Popular VTuber and Twitch streamer CodeMiko is known for her creative streams that allow viewers to get involved by influencing parts of the broadcast. She uses her setup and virtual character rig to engage with her audience—which averages nearly 8,000 viewers per stream—and fellow content creators through various segments and interviews.
The Technician, or the developer behind Miko and the stream, does all of the coding, engineering, and rigging herself and is always pushing the level of interactivity with the broadcast forward, describing it as “a quasi-interactive, RPG.”
The nature of some interviews, however, has led to Twitch banning Miko from the platform, including two short-term suspensions in September 2020. She found herself suspended from the platform yet again when her account was banned on Jan. 19—this time for two weeks. Neither Miko nor Twitch clued the streamer’s audience of nearly 360,000 followers in to what caused the ban. Following her third ban, Miko spoke with Dot Esports about what led to the suspension, how she approaches content creation, and her future plans, including details about her return stream planned for Feb. 5 at 2pm CT.
In an interview she revealed – So I have this interview content and basically feature other streamers. During an interview, they often share things with me and send it to me to show on stream. So they will share it and I will put it on screen. At this particular moment, we were talking about female harassment online and I asked her what was like the worst comment she had ever received. When I saw the email, it was pretty bad and was more like a threat than a comment. From my experience, threats are almost never from a user’s actual email address, but when I threw up the screenshot, that is basically what got me banned. I violated terms [of service] around privacy. Obviously, my friend didn’t mean for this to happen, she is very sweet, and I think we both overlooked it because we were so focused on the threat of the email, but I learned my lesson.
The person behind the virtual streamer
WANNA SEE SOME TECH?!! This is Miko being mocapped live by technician with facial tracking! pic.twitter.com/a3A5gLWANv
— Miko (@thecodemiko) November 29, 2020
The Technician uses an Xsense suit and Unreal Engine to power Miko, and in her Twitch about section even reveals that “the devving/engineering is all done by me and Miko was 100% modeled by me + rigged.” The streamer went viral on Twitter back in November after revealing a side by side clip of the mocapping process, leaving people in awe of her tech setup and how well her movement translated over to the 3D model. Describing how her stream operates, the Technician explains that “this is a quasi interactive, RPG, livestream where it’s kind of like an arcade and a game and a stream and an RPG at the same time. It’s crazy, just know that.” Viewers are actually able to interact with Miko’s model and alter aspects of her appearance, along with being able to tamper with her stream using Twitch’s currency Bits, with things like explosions, muting & and unmuting, and more.
CodeMiko has collaborated with some huge creators on Twitch, in part contributing to the VTubers rise in popularity, with streamers such as Pokimane, Hasan, and moistcr1tikal appearing on stream with the 3D model. While Miko already appears super elaborate, the creator explains that this version of Miko is actually a prototype, and that Miko 3.0 is premiering on January 1, 2021. The date has certainly got viewers anticipating how Miko will have been improved, and with Miko’s popularity on the uphill climb, it looks like exciting things are in store for viewers.
Codemiko’s Statement
Before I started the interviews I would just talk to chat all the time, but having another person that I could interview, I don’t know. I just feel like my content became funnier because I could bounce off of someone, what they said, create more humor with that back and forth. It just led to more funny moments and chat really liked the interactivity with the streamer I am interviewing. I think it kind of created a very fun, sometimes chaotic, sometimes more serious atmosphere.
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When I interview someone I can figure out where their comfort level is, which I do ask them prior to the interview what they are comfortable with sharing and not sharing and if they are okay with me occasionally trolling them on some things, all of those things. Some streamers I take a very laid back approach and we can be more calm or serious to have a nice talk, but with others, I know they are all for being trolled and the humor part of it so I can mess with them a little bit and it becomes a fun back-and-forth. Overall, the interview format was just really fun, and was doing really with chat so I decided to keep going and innovating with it.
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