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Rumor: Youtube Getting tough on video game monetization in 2014

Lindsay

Dot Hacked
Take away their commentary from the videos, leaving only game footage: I won't watch.
Opposite for me!

http://abload.de/img/jimsterlingxvfru.png

Thank you based jim on the point as always.
Hows it make 'em stupid? Publishers are always releasing bullshots, cg trailers, embargoing reviews, etc all right up until the games in the wild! They're manipulative jerks sure but stupid for wanting to control how their product is seen at large? Dun think so.
 

Elvick

Banned
Unless every publisher and developer does this, it's not going to really change much. It'll just change what these people play.

So everyone gloating, be prepared to be let down, because tons of indie developers love LPs for exposure.

Commentary? You don't need a video walkthrough for commentary. Unique gameplay? Lol, so like everybody who plays the game.\
wat... I play Sonic, I may beat it, but I suck at it. If it weren't for speedrunners, I'd never see the games be played masterfully.

If it weren't for LPs of Beyond, I wouldn't have seen other outcomes of the game that were different from my playthrough.

And on the other end, I can see people who have no idea wtf they're doing being idiots and trashing a game they suck at as shitty. *looks at Game Grumps*

People may play Mario, but they don't all jump at the exact second and they don't all fall in the same pits, they don't all get killed by shells, some don't die at all, some die all the time, some suck, some are great.

Even simple games can be played differently from person to person. I don't know why you think it's different.
 

HokieJoe

Member
Screw free advertising, we'll just blow another 100 million on marketing instead, and then complain when the game loses money.


.

Publishers can obviously take any stance they wish, but this seems to be a case of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
 

HokieJoe

Member
Totally agree. I get that these are good people doing good content, but they are making money off other people's commercial products, and they can't expect that to be an iffy area.

If they start cracking down on proper produced content I'll join the backlash, but for just commentated gameplay and the like or rehosted trailers, I get pubs wanting that back.


What about people who post videos of repairing automobiles, modding them, driving them on a track? Should automobile manufacturer's get the proceeds from that as well?
 
Some of you guys act like most of the Youtubers who monetize content are able to live lavish lives off of the content that they create. That is not the case. I think that most of the time it just covers the cost of production and time invested into it. Only a select few are really making it big with YT money. This just screams to me that you don't believe that anyone should make money doing what they love to do in a way that sustains their living. I just don't understand.
 

Garcia

Member
This is an iffy area but people making money from it aren't reselling it as their own product and to be honest cutting people off from this will damage the gaming community more than anything and in the end developers will lose out just as much.

I disagree. The gaming community is conformed by a big chunk of zealots that will forgive any kind of corporate abuse and consumer rights violation. It's been proven year after year. To have a group of people who wholeheartedly defend a service or content provider rather than look at themselves and their rights is one of the things that bothers me the most.
 
They dont own the game, they own the license to play that copy of the game. You cant do whstever the fuck you want, just because you bought it, doesnt work that way.
Holy crap, you've been incredibly brainwashed haven't you?
He is correct though, you just own a license to play they game and if a publisher decides tomorrow that your digital library is no longer yours and even with most retail games now that are connected etc,
You have no right to ANY of it.
And they have the right to revoke it at anything for ANY reason they want.

Same goes for any music/tv/movies that you own btw.
 

HokieJoe

Member
It makes no sense that a bunch of people are making money out of this, and all they are doing is putting walkthrough videos. You see, despite contrary belief, I'm pretty sure that 90% of the people who watch a video walkthrough from beginning to end aren't going to buy the game, that's why they are watching 8 hours of footage on youtube, Seriously, I didn't watch half of Beyond on youtube because I was going to buy it. That could potentially mean lesser sales.

Twitch makes much more sense in terms of free publicity if the people streaming aren't making money from it. The vast majority of the streams will happen on launch for most games, and then multiplayer games will get a bunch of exposure in the longer run. It also becomes about playing videogames, instead of playing videogames to get paid. Which is actually what happens, many of these guys buy games because the community asks them to buy the game.


I'd say your assertion lacks sufficient evidence. I generally don't watch walkthru vids for a games I don't own. The only reason I would would be to determine whether or not I want to buy the game.
 

atomsk

Party Pooper
Some of you guys act like most of the Youtubers who monetize content are able to live lavish lives off of the content that they create. That is not the case. I think that most of the time it just covers the cost of production and time invested into it. Only a select few are really making it big with YT money. This just screams to me that you don't believe that anyone should make money doing what they love to do in a way that sustains their living. I just don't understand.

Exactly. I've made $100 this year

$100

That doesn't even cover my gamefly sub.
 

Petrae

Member
He is correct though, you just own a license to play they game and if a publisher decides tomorrow that your digital library is no longer yours and even with most retail games now that are connected etc,
You have no right to ANY of it.
And they have the right to revoke it at anything for ANY reason they want.

Same goes for any music/tv/movies that you own btw.

Indeed. Another big reason why I'm not buying any more new consoles. Publishers have all the power they want-- and then some-- and I don't trust them to afford me the same levels of access and freedom I'd enjoyed for decades before Internet connectivity supplied the weapon necessary to enforce this "games as licenses" crap.
 
Probably force more people to stream on Twitch, and if their fanbase is good they'll become partnered and earn money that way. You can do reviews and shows on Twitch as long as they're Video Game related, so it wouldn't be a problem.

People will go where it's easier to broadcast and share content, rather than jump through hoops. It might mean less recorded content and more 'live' content, but I guess that'll change in time. Of course, someone could pre-record their show and then stream it 'live' over Twitch...
 

Garcia

Member
He is correct though, you just own a license to play they game and if a publisher decides tomorrow that your digital library is no longer yours and even with most retail games now that are connected etc,
You have no right to ANY of it.
And they have the right to revoke it at anything for ANY reason they want.

Same goes for any music/tv/movies that you own btw.

So, tell me, are you ok with that kind of abuse? If the answer is yes then you're part of the problem.

Indeed. Another big reason why I'm not buying any more new consoles. Publishers have all the power they want-- and then some-- and I don't trust them to afford me the same levels of access and freedom I'd enjoyed for decades before Internet connectivity supplied the weapon necessary to enforce this "games as licenses" crap.

This is how things should be done.
 

scitek

Member
So why doesn't Twitch use this opportunity to expand into more than just streaming? It would seem to me there could be a lot to gain by being a safe haven to displaced YouTubers in the near future.
 
If the major publishers were to actually go all out and put the squeeze on next year, it would be hit or miss.

Who would be hurt in this - the YouTube let's play crowd.

Who would benefit - the major publishers, (greater control of their image) the 1st tier of the gaming press, (IGN etc, their preview and review videos would be much more valuable all the sudden) ... and don't forget indie game developers. The smaller developers that are digital only often shun the censorship habits of the big money guys, so their games would become almost overnight the main thing to see on YouTube because they would be the only thing available.

What you basically would be left with is a bunch of let's plays of indie and some pc games done by people who aren't doing it for a living.
 

HokieJoe

Member
The publishers are just pissed that Google is making ad money off of this and not them. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but over the years, content owners have shown an unusual town-deafness towards their users and what they expect do to with content they buy.

Yes, it's a gray area, but content holders do themselves no favors here IMO.
 

Maron

Member
How has people like Chuggaaconroy been doing lately? He very frequently does Nintendo LP's so I imagine he was hit the hardest by their policies a few months back when they took the monetization in his videos away from him. Is he still uploading with no official comments?
 
So why doesn't Twitch use this opportunity to expand into more than just streaming? It would seem to me there could be a lot to gain by being a safe haven to displaced YouTubers in the near future.
Storage of archived streams is already an big problem for them so I imagine that trying to compete against YouTube would be impossible. They're good where they're at right now.
 
A lot of people who hate on youtubers don't realise or seem to have a misconception about how much work they actually put into what they do,

A lot of youtubers out there say like RadBrad but almost all of their time and effort into making those videos. It's an everyday job with no weekends and almost no down time because they're constantly playing,recording and then editing and uploading.

It's not as simple as "they sit at home playing games all day hurr durr"

Now what their commentary actually entails is another story but there's a lot of posts in here claiming that youtubers get paid for doing fuck all when it's not the case
 
So, tell me, are you ok with that kind of abuse? If the answer is yes then you're part of the problem.
hahahhahahaha no off course not but that is just the world we life in,
Is that going to stop me from buying a game on the cheap or owning a digital movie on itunes?
No because I want to be part of the conversation and if I like a product enough I'm happy to pay for it.

That said its disgusting that we have DRM and licenses to "own" something as meaningless as a digital file but that is just the world we life in right now.

You want real change in that go support the https://www.eff.org/ and vote for politicians who are for a less copyright or at least a more modern copyright pattens and drm policy for the 21 century.

But for now its just the society we life in.
 

NTom64

Member
So why doesn't Twitch use this opportunity to expand into more than just streaming? It would seem to me there could be a lot to gain by being a safe haven to displaced YouTubers in the near future.

A Youtube-like section of Twitch sounds pretty good actually. Great place to create and showcase LP's and the like.
 

Portugeezer

Member
This is terrible...there are so many users who make Lets Plays...and get a living from it.

They should have a backup really, publishers close down game studios left and right they don't care about a Let's Players income. But anything like this does indeed suck, I don't understand all the butthurt from some developers/publishers. I get it if people are shitting on a game they wouldn't like it, but unless the game is pure shit then most of the time it's just free advertisement for them.
 

xk0sm0sx

Member
People are just putting up all the wrong points.

Reviews, guides do not showcase the entire game, while Let's Plays simply does that. Speedruns, multiplayer games have unique experiences thanks to the player's skills, and the people he is playing with. Let's Plays includes the non-interactive cutscenes of the story.

The issue isn't about ethics and what's good for the community. If a player can decide to stream a game for the entertainment of others, he can do it for free. The problem lies in when somebody is getting payed when a person watches an entire game that a game studio developed. Should the player gets it, should the developer gets it, or both?

The impact of sales for a game developer due to viewer watching their game can be good or bad, just like piracy does. However, it is also possible to get the viewer excited simply by showing the gist of the game (a review), not showing the entire storyline, or revealing surprises.

How much work did the person do to 'create that content'. The length of playing that game and speaking (the same length normal players you and me take to "create the content"). Editing work (It can take very very long). Someone with such a unique skill level that viewers can only admire him.
vs
The man hours a studio put into creating that game, definitely at least a hundred times more than the person who created that game.

I've never bothered with the Let's Plays side of things, people who say haters are jealous, so are game developers jealous of Let's Players? That maybe "Man, look at him getting money just playing our game, I'm jealous of him because even though we created all these content, people are paying him instead of us. It might not be so bad if he's doing it for free."

The day GTA V got released, Let's Play videos have already popped up. How do you feel if you were the developers, letting people watching the game for free that you've worked for years, storyline painstakingly crafted, surprises getting revealed.

Or how about this, someone created a video of himself watching a Let's Play video, and commenting on the Let's Player. Then he decided to monetize it, because he added to the commentary. Does this go well with people?

Maybe a Let's Player can upload a documentary of how a Let's Play is created, showing the amount of work involved, and we can get more appreciation for how much work it takes to create it.
 

Garcia

Member
hahahhahahaha no off course not but that is just the world we life in,
Is that going to stop me from buying a game on the cheap or owning a digital movie on itunes?
No because I want to be part of the conversation and if I like a product enough I'm happy to pay for it.

That said its disgusting that we have DRM and licenses to "own" something as meaningless as a digital file but that is just the world we life in right now.

You want real change in that go support the https://www.eff.org/ and vote for politicians who are for a less copyright or at least a more modern copyright pattens and drm policy for the 21 century.

But for now its just the society we life in.

"It's just the world we live in". Great. Let's just sit and wait for things to change on their own while we keep feeding the problem. Amazing mindset.
 

Whools

Member
If this does come into effect, it'll suck for some people. I don't watch LPs of linear or story driven games, but this sucks for those who do. I guess it'll just cement indies as the games of choice for LPers. This will presumably mean many youtubers won't be able to do this as work, which could be good for culling the pool of mediocre youtubers, but in actualality the worst youtubers are so popular this won't affect them
 
"It's just the world we live in". Great. Let's just sit and wait for things to change on their own while we keep feeding the problem. Amazing mindset.
I lined out some things we can do to change this did you mis that in my post?
I don't really get your post here (sorry).
 

ShinMaruku

Member
hahahhahahaha no off course not but that is just the world we life in,
Is that going to stop me from buying a game on the cheap or owning a digital movie on itunes?
No because I want to be part of the conversation and if I like a product enough I'm happy to pay for it.

That said its disgusting that we have DRM and licenses to "own" something as meaningless as a digital file but that is just the world we life in right now.

You want real change in that go support the https://www.eff.org/ and vote for politicians who are for a less copyright or at least a more modern copyright pattens and drm policy for the 21 century.

But for now its just the society we life in.

It's only the society we live in because consumers never push for their rights.
 
If this does come into effect, it'll suck for some people. I don't watch LPs of linear or story driven games, but this sucks for those who do. I guess it'll just cement indies as the games of choice for LPers. This will presumably mean many youtuber won't be able to do this as work, which could be good for culling the pool of mediocre youtubers, but in actualality the worst youtubers are so popular this won't affect them

I'd say it's more to do with the new ability to record and upload footage that the new consoles have. Trying to stop a sudden influx of people making money from those videos

Though the ability to record they have isn't really the same as like an Elgato HD + Sony Vegas etc
 
D

Deleted member 13876

Unconfirmed Member
Supporting the EFF is indeed a constructive and positive thing to do if you're concerned about stuff like this.
 

kmax

Member
Why doesn't the publishers take a slice from the profits of the monetization, instead of completely shutting the possibility out? Google should co-operate with publishers and people who upload LP's on YouTube to develop a model which lets people upload LP's and get monetized AND let publishers earn money as well. It's a win win.

It lets players earn money and potentially live on something that they love. It brings awareness to the games which even could lead to potential sales for the publishers. The publishers get paid regardless, and the more famous the YouTuber is, the more money they make (percentage wise).

The old, current method is bad. We need an overhaul, not further restrictions.
 
Personally I think removing the monetization aspect is good. Commentary is never NOT annoying and I don't think somebody should get paid to say unfunny shit while playing a game somebody else made. I can definitely see this from the other point of view as well and can understand why some people are upset, but I think this is for the better.
 
I read the articles, and I should update my list of people who stand to gain from this to include companies like Machinima, Gametrailers, Rooster Teeth - some might not think of them as tier one media.

Also, since it sounds like the only people getting squeezed are the individual let's players... I can see them getting hired by companies like Machinima and Rooster Teeth - simple solution.
 

patapuf

Member
People are just putting up all the wrong points.

Reviews, guides do not showcase the entire game, while Let's Plays simply does that. Speedruns, multiplayer games have unique experiences thanks to the player's skills, and the people he is playing with. Let's Plays includes the non-interactive cutscenes of the story.

The issue isn't about ethics and what's good for the community. If a player can decide to stream a game for the entertainment of others, he can do it for free. The problem lies in when somebody is getting payed when a person watches an entire game that a game studio developed. Should the player gets it, should the developer gets it, or both?

The impact of sales for a game developer due to viewer watching their game can be good or bad, just like piracy does. However, it is also possible to get the viewer excited simply by showing the gist of the game (a review), not showing the entire storyline, or revealing surprises.

How much work did the person do to 'create that content'. The length of playing that game and speaking (the same length normal players you and me take to "create the content"). Editing work (It can take very very long). Someone with such a unique skill level that viewers can only admire him.
vs
The man hours a studio put into creating that game, definitely at least a hundred times more than the person who created that game.

I've never bothered with the Let's Plays side of things, people who say haters are jealous, so are game developers jealous of Let's Players? That maybe "Man, look at him getting money just playing our game, I'm jealous of him because even though we created all these content, people are paying him instead of us. It might not be so bad if he's doing it for free."

The day GTA V got released, Let's Play videos have already popped up. How do you feel if you were the developers, letting people watching the game for free that you've worked for years, storyline painstakingly crafted, surprises getting revealed.

Or how about this, someone created a video of himself watching a Let's Play video, and commenting on the Let's Player. Then he decided to monetize it, because he added to the commentary. Does this go well with people?

Maybe a Let's Player can upload a documentary of how a Let's Play is created, showing the amount of work involved, and we can get more appreciation for how much work it takes to create it.

Some exeptions like Heavy rain or Uncharted aside, Story is the least important part of a game.

Plenty of games got a lot of sales out people wanting to play it because they watched youtube vids. Minecraft, darc souls, amnesia and other horror games, multiplayer stuff like league or dota ect. Smaller games in general benefit tremendously from the videomakers making content from them.

i really doubt any game popular for comentary videos suffered from it in sales.
 
I read the articles, and I should update my list of people who stand to gain from this to include companies like Machinima, Gametrailers, Rooster Teeth - some might not think of them as tier one media.

Also, since it sounds like the only people getting squeezed are the individual let's players... I can see them getting hired by companies like Machinima and Rooster Teeth - simple solution.

The smaller channels are getting fucked over the most because they don't have the "credibility" or something of the bigger channels.

But someone like AngryJoeShow is apparently getting hit hard with it which I didn't think he would. But he has his own site he could just migrate to
 
The smaller channels are getting fucked over the most because they don't have the "credibility" or something of the bigger channels.

But someone like AngryJoeShow is apparently getting hit hard with it which I didn't think he would. But he has his own site he could just migrate to

The smaller guys just don't have any contracts with Sony or Ms or whoever - don't be surprised if Angry Joe and his content is bought up by Rooster Teeth etc.
 

Eusis

Member
By the way, now that I think about it after the CodeMasters post: is there any option for Youtube to have split monetization? I think that could be a reasonable compromise for those that want to do LPs, doubly so if it's an LP that the developers/publishers like and officially acknowledge such as Brickroad's Shantae LP.
 

patapuf

Member
The smaller channels are getting fucked over the most because they don't have the "credibility" or something of the bigger channels.

But someone like AngryJoeShow is apparently getting hit hard with it which I didn't think he would. But he has his own site he could just migrate to

I wonder how something like Giantbomb will be affect, or how dependent they are on their youtube traffic.
 
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