Major Changes In Youtube Involving Let's Players

scw55

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That's quite annoying.

Lets Plays of Pokemon Online Battles in Pokemon XY makes the "End Game" of those games more exciting.

Restricting creative content about Pokemon XY will reduce the activity. Yes, you can read How2P, but it's a lot more engaging seeing it and hearing the user's thoughts.
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I'm also upset. I wanted to casually get into 'Lets Playness' in the future by playing DotA2 as Support on ALL HEROES I ever play. I would have then got some money back from playing for my own amusement.

As a hobby I have less motivation. I may as well play normally if I wouldn't get revenue from ads.
 

waj9876

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So I'm confused. They're essentially saying "Ha, who needs all this free advertisement!?" Google...does realize that their biggest youtubers make content about/using games, right?
 

Alma Mare

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I'm baffled that so many people seem to believe that a LPer is piggy-backing on the games to get undeserved profit. Spoiler alert: he's a performer, the game is a prop for the performance. The terms on how he gets to use that prop may be up for debate, but it's definitely not a case of letting a game play itself on youtube while he goes to grab some coffee and watch the money roll in. He actually has to work on it to be entertaining.

By the way, how much of the logic being thrown around in this thread applies to streamers?
 

Thr33X

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Alma Mare said:
By the way, how much of the logic being thrown around in this thread applies to streamers?
Don't think it applies to streaming at all. In fact, I think streaming might end up being de-facto replacement to Let's Play as a result of this, which is a double edged sword. The plus is you get raw gameplay and genuine experiences with the games as a viewer, the minus (for some) is that there's little post production that can be done aside from maybe highlight videos from your stream. It also means that a lot of LPers would have to show their faces, which would automatically weed out those who aren't ballsy enough to play "for real" without editing footage to make themselves look good.
 

Danial

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miketehmage said:
Well to be honest I kind of agree with the music thing. It kind of fits with what I was saying. I mean, look at how many shitty boybands are out there who have absolutely zero talent, they sing songs that were written for them, and then have everything autotuned to make them sound good;

and they make a bazillion dollars just because they got lucky and were picked to be special(Pewdiepie)
No, they got popular because people liked them, as bad as they may be (I can't stand Pewdiepie personally) here is a demand for them and thus they make money. Just because they offend your personal taste, dosen't mean they don't deserve money.

Of course you have real talented musicians who write their own stuff and put in the time to practice (because playing an instrument takes skill, people can't just pick them up and play). And those are my "Competitive gamers".
You are comparing Apples to Oranges. Competitive Gaming is a sport, Let's Plays are Entertainment in the classic sense, These are the Daily show's and Conan's of gaming compared to the NFLs and Premier Leagues of competitive gaming. Infact, by your rules gaming sport commentary I just someone talking over footage... which leads me to the main point of my argument you skim read.

Look I'm not trying to get all LP's removed from the internet man, I'm just saying it's really shitty that all a person has to do is play a game, record it, and shout a little bit and BOOM tonnes of money.

You really don't think that it's ridiculous?
Yes I do, the reason you find them so ridiculous is one that, If applied elsewhere would be ridiculous, If all they do is talk over stuff, shouldn't the likes of Jon Stewart, Conan, Graham Norton, Any stand up comedian, any Popular Youtube Vlogger, the aforementioned Commentators on E/Normal Sports, any interviewer, any Film/TV/etc Commentary team like MST3000, Rifttrax, $5 Wrestling (more people need to go find $5 Wrestling btw) or any of the myriad of Channel Awesome shows.

Hell what is a reviewer? if not someone who just talks about something they watched or played, should the likes of High king Jim Sterling the 13th be denyed his Dragon dildo and Willem Defoe sex costume money?

If you look at you tube lets plays, there are countless thousands of ones that are just as you say, someone talking about what they see on screen or just plain recordings of them playing, these don't make a penny and usually have view counts in the 10s rather than millions.

As much as you hate PewdiePie, the popular LP's are popular because they are entertaining to their audiences. If you watch their shows, the act of playing the game is just fuel for them to make people laugh etc. Watch shows like RoosterTheeth Lets plays, Total Biscuit, Nerd3, YoggsCast, GameGrumps or any of the others ones people think I'm an idiot for not including.

Stop focusing on one Swedish prat and deciding that everyone else deserves to lose their lively hood.
 

Specter Von Baren

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Thr33X said:
Alma Mare said:
By the way, how much of the logic being thrown around in this thread applies to streamers?
Don't think it applies to streaming at all. In fact, I think streaming might end up being de-facto replacement to Let's Play as a result of this, which is a double edged sword. The plus is you get raw gameplay and genuine experiences with the games as a viewer, the minus (for some) is that there's little post production that can be done aside from maybe highlight videos from your stream. It also means that a lot of LPers would have to show their faces, which would automatically weed out those who aren't ballsy enough to play "for real" without editing footage to make themselves look good.
Blech. I honestly much prefer the good old fashioned way of LPing, let your voice and the game do the work, putting a box with your face in it is just distracting.
 

The Great Fungus

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the hidden eagle said:
The Great Fungus said:
V da Mighty Taco said:
The Great Fungus said:
the hidden eagle said:
That tells me that there are control freaks in the game industry,luckily there are consumer laws that prevent them from trying to outright control the things people buy.
That's why they make it clear that you're only buying a license. The disc is yours. Nobody can take it away from you. But what's on it, the bits and bytes, belong to the publisher. And they make the rules.
The thing about the whole "product or license" debate is that it's not clear even on a political level (the true rulemakers, so to speak). Not only do individual people have different yet equally strong stances on this, but so do governments. As an example, the U.S. judicial systems tend to side with the idea that all software is a service and the customer must abide by the terms of the license, whereas the EU tends to view software that's sold for infinite use at a flat one-time fee as a product and must strictly adhere to consumer rights laws.

In other words, this is not a debate that can be won from either side on internet forums, but instead must be decided on a political level. Until then, it's highly unlikely that this age-old debate will ever go anywhere but in circles.
I agree completely. My point was merely that games have always been sold as licenses and we've never had complete control over them. I know the EU has allowed digital copies to be resold despite what EULAS used to say. However, I'm not aware of any other rulings regarding the ownership of games.
Incorrect,video games have always been considered as products until recently with the game industry trying to subvert consumer rights by claiming people don't "own" the games.Such a notion would have been laughed at 10 years ago but now we have gamers believing the games they have aren't theirs despite buying them.
I just downloaded Half Life: Day One. It's a pre-release demo of Half Life that was released in 1998. In addition to copying it, Sierra's legal information also says you're not allowed to broadcast or do a whole lot of other things with it. How's that not a license? Just as V da Mighty Taco said, to what extend you own your game depends on your local laws. I'm not defending the current system. All I'm saying is that the situation seems to be in favour of the publishers; at least in the USA.
Specter Von Baren said:
The Great Fungus said:
the hidden eagle said:
Specter Von Baren said:
So I finally made an account just to reply to you two.

One question: Why do you guys think EULAS are called EULAS (End-user license agreements)?
I just read the last page of my GTA 4 manual. And there it clearly states that by purchasing the product you buy a license.


On topic: While I don't want innocent people to lose their livelihoods, I don't think anything of value would be lost if LPs disappeared.
So all of those NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Playstation, Playstation 2, X-box, DS, PSP, ect. ect. games that people have sold are all being illegally sold to other people or businesses? What the EULA (At least in physical form) means is that you are not allowed to do stuff with the actual software involved with the game like distributing it to other people. The pixels on the screen that are producing an image are not the software, they are the end product of what the software is doing but a person can't replicate a video-game by looking at gameplay footage.

That's what makes a video-game different from a movie, if someone uploads a movie to Youtube, that is the final product, putting up the movie has replicated the product without permission and in a way that can lose the makers of the movie, money. Putting up a video of me playing Earthbound is not going to allow people to play Earthbound, just as uploading me playing a song is not going to allow someone to replicate the violin I used to play it.
No, i think selling physical copies was and always has been legal unless you ripped the code from the cartridges or discs. And I agree that watching a movie and a game isn't the same thing. But regardless of your sentiments, publishers have the right to shut you down if the courts declare that you can't broadcast gameplay sessions.
 

Specter Von Baren

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The Great Fungus said:
But regardless of your sentiments, publishers have the right to shut you down if the courts declare that you can't broadcast gameplay sessions.
Which, to my knowledge, hasn't been done yet. There hasn't been a court ruling that says you can't broadcast yourself playing a game and talking about it while doing so.
 

Aesir23

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While I don' think that LP videos should be monetized, I do dislike the idea of this crackdown. One of the reasons I watch LPs (aside from being entertained) is to see whether a game is possibly worth buying since rental stores have pretty much gone extinct in my area.
 

Erttheking

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I really don't see how this could be considered beneficial in anyway other than serving corporate greed. I'm gonna be pissed if Achievement Hunter goes under.
 

AgedGrunt

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Honestly don't see why, with any amount of common sense used, IP owners simply wouldn't take a cut of the ad revenue. They'll literally make money with free advertisement of their games to millions of people. Popular LPers literally knock websites offline from the traffic they cause as viewers go check out and buy new games.

All in the name of "protecting" IP... You have to be a completely inane, greedy ignoramus to see LP as an IP threat and look like a cave troll rather than find ways to tap into such a huge opportunity to advance marketing strategies, make money off LP and likely increase sales.
 

Foolery

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I've seen lots of posting here or there about how this will ruin people's lives and livelyhood. Ok. Listen. Do you think it was wise of them to solely base their income on the mercy and whim of a video hosting site? I don't.
Youtube is a private corporation that operates under its own terms and policies. That is the reality. They don't owe anybody, anything
They chose to share ad revenue with content creators, and they can choose to revoke or modify how that is done. Their site, their rules.
 

sinterklaas

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Kinitawowi said:
lacktheknack said:
When said hobby cuts deeply into my time to the point that I can't hold a full-time job at the same time? Yes.
Wait, what!?

Does the word "priorities" mean anything to you? My full time job cuts massively into my hobby time. What do I do? I suck it up, make what time I can for my hobbies, and pay my rent from the money I earn from actual work. If your hobby means that you can't keep a job, you need to rethink a few things.
The thing is, it isn't their hobby! Being a channel like TB or AngryJoe means you have to commit 100% to making that content. It is only fair they get paid for producing entertainment.

This isn't about a random dude making shitty ass videos for 1 hour a day after school in his mom's basement, no. This is about people who have passion for this and put in tons of time (and money for equipment!) to make videos that people want to watch. If they don't get paid, they won't be able to produce quality content and therefore we are left with the videos from the aforementioned dude.
 

yundex

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sinterklaas said:
Kinitawowi said:
lacktheknack said:
When said hobby cuts deeply into my time to the point that I can't hold a full-time job at the same time? Yes.
Wait, what!?

Does the word "priorities" mean anything to you? My full time job cuts massively into my hobby time. What do I do? I suck it up, make what time I can for my hobbies, and pay my rent from the money I earn from actual work. If your hobby means that you can't keep a job, you need to rethink a few things.
The thing is, it isn't their hobby! Being a channel like TB or AngryJoe means you have to commit 100% to making that content. It is only fair they get paid for producing entertainment.

This isn't about a random dude making shitty ass videos for 1 hour a day after school in his mom's basement, no. This is about people who have passion for this and put in tons of time (and money for equipment!) to make videos that people want to watch. If they don't get paid, they won't be able to produce quality content and therefore we are left with the videos from the aforementioned dude.
TB and angry joe will be unaffected by this change though. And if an LPer is really so "committed" that it takes more than a few hours of outside work, I don't see why they couldn't ask for donations from fans.
 

PuckFuppet

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Someone, somewhere, is being incredibly petty. It is worth noting that Google is, ultimately, protecting its own interests here. Chances are most publishers wouldn't be that bothered about LP videos if they hadn't already invested millions in advertising, all of which can mean nothing in the face of a good YouTube content producer yaying or naying their game.

It is the advertising agencies that work with and for those publishers, and google is still an advertising giant first and foremost, that stand to profit from this situation.
 

The Great Fungus

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Specter Von Baren said:
The Great Fungus said:
But regardless of your sentiments, publishers have the right to shut you down if the courts declare that you can't broadcast gameplay sessions.
Which, to my knowledge, hasn't been done yet. There hasn't been a court ruling that says you can't broadcast yourself playing a game and talking about it while doing so.
I think you're right. Maybe this whole thing will end up being a turning point for EULAs as we know them.
 

The Great Fungus

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Rellik San said:
As a general rule of thumb, I deign LP's that include cut scenes to be potential theft of IP, but if it's just purely gameplay with commentary, all the game has provided is a rule set for play, a board and it's playing pieces, surely the actual enjoyment of that comes from the act of playing and commentary just as no matter how impressive a boardgame is, enjoyment is derived from playing it, not marvelling at the pieces?

And with EULA's ruled by many parts of Europe and other nations to not be legally binding contracts or licenses, surely then there is a clear cause for debate on this matter?
Well, as others have pointed out, IPs are a whole 'nother beast. Video games, as I see it, are a much more sensory experience than board games (if that makes sense). So the comparison doesn't really sit well with me. But I don't know enough about this to form an informed opinion anyway.

And yes, I agree that it's high time to decide how valid EULAs really are.
 

gargantual

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The pubs are just trying to lock down every avenue of seeing game quality for what they truly is. If they really cared about protecting IP they would've come out against lets plays from the start. Good experience, crappy experience, they want to make sure you'll never know till you drop 60 bucks.
 

Grey Edwards

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Gethsemani said:
I am surprised this didn't happen sooner. Both the EULA and copyright laws are pretty clear on the fact that using an entire, or parts of a, computer game to make money is considered a copyright infringement unless you have some kind of consent from the holder of the copyright. This is essentially Youtube adapting its' policies to abide by the law (and to avoid lawsuits, no doubt) while still giving LPers a fair chance of keeping up their work as a non-profit venture with the permission of the copyright holders.

I can't say I am very upset by this and I can't really see all the nefarious scheming people seem to read into this. Copyright laws are what they are, even if gamers are notoriously bad at adhering to or respecting them. I mean, you'd get sued to the moon and back if you made a Rifftrax-style voice over to a movie and put it on Youtube, and we all accept that. But having someone do the exact same thing with a computer game and getting a cease and desist and suddenly it is BigDev trying to screw over consumers?
An excerpt from the US copyright law's doctrine of "fair use":

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Now, Let's Plays do technically violate this act however. Also from the same page:

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The originally quoted poster is correct. Using clips from a game for reviews and the like are perfectly fine, even if you're making money off of it, but you can't just post the entirety of the game online for others to see and make money from.