There is a big difference. He wants to see if a group of people, can steer the direction of a community involved experiment. The stream is open-ended in how this can be accomplished. It doesn't even have to be him, it can be another group of friends just setting up how the game continues.
It's a social experiment, anything is acceptable in this case.
No it's not counter-productive. The channel is a social experiment, anything goes.
One can argue everything done in the channel is counter-productive.