Rainbow Six caster Jess quits streaming Siege over toxicity and assault threats

After receiving an increasing amount of abuse while playing the game, Rainbow Six caster Jessica ‘Jess’ Bolden has revealed that she will no longer be streaming Siege as the situation continues to worsen.

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Having previously worked on top-tier events, including the Six Invitational as an analyst and multiple regional Majors, Jess has been a stalwart in the Rainbow Six community.

Her knowledge of the game is far ahead of a majority of the playerbase and there’s no doubt she’s a highly capable teammate, commentator and player.

On February 15, Jess revealed that she will be taking a step back from streaming the game she loves after the abuse became so frequent.

Posting a video to Twitter, Jess detailed the fact that she loves Siege and has thousands of hours streaming the game exclusively — but that’s now set to change.

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“If you’ve been watching me recently, you will have seen that it’s become almost impossible for me to stream in the Oceanic region,” she said. “Toxicity is a nightmare. If you were watching today, I got threatened with severe sexual assault. The N-word was raining left, right and center.”

Jess continued: “It’s gotten to the point where I can’t play this very easily on stream. It’s very hard to keep it together when every game you either have someone refusing to play as a team and inciting toxic behavior… It’s become almost impossible to stream this game without feeling like it’s taking a toll on me.”

Going forward, Jess says she’s not going to be streaming Siege, at least for the coming week, possibly opting for other FPS games instead.

Fellow Siege caster Parker ‘Interro’ Mackay reiterated Jess’ point, saying that “the past 6 to 8 months have been the absolute worst for streaming/playing R6.”

Jess acknowledged that developers Ubisoft are “at a crossroads” with systems in place, but that people like queue snipers and griefers can identify her and act accordingly.

Toxicity in online gaming seems to be a given, no matter how hard developers try to counteract it. Whether Jess’ statement prompts Ubisoft to find new ways to combat toxicity remains to be seen.