Day One: Garry's Incident Devs Accused of Censoring Bad Review

[Something Amyss]

The part I find the strangest is that the company thought they could get away with doing it. Did they honestly expect him to keep quiet and say nothing?

They might get away with it yet, no matter how much TB says.

Not gonna lie, im surprised this hasnt happened before. I thought it would be common sense not to try to silence someone through a pretty noticeable policy, but someone did it. The bigger thing is they did it to TB, who is BIG, so he is going to say something to his fans about it.

A little bit of 'Wow' and 'I knew it was coming' mixed together.

Well, this HAS happened before. TB even mentions it.

The developers are idiots... any other reviewer and this would just go away, but not fucking TotalBiscuit. TB is an asshole, and loves to take shit personally, so of course there'd be a backlash from this.

Strikes--even false strikes--can shut down your channel, which is his business.

I mean, I don't like TB and I think most of his rants are completely self-serving, but come on, why would you not take it personal when someone tries to end your job?

True, however what TB does is simply a different approach to the same job. He plays the game, then publishes his opinion on it, then viewers upon hearing his opinion decide whether or not the game in question is what they want, just like your regular review.

It's mostly semantics, though, and changes little. Fair Use Doctrine applies to criticism and commentary. Even if we accept that poster's premise that it's not a review, it doesn't matter. It was splitting hairs, but the end result is the same.

 

[Olas]

The irony here is that I'd have never heard of TB's negative review were it not for this story, and I imagine that's true of many others as well. By trying to erase the review Wild Games simply brought more attention to it, and themselves.

Anyone else REALLY want to see TB's original video now?

 

[Legion]

The part I find the strangest is that the company thought they could get away with doing it. Did they honestly expect him to keep quiet and say nothing?

They might get away with it yet, no matter how much TB says.

I should clarify that by "Get away with" I am referring to no consequences. They may have the video down, but the damage to their reputation is large enough that I think they will find it hard to recover. Unless they change the name of their game like the people who made The War Z did...

The irony here is that I'd have never heard of TB's negative review were it not for this story, and I imagine that's true of many others as well. By trying to erase the review Wild Games simply brought more attention to it, and themselves.

Same here. I don't follow TB, but thanks to this I know yet another game company to avoid. This was essentially what I meant in my earlier comment. They really should have seen how this would come back to bite them.

 

[Carrots_macduff]

they really couldn't have picked a worse target for their false copyright claim bullshit if they'd tried.

fuck the DMCA. situations like this clearly illustrate who it is meant to serve, and it is clearly not copyright holders or content creators

 

[blipblop]

The TB video is back and on there facebook page they say an "official statement will be announced in the coming hours".
yesterday they removed negative FB post and today they are feeling the streisand effect and totaly made a u-turn

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Anybody noticed the fact that Wild Games Stuido themselves posted a review for their game on metacritic? 10/10 well done guys.
Yeah, this is like that whole WarZ thing a while ago, except worse.

 

[RaikuFA]

And yet no one barely called out that russian actress for removing persona videos.

BTW she's still doing it apparently.

 

[SpaceGhost]

Zachary, et al., I posted this last night, so it happened fairly quickly:

Well, that was fast. Per Luke Plunkett via Kotaku http://kotaku.com/studio-accused-of-blocking-youtube-vid-over-criticism-1448796126 :

[blockquote]We contacted Wild Games for comment, and were told by "Stephane" that, "after seeing all the negative impact today we decided to withdraw our complaint to YouTube."[/blockquote]

 

[Sansha]

The developers are idiots... any other reviewer and this would just go away, but not fucking TotalBiscuit. TB is an asshole, and loves to take shit personally, so of course there'd be a backlash from this.

This is ridiculous in itself - censoring reviews is bullshit, but this game is pretty evidently shit anyway - they had a perfectly good opportunity to create a very minimalist and really challenging survival game... but no, magic macguffins.

so its alright for them to try and ruin his job and basicly get him fired, since they don't like his review. but him taking it personally is a no-no.

if someone did that to you, you would take it personally since it would well and truly wreck your shit.

What? No, while I don't like the bastard, I'm on his side. What I mean is any other reviewer, as in someone without the connections and voice to get it reversed.

 

[blipblop]

official responce from wild games studio just came out on there FB page:
#Copypasted
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Official Statement regarding the YouTube video ?WTF Is... : Day One: Garry's Incident ?? from TotalBiscuit

We sent TotalBiscuit a Steam key on September 26th, giving him permission to evaluate Day One: Garry?s Incident.

Monetizing wasn?t mentioned in our communications and it was an error on our part to not have clarified the issue.

It was for that particular fact that Wild Games Studio had asked the video?s removal.

After the video was made unavailable, we have taken seriously the reaction from the community concerning freedom of expression.

We strongly believe in the freedom of expression of people and medias and have removed our copyright claim.

Wild Games Studio didn?t intend on preventing anyone from using their right to freedom of expression.

For this reason, Wild Games Studio sincerely apologizes to TotalBiscuit and anyone who felt that their freedom of speech was denied.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

wow what a smoking pile of lies as it has alredy been stated that other youtubers has monitized on this game and not been taken down by WGS

 

[Ishal]

Edit: I really need Jim Sterling to cover this.

I would absolutely love to see Jim do a rant about the shenanigans . I can only imagine the anger he would bring to this....

Would really surprise me if we didn't see something from Jim about this down the line. With Nintendo pulling some bullshit with the Pokemon trailer they had the AUDACITY to show in the Co-optional podcast Jim was on. Now this? Two youtube copyright things in such close proximity warrants discussion.

 

[RaikuFA]

Edit: I really need Jim Sterling to cover this.

I would absolutely love to see Jim do a rant about the shenanigans . I can only imagine the anger he would bring to this....

http://www.destructoid.com/day-one-garry-s-incident-developers-censoring-criticism-263945.phtml

You're welcome. Also, that header image is scary as fuck. I assume it's from the game.

 

[Something Amyss]

IMO the worst aspect of it is how this affects international law. The DMCA thing is a US law, and I sit in Denmark. I shouldn't be subject to US law. Sure, youtube is a US company... but the internet is global. What we ideally need are copyright laws that are equal across the globe...

The DMCA is a formalisation into US law of WIPO treaties which were signed not only by the US, but by much of the world. Denmark is a signatory to the same treaties according to Wikipedia.

However, the fact is that Google is a Us company abiding by US laws. You're free to host things that apply to your version of the WIPO treaties on a site hosted out of Denmark, but we're still talking a US company following rules. The internet may be global, but Google's corporation is not.

Further, when you're hosting on someone else's site, you're abiding by their rules.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

well obviously youtube's copyright system quite flawed and it need serious improving due to company's being able to do shit like this. Also the copyright law and needs improving as well

The CEO trying to censor totalbiscuit using a copyright strike(trying to fuck with his job) when he has a large channel, many viewers/subs, and is backed by polaris. This move by the CEO was beyond a stupid which is proven by the negative PR and reputation they now have.

Of all the critics to try and censor... Wild Games Studio goes after the one who has a law degree.

yes that does not help wild games either

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Honestly, this speaks to how green and generally immature the devs are. Being critiqued implies that you're likely to receive opinions that go anywhere between "laudatory" and "scathing". If you can't stomach the idea of someone hating your game and you've entered the gaming business, something's wrong with you.

 

[Lunar Templar]

And yet no one barely called out that russian actress for removing persona videos.

BTW she's still doing it apparently.

yeah :/ something needs to be done about that

 

[ResonanceSD]

TB is probably the worst target for trying to pull stuff like this.

Only 2 harder targets exist. Yahtzee Croshaw and Jim Sterling.

 

[DerangedHobo]

So this tubby fuck is all butt mad that he bad mouthed someone's work and then that person turns around and throws a little shit back? Yes, it's wrong, yes, Youtube got bent over a proverbial barrel but I don't see all the shock and awe over the dev's reaction.

And why is YouTube getting a lot of flak for this? I'm pretty sure the copy right system itself is borken and fair use only goes so far. I'd show a little bit more respect to someone who is signing my pay check and maybe give it a bit more than 24 hours before I get out my soap box and talk about how YouTube is so evil and call for revolution because a video of mine got taken down.

 

[thewatergamer]

All I can say is this reeks of the attitude of the War Z devs and because of that reason Wild Games is officially on my dev/publisher blacklist