Phil Fish believes game-streamers owe revenue to the developer.

[Racecarlock]

Let's players already get ad revenue, so there's no need for the publishers to pay them as well.

But here's the thing. Not only did they already buy a game, which is like lamborghini demanding a cut of ad revenue from videos of lamborghinis, but in the end it is, yes, free advertisement. The fact is even if the game completely sucks and the let's player totally bashes on it, you're still going to get the morbid curiosity crowd. The crowd who says "Ooh, that looks terrible, I'd better see it for myself.". So while you might make less sales, you'll still make sales.

Even if you didn't, the god damn let's player bought the fuckin' thing. Some games may be more like movies than others, but saying let's plays are akin to piracy is fucking ridiculous.

And how convenient, right? You've got david braben going against used sales first. Then the democracy 3 guy says "No, I don't want sales, consumers have too much control, fuck that.". Then this douche has to come and demand that either let's players pay him for the very privilege of uploading some gameplay footage of the game, and other people (Wild something games, Muxwell) strike down negative opinionated let's plays.

I honestly think that these guys want an industry where you buy completely blindly at FULL PRICE into every piece of shit that gets shoveled into your face. No reviews, no used sales, no regular sales to lessen the risk, no let's plays to let you know if the game is worth it. They just get their money and fuck you in the process. Or the let's players have to pay the developer money to make their own video and essentially advertise the game without the developer having to do any work nor paying the guy, but they want money from the guy.

This is fuckin' stupid, and I really think these developers need to get their entitled little hands out of our pockets. And they need to stop trying to create an industry where nobody ever buys anything because they're too afraid to buy anything because nobody ever gets any information anymore other than trailers and dev diaries, both of which promise jesus but then you get shit when you actually buy it. And then, undoubtedly, they will then go "Why aren't people buying our games anymore?" like the whiny, entitled fucks that they are.

Not a huge fan of the democracy dev after I asked him a question about features of social engineering which he mocked and then later puts in as an expansion, but what exactly did he say about consumers having to much problem?

Here it is. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.845408-Positech-Games-Boss-Calls-For-An-End-To-Deep-Discount-Sales

I actually had to google it because it turns out the title of the article does not mention he's the democracy 3 dev and that's what I was searching through my bookmarks for.

 

[Doom972]

He can believe whatever he wants, but seeing someone playing a game isn't like playing it yourself, so the viewer doesn't actually get to experience the game. It's basically free publicity for games, since people might want to buy a game if they see someone else play it and it looks like a good game.

The problem with that theory is that there is no evidence to back up your claims. Sure, you and quite a few other people might have bought a game because of a Let's Play, but there isn't any evidence of Let's Plays contributing a signifiant amount of increased sales. Likewise, the developer's statement that Let's Plays discourage gamers has no evidence because there isn't hard data to back up either statement. It's an unknown entity so either excuse will not hold.

The other problem is that what constitutes a video game? You say that you HAVE to play something to truly experience it. Well, Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, the entire Visual Novel and other book-like genres wouldn't exactly count as a video game then, would it? Because me personally playing Disgea Infinity really isn't that different from me playing it. Look, Let's Plays can be claimed in some circumstances, open world sandbox games like Minecraft, which is dependent on player creativity for fun, is more reliant on the player to find fun than the game itself. However, we cannot use this one example and apply it across the entire field of video games because that definition has encompassed so many different things.

My point was that seeing someone playing a game isn't like playing it yourself - which is why watching gameplay videos isn't like letting people experience the game for free. Whether or not it contributes to a game's revenue is only a possible perk - it wasn't my reason for why it's OK to make gameplay videos or LPs.

I'm not going to get into the discussion of what is a video game.

 

[Atmos Duality]

As for advertisement, a LP can be that, but it can also be anti-advertisement and in any case it is still unasked for, so the LP isn't doing the developer any real favor.

This is true. It can drive people away.
Because LPs are the hardest truth in advertising you can get. They expose the real gameplay and not just the parts the producer wants you to see/advertise. It's true transparency.

And that transparency is a BENEFIT for the business in the long run. History proves this.
A lack of transparency was a huge contributor to the crash of 83' because nobody had any idea what few games were good in the sea of exploitative shovelware shit. Consumer trust evaporated, and the market crashed.

Following the crash, firms appeared specifically to provide more critical coverage to games (mostly magazines and small time reporters).

Shovelware and bad games never disappeared obviously, but we haven't had a crash since. Why? Because the consumer has the ability to become better informed, and that ability forced the producers to step up their game; to exploit what gamers like rather than what gamers don't know.

Fast forward to today, and LPs are helping to fill that important role WHILE (potentially) being entertaining.

I'd argue that LPs are becoming even more necessary as the critical press becomes less trustworthy to consumers and more beholden to the same companies they're supposed to keep in check. (Doritogate and collusion is a very real problem in gaming, as much as we try to ignore it)

But back to the main point:

Suppose a developer makes a shitty game and someone LPs it. That exposure will drive down sales.
And that's good. Bad for the developer, but they earned it.

Conversely a good game that gets exposure drives awareness up and generates interest in the hobby as a whole.
That's transparency, and LPs are absolute in it.

The other major benefit, is that assuming the game is worthwhile, the developer who put that effort into their game doesn't have to pay extra on advertising; which is only growing more pricy over time since a given "mark" (that's us) only has so much attention to divide in their daily life (and many marks are becoming increasingly tired and resentful towards overt advertising).

Buying exposure, actual exposure, is difficult, risky (it's possible you have the right pitch, but the wrong audience, or wrong direction to reach the right audience) and pricy because it's so competitive.

LPs bypass two of those issues, because gamers are the most likely population to be interested in watching LPs, and the LPer is (almost always) independent of the source material, so it doesn't cost the producer anything.

It works in practice: I've bought MANY games that I never would have because of LPs and with no instances of buyers remorse vs "traditional" shopping and critiques. I just bought Defense Grid and it blows my mind how I missed that title given how much I enjoy tower defense titles.

All that said, I will acknowledge that certain kinds of games lose value due to exposure, good games even, but they're a tiny minority compared to the bulk of what gets made. (that, and it's simple enough to not watch LPs of puzzle games or the like)

In that, I think LPs, while not perfectly fair to producers, still provide an overall net benefit to the market as a whole by promoting transparency and providing advertising directly to those in the audience who are most interested in it.

 

[maxben]

snip

You've written a very long very well thought out argument about how youtube lpers might affect the sales of various games, and that's great. However, you cannot convince me that in any of those cases sales are lost. I really just can't imagine someone who wants to play a game, seeing an LP, and then saying "ok, I'm good now". Even if these people did exist as a statistically significant population, I will bet that in all cases more people will purchase the game after seeing an LP then those who will change their mind (barring of course the game being objectively awful, but at that point I support people being warned about sub part products).

Unless we could get the numbers that prove it one way or another, I will stick with the above.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I kind of agree. It is, after all, the developer's work, and if you're going to do a whole playthrough of it in terms of a Let's Play video, then you probably should pay a tiny bit of a royalty. Nothing more than maybe five percent though, not to the extent that he was clearly stating.

And if you're just reviewing a game, or talking about a small section of it, then I don't think you have to pay anything.

I agree with this sentiment. Given the number of people I know who will only watch Let's Plays of games, love the game and never buy it since they feel like they've already experienced it. I think it's particularly bad with games like FEZ though, where it's a puzzle game. Who's going to play a puzzle game once they know how solve every single one of the puzzles after watching through the Let's Play?

I think there should be some method of sharing revenue with the developer, as well as some regulation on how much you can show of the game. Some games it's not as much of an issue though, games like Minecraft I think it's great. It's a sandbox, and you're seeing what players make of it, it does a huge service to advertising the game. But games where the story is a large part of the experience, or puzzle games like FEZ? It'll do more to satisfy people's desire to have played it than give them the desire to buy it.

I think it'd be a good idea to give devs some control over this, they can opt for a certain cut in revenue from Let's Plays up to a maximum percentage. This would be a good way to reflect how much the game benefits or is harmed by Let's Plays. If you want them to advertise the game, opt for a low or zero percentage. If you don't, opt for a higher one

 

[TelHybrid]

So basically he thinks youtubers should pay developers for what is essentially free advertising and coverage.

Youtubers should not be subject to paying developers, if anything it should be the other way around (hypothetically in this scenario though that would be after prior agreement was reached obviously).

That's like if there were still video game TV shows like Cybernet or Gamesville and they had to pay developers for showing their content, or IGN and Gamespot paying developers to review their games.

He's just being a tool as usual and trying to squeeze some final pennies from Fez before it completely fades and loses its last traces of relevance.

 

[scotth266]

To quote Fish back at Fish: "Suck my dick. Choke on it."

The copyright war waged on internet content creators has always been stupid. If someone's uploading whole songs or movies, then fine, that's clearly not cool. But if someone re-uses content in a way that produces something original, then the person who produced the new content deserves to be rewarded for their creativity.

The music industry has paved the way for this argument. Remixes are a creative effort: it takes hard work to produce a good remix, and while you're using someone else's content, what is produced is original. The same goes for spoof trailers or the Movie Sins series. Similarly, footage of games is "remixed" by adding commentary, or jokes, or visual gags. And even when the footage doesn't have these things, it can still be original - glitch videos for example, or speedruns.

My friend made a video of me, him, and two other friends goofing around doing glitched runs of World 1-1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lkscbT1aoA] in Super Mario Bros. for the NES. That video got flagged under the system for copyright infringement because the Mario song was playing in the background as part of the game audio. And that's bullshit.

 

[JochemHippie]

I've never understood this view on it. Well, I guess I can see it.

However all it really is, is free advertisment. They should be giving the streamers and content creators for that, Youtubers have made several indie games great.

 

[The Goat Tsar]

Let's players are really just giving free advertising to games. I have bought and want to buy several games that I would not have otherwise heard of if not for Let's Plays.

The only reason a developer would want his game to not get free advertisement on youtube is if it's an awful game (see Day One: Garry's Incident)

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Holy shit!

You're still here NewClassic?

As for the topic, Phil Fish is wrong, as he often is.

 

[carnex]

-SNIP-

Excuse me but your logic has a huge flaw to it. You don't need LP to decide. You need to see, for example, 15-30 minutes of representative video at the most! You know, that thing that Total Biscuit does.

Do you need retelling of a movie scene by scene before you decide will you see it? I sure as hell don't. Forget all other points I made, forget the amount the work each side put into end product, forget everything else and your argument falls apart at that point that you don't need to see 50-100% of a game to decide should you spend money on a game or not.

As I said this is not black and white issue. Every single instance is somewhere towards the middle of undefinable gray area. You can't re-cut the movie and earn profit from that. I would be interested to see if you can earn money by retelling movies scene by scene on a day of premiere. That would be interesting experiment even if that gives you just a small percentage of experience that some LPs of games do (depends on game and player)

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I'm sorry all i heard in my head while reading that statement was 'Wagh I want more money...*sob* I should have all the money and get free publicity too *throws toys out of the pram*'

Was there something else?

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I also think that if you do a full LP and get money of it, it's not unreasonable to owe money for it
Edit: It starts to get annoying that anytime a company asks to look at something from their side they are immediately booed and hated for daring to want income with stupid justifications of "the idnustry gets too much money".

Interesting view point, would you also then say that the person doing the youtube lets play should get a percentage of the profits from the game sales? They are after all providing free advertisement and promotion of the game in the public consciousness. Something that cost's the industry millions each year.

...usually if someone wants a game they'll immediately buy it rather than being spoiled by the LP so you're hurting the sales.

Also can you please explain what you mean by this...it doesn't really make sense. Because if you want the game and then buy it then how does a LP hurt the sales of the game?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Short-sighted bullshit.

Of course, current copyright law in many countries and YouTube's current philosophy deems his opinion the right one.

He totally fails to realise that outside of those big companies who have the momey to pay for huge amounts of marketing and advertising, smaller developers will lose a massive opportunity to promote their material and widen the reach of their products. I can't count how many games I've actually discovered through youtube and individual content producers.

Instead of spewing his bile at those people, he should be looking at YouTube itself. Which, because of its massive monopoly, is reaping ever more ridiculous margins of the income while simultaneously trying to ram its own policies down everyone's throat. Maybe if they didn't do that, there would be more room to give ad income to the devs too.

It looks to me like a whole bunch of people are sharpening their knives, preparing to cut open the goose with the golden eggs. Except they all forgot how that tale ends.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Excuse me but your logic has a huge flaw to it. You don't need LP to decide. You need to see, for example, 15-30 minutes of representative video at the most! You know, that thing that Total Biscuit does.

In a perfect world, that would be true and I would have nothing more to say.
Of course, in a perfect world, Phil Fish would possess a the character of a well reasoned adult and not some insolent man-child who throws tantrums.

Some of us aren't satisfied with critical review because of collusion of opinion, and that problem has NEVER been more evident in the market's history than today. I want to trust folks like TotalBiscuit (and for most games, I do trust TB's method specifically).

But many review sites that offer representative footage will employ selective editing so you only see the parts of the game they've been paid to review (I've seen this a LOT on the biggest professional sites, and even some small time youtubers).

And beyond that, an LP can easily drive up demand of a game through exposure anyway. Some folks don't watch entire LPs specifically so they can experience the game themselves because it looks like something that's more fun to play than to watch.

Being able to choose and trust is something I value dearly, especially in an industry that seems hellbent on stripping the few consumers rights and protections I had to begin with and loading the deck so everything they produce looks better than it is.

If the market would stop trying to act more and more like con-men, I'd be questioning monetized LPs myself.
But until that day comes, I am unmoved by the spiteful whining of folks like Mr. Fish.

Do you need retelling of a movie scene by scene before you decide will you see it? I sure as hell don't. Forget all other points I made...

I'll forget this one as well because you're falling back on that broken "Video game = movie" argument.
Sorry, but the two mediums are not comparable. If we're jumping mediums for the sake of comparison, might as well argue that someone will get the same exact experience from watching The Godfather as they would reading the original novel.

The difference between the type of audience involvement in a video game and a movie isn't something minor that you can gloss out of convenience, because audience (player) involvement is the FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY OF THE ENTIRE VIDEO GAME MEDIUM.

For most games, the public performance will differ.
I've already covered the unfortunate caveats (games whose challenge comes entirely from puzzles), but to pitch all of that away just so some butthurt developers can wield totalitarian control over their products is not a reasonable trade to me.

In an economic sense, if LPs go, I don't see how producers will be motivated to do better.
In practice, removing transparency encourages exploitation and I'm frankly sick of that as it is.

 

[carnex]

-SNIP-

Yes, they can drive sales up, just like they can drive sales down. And that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with quality of game. It can have to do with presenter or type of game for example. Read my comment on second page for example of those.

Also, reviewers can be good and can be bad. That's why you have a TON of them in all three forms (written, spoken, video). The bid that you need to see full game before you make up your own mind doesn't make sense. Not to mention it can easily, not only damage, but totally break the experience of playing said games.

A for whining Mr. Phill, all I can say is that if he is characterized as that as a person who actually worked his butt off, i can't even find a term for tubers that do essentially little to no work (I don't consider their playing games as work, they are not reviewers therefor they have full free choice to play just what they enjoy) and then complain about creators complaining about them piggybacking on their work.

-SNIP-

You really shouldn't forget about it since I have made a fair comparison. In both cases we get flawed experience and the size of a flaw depend on genre/type of movie/game. I certainly would watch martial arts or action spectacle movie after you retell it to me scene by scene but certainly would not watch spy thriller of high drama after i knew all the twists.

And as I said earlier, whoever finds fair solution to this problem is greater man than I am. I simply can not tell people that worked hard, often against their own health and other forms of betterment to shut up when someone uses their product, with little alteration, to earn their living. Character of said people has nothing to do with idea that this kind of behavior is right or wrong.

As for TB's opinion, I would like to see how he would react to someone downloading his videos, striping the video, re-cutting the audio, pasting their own video underneath his words and posting it on their own channel. Hey, it's a transformative work, maybe even more so than you playing a corridor shooter or a puzzle game.

Anyway, my solution would be this. IF you don't earn money of video, it's a free world. If you do up to 10% of simple gameplay length is OK (not necessarily continuous footage,maybe greater pecentage), for more than that, contact the bloody publisher/developer for permission and ask for it. We all have our digital signatures or we can get it cheaply to sign online documents. And work it out with them.

But that actually leaves slew of gray areas so it's not really the best even in my eyes.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I also think that if you do a full LP and get money of it, it's not unreasonable to owe money for it
Edit: It starts to get annoying that anytime a company asks to look at something from their side they are immediately booed and hated for daring to want income with stupid justifications of "the industry gets too much money".

Interesting view point, would you also then say that the person doing the youtube lets play should get a percentage of the profits from the game sales? They are after all providing free advertisement and promotion of the game in the public consciousness. Something that cost's the industry millions each year.

Except as I said, and also said in the Jimquisition, LP's do not give any reason to buy the game, rather the opposite, if you know what happens you are less inclined to actually buy the game, I watched Outlast and Dead Space lP's and I don't want to buy them because I already know the plot, even if the seem good.

Also, making an LP, even a fancy one doesn't cost anything except time, maybe you need to buy a few programs and you usually have fun making it.

Well that's one opinion on it sure but I'm the opposite. I've watched LP's before and then went out and bought the game I was watching the LP of more than a few times before. For example, Supream Commander, Crysis 2 & 3, Fallout 3 and Dishonored just to name a few.

For some people having the plot spoiled isn't such a big deal. I play games because I enjoy both a good story and a good challenge. Just because I know what's going to happen in the plot doesn't mean I enjoy the game any less.

I'd argue that at worst then LP's don't do anything to affect the sales of a game and at best they may influence a person who's on the fence about a game to give it a shot.

To address the point about LP's not costing anything then unless the person doing the LP is pirating the game then they must have spent money to buy it so that's money going to the game studio. And I think to make a quality LP then that's another couple of hundred on things like software and a good microphone. So there is definitely a little bit of an investment involved.

What the industry should do however is get some proper empirical data about exactly how LP's effect sales of games if at all otherwise it's all just conjecture and opinions with no evidence to back it up.