Major Changes In Youtube Involving Let's Players

[x EvilErmine x]

I don't understand why these companies even care if someone is making money with videos of their games. It's not like they're taking away their profit. It's just corporate douchebaggery.

It's about corporate greed, and that's the only reason for doing it. They will try to spin it so it seems reasonable but we can all see through it. Basically the publishers have seen the revenue that people doing let's plays can get and they have decided that they want in. So yeah you are right.

I wouldn't worry too much though, I'll all fall through when all the big name Lets Play people inevitably move to another service provided that's not quite so draconian. It cold even be the beginning of the end for you tube...a hell of a lot of the traffic on that site is related to gaming after all, lose that revenue stream and we could be seeing youtube heading the way of myspace or livejournal.

 

[Rancid0ffspring]

SNIP

But the LP's are making money out of someone elses property. I'm pretty sure ost EULA's state that a game can't be used for personal profit. Shouldn't the LP's pay some royalties to the owner of the game? As we all know, when you purchase a disk/digital copy of a game you're purchasing the license to play it. Same with a film or album.

The game doesn't become your property. Similar to the pre-owned game market. Publishers introduced online passes to ensure they were being paid for people using their games. While I never liked it I most certainly didn't disagree with it. Why should anyone get to use an online service that they haven't paid to help maintain?

EDIT: Try yet another perspective. Dave has worked his arse off. Dave finished some project that'll make his own and Jane's life easier increasing both of their productivity. Jane takese credit then gets a pay rise.

Dave's life has been made easier which is nice but no pay rise. Jane is reaping the financial reward from Dave's work. Why didn't Dave get a raise? Jane has done nothing to earn it other than use Dave's idea.

Incase people can't wrap their head around this....
Dave = Game's Publishers
Jane = LP's
Idea = Game

 

[michael87cn]

Well crap. There goes my regular entertainment. This is basically going to lay off so many people. This really sucks.

Worse than SOPA. Now Youtubes going to go back to being just random dude15's posting half of a video then quitting, using horrible quality mics and randomly screaming. ugh, if you remember the youtube I'm talking about...

In response to this gamers need to make their own streaming video website. Fucking google, man. Once companies get big enough they just become soulless.

^ To above poster, yeah whatever. Gameplay is completely different from music and movies. Youtubers WERE paying royalties by garnering advertising and sales. Minecraft never would have happened without youtube. That said, watching a video of someone playing a game doesn't diminish your desire to buy and play the game yourself, if anything it promotes interest.

 

[lunavixen]

It's going to hurt quite a few of the smaller LPers who are trying to get their channels established, even some of the bigger channels are going to end up downscaled I think a lot of them will move to other sites and smaller ones will stop.

 

[Mid Boss]

My girlfriend and I always look up let's play videos before we buy a game to judge whether or not it's worth our money. If those companies don't want our money then we can find someone else who does. It's as simple as that. Just don't come around bitching about how unprofitable you are.

If you want to do Let's Plays stick with indie games. They are overjoyed to have the exposure and sales.

Sounds like Youtube is slowly becoming more and more of a corporate whore. It's time for a new video streaming site to rise up.

 

[Multi-Hobbyist]

====================================================================
Now then, a little conversation between us forum posters:

1: What do you think of this sudden change happening next year?

2: Are you worried about your favorite Let's Player's future?

3: Do You Think This should have happened a long time ago, and are proud of Youtube's Decision?

4: Anyone think that Video Game Crash is going to happen due to this being one of the factors?

5: Which Let's Players do you think would be fine with this outcome? Which ones do you think would not be?

6: Freestlye Final Thoughts - Your take on this with a good conclusion?
===================================================================
You may now post.

1: Sudden? This has already been happening. It's just swinging into a more ... full effect next year.

2: I hate Let's Plays. I hate Let's Players. I haven't watched a single video all the way through. I gave 2 best friends play a chance, but fuck was that a mistake. As bad as PewDie. I'll never see the wonder and joy a bunch of others do in watching someone else play a game. And the fact that these gits are basically getting paid to play video games without officially being a play tester, I'm all for taking money outta their pocket. If they're serious about their dedication and love for games, they'll continue to do it for free. The ones that start crying are the ones that were only in it for money.

3: Like I said, it's already happened. Am I proud of it? Well, yes and no. Yes because it's the right idea, no because Youtube will probably get too carried away and go over the gorram hedge.

4: This may possibly CONTRIBUTE to the video game crash, but this being a primary factor? That'd be even more hilarious. If a primary factor, then the VG industry deserves to crash even more. No, what will be the cause for the VG crash, I believe will be these companies running THEMSELVES into the ground. Trivial console wars, unfinished products (both in consoles and the games themselves, see: EA) and all around poor, repetitive quality games (see: spunk-gargle-weewee). It wont matter when the spunk-gargle-weewee genre's flame finally flickers, there will always be another go-to genre to become the new spunk-gargle-weewee.

5: Could never answer in a million years if I tried. Nor do I care.

6: Final thought? Hooray. Less money for let's players. Hopefully a lot of 'em will go away and do something more productive. Or at least, get paid doing something that's worth being paid for.

 

[irok]

Corporations need to stop , stop trying to take money out of everywhere , its not to be found and for a lot of lets players im sure it will simply mean less or no videos at all, these people as much as they may love what they do will simply not be able to afford the time taken to do it anymore and the games are simply not going to get free advertising. Its not like people are either going to buy the game or watch the lets plays and if any company slaps on a I don't want you to make videos of our stuff at all sticker I'm personally going to assume the worst, I think I vaguely remember a time when game companies made games and if they were good games people would buy them rather then trying to make money via games and sucking out all that doesn't have to be there and monetizing every possible aspect without a thought to the consumers who it pays to keep in the dark, but I may be wrong and maybe that's always the case.

 

[Mid Boss]

To be honest I don't really care one way or the other. I think it's incredibly greedy for a Let's Player to expect to see revenue from his videos. Gaming is a hobby, recording yourself play games is a hobby. I don't expect people to pay me to waste my time or watch me play a game in a very mediocre fashion. If you do then you're far too entitled and don't really care about the content you're presenting.

Any real LP'ers would continue to make videos even without the promise of advertising revenue because it's done for love of the medium not for lining their pockets. Anyone who says differently has an alternate agenda.

The companies in question have every right to halt that revenue or take it themselves. You're doing nothing but voice your opinions/reactions to a game that they conceived and developed. They own it, they own the rights to it and the world doesn't owe you shit.

That's right! Let's stop paying Football, basketball, hockey, etc etc players. Sports are a hobby. It's incredibly greedy for those people to expect compensation for it too! Any real players will keep playing even when the money stops.

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

If it's only for the monetized ones then by all means go for it, I view using let's plays as a means of making money to override any Copyright protection let's players can lay claim to. It'd be like Dreamworks streaming a Pixar movie under the guise of fair use and then making money off of the stream. Now if this is going to go for all let's plays then that's a bum deal because some people actually do focus on the game, and give solid critiques without asking for money in return.

 

[irok]

SNIP

But the LP's are making money out of someone elses property. I'm pretty sure ost EULA's state that a game can't be used for personal profit. Shouldn't the LP's pay some royalties to the owner of the game? As we all know, when you purchase a disk/digital copy of a game you're purchasing the license to play it. Same with a film or album.

The game doesn't become your property. Similar to the pre-owned game market. Publishers introduced online passes to ensure they were being paid for people using their games. While I never liked it I most certainly didn't disagree with it. Why should anyone get to use an online service that they haven't paid to help maintain?

EDIT: Try yet another perspective. Dave has worked his arse off. Dave finished some project that'll make his own and Jane's life easier increasing both of their productivity. Jane takese credit then gets a pay rise.

Dave's life has been made easier which is nice but no pay rise. Jane is reaping the financial reward from Dave's work. Why didn't Dave get a raise? Jane has done nothing to earn it other than use Dave's idea.

Incase people can't wrap their head around this....
Dave = Game's Publishers
Jane = LP's
Idea = Game

Dave's pay rise comes in the form of increased sales because in a thousand views maybe 10 people will be convinced to buy into Dave's idea. Jane spends many hours a week editing and recording to get a thousand viewers, the payoff of which while it may be something Jane enjoys doing will still end up being much less then the cost of the game, even if it was an indie game Jane would require a lot more viewers to compete with the cost of buying the game in the first place and the only way to attract more viewers is to spend more time producing more content which as we've already said at a mere thousand viewers isn't going to pay for itself.

If it was about who worked the hardest for no financial reward look no further then how indie games treat this differently then companies, worried that somewhere somehow they are losing money , companies prohibit videos lest people find out that their game is horrid and soulless, indie companies know that videos increase sales as they have a game worth buying as it wasn't designed by accountants and they have nothing to hide, no bottom line to sell or quotas to meet, simply free advertising or at the most philanthropic free happiness and goodwill.

Also for the whole intellectual property thing and making money off games im going to say this, take everything out of a lets play that didn't come from the game itself, everything that's from the lper and leave the game, being played without commentary , without editing and without any quirky gameplay habits or random creative diversions "what happens if we/I do x", what do you actually have left, hour long videos of the game being played which would be amazingly stale and boring ,that and all the lets plays are the same ,its not the games lp'ers are making money off, no , not really they are a catalyst , a means to an end , the product is in fact personality , I watch yahtzee play obscure games from 30 years ago because I enjoy the analysis and snarky commenting the game changes and it doesn't matter its still the snarky commenting and that's what I was after anyway its if your a gamer a relatable situation in which to plug personality but nothing more and that doesn't belong to anyone but themselves and I think if that's what people are viewing videos for then they have a basic right to monetize themselves and really do these companies need more money , they cant figure out what to do with the money they've got and what would most of them do with random pocket change anwyay.

 

[Headsprouter]

Oh, balls. That's somebody's living destroyed.

Well...PewDiePie won't be affected much, since he mostly plays indie games (albeit the same ones over and over again).

CaptainSparklez, on the other hand just had a huge dump taken on everything besides Minecraft. I expect a sad vlog from him this week.

Either there's going to have to be a "Channel Sparklez" (obvious parody of Channel Awesome) or he'll have to go a new video hosting site.

And TheJWittz might have to shoot down that non-nintendo footage possibility if he wants to stay put. This is so sad, though, especially for the channels that are still growing.

"Merry Christmas"

 

[EHKOS]

This is pretty bad news for NCS and Chugga. The Creatures should be OK due to them being under the Machinima umbrella, but damn that sucks. It's not like they were going to have their own fucking playthroughs made by a company-hired professional. Let 'em make a little cash off it, some of them use it to make a living. And didn't Nintendo say it helped sales? Because honestly it does, if I wasn't allowed to see real in-game footage of Black Flag I would never have bought it.

Agh. It just pisses me off that they're shitting on the little guys again.

 

[Hap2]

Doesn't this set a precedent for companies to have all forms of game footage that isn't a review de-monetized though?

I'm guessing Let's Plays don't fall under the Fair Use/Fair Dealings clause of copyright law, because they aren't necessarily critical, nor are they a parody.

This worries me, because a buddy and I are working on a different kind of video series that isn't necessarily critical either.

 

[Rancid0ffspring]

SNIP

But the LP's are making money out of someone elses property. I'm pretty sure ost EULA's state that a game can't be used for personal profit. Shouldn't the LP's pay some royalties to the owner of the game? As we all know, when you purchase a disk/digital copy of a game you're purchasing the license to play it. Same with a film or album.

The game doesn't become your property. Similar to the pre-owned game market. Publishers introduced online passes to ensure they were being paid for people using their games. While I never liked it I most certainly didn't disagree with it. Why should anyone get to use an online service that they haven't paid to help maintain?

EDIT: Try yet another perspective. Dave has worked his arse off. Dave finished some project that'll make his own and Jane's life easier increasing both of their productivity. Jane takese credit then gets a pay rise.

Dave's life has been made easier which is nice but no pay rise. Jane is reaping the financial reward from Dave's work. Why didn't Dave get a raise? Jane has done nothing to earn it other than use Dave's idea.

Incase people can't wrap their head around this....
Dave = Game's Publishers
Jane = LP's
Idea = Game

Do you realize EULAs are basically worthless?Better yet enough with the "poor publishers" card because quite frankly they already make millions yet want even more,it's called greed and I don't care what analogy you use to excuse it.

While we're on the subject games are someone's property considering you freaking bought it,so stop saying it's only a license because that is a load of bullcrap.Lastly most publishers don't make the games the developers under them do,for example EA did'nt make Mass Effect,Dragon Age,Dead Space,or any of their other big titles but they sure do like to take credit for it.

Using your logic should the devs get all of the money while EA gets nothing?

Chill out mate it's a discussion.

The publisher would have fronted significant amounts of money to ensure those games did get made. So of course they get a cut if not all of the money. They're the parent company that's investing all the money. Forgive me if I'm a tad lacking on knowledge of business models but the Publisher does what? Nothing? Or do they pay the dev's employee's wages for X amount of months/years? Pay for marketing/advertisement? Distribution?

The made up company my 2 made up people work for get all the money because they pay the wages. The 2 minions work for a company. They earn that company money. That's what a job essentially is.

No! Devs and Publishers aren't losing money to LP's. LP's are making money out of the Devs and Publishers work.

Answer me this, why do the LP's have the right to make money of someone elses work?

 

[GoaThief]

That's right! Let's stop paying Football, basketball, hockey, etc etc players. Sports are a hobby. It's incredibly greedy for those people to expect compensation for it too! Any real players will keep playing even when the money stops.

There are professional gamers, e sports and all the rest of it which will continue to operate as usual. This does not affect them. Even if it did perhaps you're not familiar with the likes of Rugby Union where only a decade or so ago it finally became professional. Your analogy is terrible. LPers are not cyberathletes (for want of a better word).

Actually found out how much these LPers are making today, some modestly popular guy on YouTube was taking home £3500 every month for a mil or two views, not to mention the freebies - that's way more than the people who made the game. It's totally out of whack and completely understandable why developers and publishers might be a little cheesed off. If they are greedy, then LPers must be even more so. Kicking up a fuss about having their pay reduced to something line with what they do, tsk.

 

[Drago-Morph]

They're getting paid to advertise your content, and you're not the ones paying them, and you want to shut it down.

Great job, game companies. Bunch of fucking geniuses over here, clearly.