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Kotaku: Jim Sterling Uses Brilliant Workaround For YouTube's Copyright Bullshit

I still don't get the near cry-baby complaints that surround Nintendo's youtube policies. They have a perfectly reasonable program set up if you want to make money off their games. It's just the greed fueling the average youtube personality prevents them from taking the deal. So they sit back and complain as if Nintendo is straight up denying them any opportunity to profit from videos featuring their content.
because people creating video reviews and other editorial content should not in any way be subject to lose advertising revenue to Nintendo
 
If he was even remotely correct, Firewatch wouldn't have sold over 260K copies on Steam alone.
Now you're showing data that is even less of a good hint than his.

In my opinion it heavily depends on the kind of game, the current price and also the type of LP (and personalities providing the LP/YT-Chanel).

Personal example:
I bought Life is Strange because of a LP, that I only watched up until mid episode 2... also the game was on sale at right that time; I wanted to experience the rest for myself first before I'd watch the rest of that LP. On the other hand, I watched the Dave Lange Extra Lives playthrough of Until Dawn and that was enough for me, no need to play it myself, even though the game would be absolutely worth my money. It could easily have went for Until Dawn like it did for Live is Strange if I had a girlfriend who had never heard of the game and likes slasher movies that I would like to play it with, but that's not the case.

Its not a case of absolutes though, much like piracy numbers are never a case of one torrent = one guaranteed lost sale.
I thought of the same analogy.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Now you're showing data that is even less of a good hint than his.

In my opinion it heavily depends on the kind of game, the current price and also the type of LP (and personalities providing the LP/YT-Chanel).

Personal example:
I bought Life is Strange because of a LP, that I only watched up until mid episode 2... also the game was on sale at right that time; I wanted to experience the rest for myself first before I'd watch the rest of that LP. On the other hand, I watched the Dave Lange Extra Lives playthrough of Until Dawn and that was enough for me, no need to play it myself, even though the game would be absolutely worth my money. It could easily have went for Until Dawn like it did for Live is Strange if I had a girlfriend who had never heard of the game and likes slasher movies that I would like to play it with, but that's not the case.


I thought of the same analogy.

Firewatch and That Dragon, Cancer are both narrative-oriented games.
 

Zynx

Member
It's a creative idea, but won't bringing attention to this prompt youtube to simply change how their system works?
 
It's a creative idea, but won't bringing attention to this prompt youtube to simply change how their system works?

Considering the Content ID system is completely fucked as a whole, Youtube SHOULD be looking at changing how the system works.
 
This varies greatly between YouTubers and depends on the audience and type of content.

PewDiePie's audience is mostly 12 year old children without a disposable income, while it's not unheard of, he very rarely generates enough interest in a game to cause a spike in sales (like he did with Skate 3).
His viewers don't go to his channel to get information on games to make a better purchasing decision, they go there to be entertained by his antics.

TotalBiscuit on the other hand has an audience that is mostly 25+ so likely has a job and therefore disposable income.
His videos are made as a buyers guides, people go to his channel to get information on games.

This is what is important, audience. PDP has 43million+ subscribers but his impact on sales is negligible, TB has 2.2million, twenty times less, but there are several games that had 0 marketing budget and managed to sell on his video alone.
One example of the top of my head is AntiChamber. The only noteworthy coverage the game had at release was TB's video (and I think there was an article on RockPaperShotgun). The developer said in a Polygon interview the sales in the first 24 hours blew peoples expectations.

Audience type is a very good point to make, Skate 3 was pretty much the exception in PewDiePie's case, considering his audience and there hasn't been a consistent spike with other games that he LPs. Not to mention the fact that other people were documenting the hilarious glitches that the game had, so naturally people would be interested in experiencing the glitches for themselves. Furthermore, audience can be linked to what I said about certain LPs having an influence on sales being dependent on the LP content itself.

At least LPs for online games help the user get an idea about the metagame and strategies, which in turn sustains the continued play of MMOs, Multiplayer games, and so on. It's hard to prove that it results in increased sales considering it relies on people having hardcore knowledge of the game(s), but nevertheless, sustainability is the key for those types of games. However, when it comes to new releases as you mentioned, it varies with certain content creators. TotalBiscuit having an impact makes sense considering his videos are mostly about informing customers. I just wonder how strong the correlation is considering there are other possible extraneous factors such as a company's marketing and generated hype, as well as a gamer's continued interest in a series/famous developer's project. Additionally, there are possible factors that could go against buying a game, such as economic constraints, where LP exposure result in people saying that watching others play is good enough, rather than experiencing the games for themselves. All I'm saying is that it's difficult to say if there's a clear cut correlation.

Someone mentioned retro games, which I don't think applies in this case because the developers aren't making money off of the games (unless you have the rare cases like Square Enix who IIRC still occasionally reprint old games from PS1-DS era in their online marketplace, and even then there are questions such as how many copies are produced, how many get sold before SEnix puts people on the waiting list, etc).

It's a creative idea, but won't bringing attention to this prompt youtube to simply change how their system works?

The cynic in me says that YouTube would rather punish Jim than change its obviously broken system.
 
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