They ghosted a lot of the medium size channels that were CDPR-friendly; and by this I mean the ones that were "important" enough to send branded merch to and had back channels with.

Think they are very nervous about the launch. From the sounds of the bugs, they were right to be.

They don't really, I believe streamers are only allowed to stream an hour today, and that's it. I think that's pretty acceptable considering we're within 12 hours of release.

spoiler alert: they did

Really? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Zuan05Afw&t=533s well, not trying to make you look like a "I" to a "T" but they literally said not to stream before the game is released. This game has not been released yet but they gave us the preload.

Today is the 9th, the game is expected to be released now and still we shouldn't be streaming or posting videos on youtube or everywhere else. Other than that, they got the early access and none of those devs are making money for it. If devs were smarter, they should have streamed the game themselves and not the people who never worked for CDPR. Hell, i'd be damn happy to watch some spoilers from CDPR but not from anyone else.

I think when they say "don't stream" that was said 1 not today but a few days ago 2 they meant unlimited streaming. The reason I say an hour+, is because all the livestreams I saw were an hour in length (or so, maybe I'm mistaken and it's 2 hours) and all were promptly finished.

Well I see one that started at noon CET - almost 10 hours ago. And there are several more that probably didn't get the memo about a 1/2 hour limit.
I just hope it won't be too buggy when I start playing tomorrow morning.

Well they are advertisiing gameplay and they are big players in the German scene.(although surprisingly the biggest of them all is missing)
Of couse I did not check their streams for fear of spoilers so their descriptions might just be clickbait...

I can agree that it is garbage that streamers play early and get a free copy.. Its not like its the bigest game this year and thy need exposure to sell the game....

Exposure? This game has been the single most hyped game of this generation, every gaming channel has extensively covered this game, there are ads for this game everywhere, countdowns on steam and gog with a prominent banner, dozens of trailers and dedicated streams/conventions, thousands of memes and the controversy of this game being delayed 4 times... What more exposure could this game need?

They did this because that's what the board of investors agreed, I work in this enviroment and the conversations go like this

'ooo my son keeps talking about this tich or twich thing, they say he found out about a game through some streamer, hand out a few free copies, that will surely prop up sales no?' everyone agrees and the CEO does it.

It doesn't hurt anyone but we have been so blue balled by all of the above, the community has given so much to this game and the people that actually suport this game and have to pay for it are the ones that get to play it the last, when the video-game 'jornalists' and streamers have already done so...