind this?
Before starting the interviews, I only talked to chat all the time, but having someone else to interview, I don’t know. I just feel like my content got funnier because I could respond to what someone said, create more humor with that back and forth. It just led to more funny moments and the chat really enjoyed the interactivity with the streamer I’m interviewing. I think it created a very fun atmosphere, sometimes chaotic, sometimes more serious.
When I interview someone, I can find out where their comfort level is, what I ask before the interview what they feel comfortable sharing and not sharing and whether they are okay with me occasionally trolling them on some things, all of these stuff . In some streamers, I take a very relaxed approach and we can be more calm or serious to have a good conversation, but with others, I know that they are all to be trolled and the humor part of that, so I can mess with them and it becomes a come and go fun.
Overall, the interview format was a lot of fun and was going really well with the chat, so I decided to continue and innovate with it.
What do you think of the growing impact of VTubers and similar styles of creators becoming more common in streaming and content creation, specifically when it begins to expand into Western markets more and more?
I think it’s great! I really like the creative side of Twitch, and it’s very exciting to see different content creators experimenting with new things and bringing new and innovative content, because it shows that you can do really cool things with live streaming only.
I feel it makes the future of entertainment in this digital format and live streaming really exciting. So, I hope it continues to expand and more new things come up on the creative side of Twitch.