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[Ranger35]

Where are you reading the bolded? 99% of this thread is about content ID matches, which prevent you from monetizing but don't remove the video and don't endanger your account.

It's more of speculation drawn from recent events I suppose, so I should have separated that from the rest of my points. If I recall correctly nintendo has been cracking down on people posting videos of their games on youtube, giving them copyright claims. So that would be a copyright strike on your account, which many youtube partners won't accept an applicant to have. Get enough strikes and your account is deleted. So for small time youtubers who have yet to monetize their videos (like me), it can be hazardous. All it takes is one person in the company to decide they don't like the video and you get a copyright claim.

But what happens when a famous youtuber gets tagged, and isn't eligible for monetization? As far as I can see this will apply to all the youtube personalities that post gameplay videos with ads. So it will send a message that youtube videos cannot make money, and if they do, they shouldn't be. Then what happens when they host the youtube video on their site and ask for donations; or ask for donations in the video itself?

Could they try and go after that money? They are getting money from donations, people are donating for the content, and the content provided is the games. So will the industry try something to make that difficult for those doing it? Providing game videos are a gray area, but as long as they fall under fair use they should be fine, monetized or not.

 

[Nasym]

So the crap will go away and thoughtful lets plays from hardcore fans who knows all the ins and outs of a random game will stay?

People who are in it for the money will find another way to reach their audience. Its the internet, not the chinese internet.

 

[daman824]

So the crap will go away and thoughtful lets plays from hardcore fans who knows all the ins and outs of a random game will stay?

People who are in it for the money will find another way to reach their audience. Its the internet, not the chinese internet.

It's not about being in it for the money. It's about supporting yourself. If you want me to spend most of my day creating, editing, and uploading videos, then I better get compensated. If I cant support myself by playing games, then I'm getting a full time job. Add a normal social life (going out with friends on the weekends), and I'm barely going to upload any videos. I love playing games. I've been playing them ever since I got a Sega Genisis and Sonic 2 from my Uncle. But now that I'm older, I have very little time to sit down and play games. Let alone time to cleverly edit videos of them and work on building a community around my channel.

If you love your job but your boss comes in to your office one day and tells you you're getting a total pay cut, damn straight you're going to tell your boss to fuck off and quit. And you would call anyone who says "good thing he's not getting paid anymore, now the people not doing it for the money can take over" an idiot.

 

[NihonTiger90]

It's more of speculation drawn from recent events I suppose, so I should have separated that from the rest of my points. If I recall correctly nintendo has been cracking down on people posting videos of their games on youtube, giving them copyright claims. So that would be a copyright strike on your account, which many youtube partners won't accept an applicant to have. Get enough strikes and your account is deleted. So for small time youtubers who have yet to monetize their videos (like me), it can be hazardous. All it takes is one person in the company to decide they don't like the video and you get a copyright claim.

But what happens when a famous youtuber gets tagged, and isn't eligible for monetization? As far as I can see this will apply to all the youtube personalities that post gameplay videos with ads. So it will send a message that youtube videos cannot make money, and if they do, they shouldn't be. Then what happens when they host the youtube video on their site and ask for donations; or ask for donations in the video itself?

Could they try and go after that money? They are getting money from donations, people are donating for the content, and the content provided is the games. So will the industry try something to make that difficult for those doing it? Providing game videos are a gray area, but as long as they fall under fair use they should be fine, monetized or not.

I thought Nintendo's stuff was all Content ID match stuff, which is essentially the same thing going on now with all these videos (and it's a diverse array; people having games published by EA, WB and more claimed this time around).

As for donations, I don't know if they could go after money for that; that seems like a massive stretch and if you're a company, you're supposing that the donations are being made for stuff that would normally be Content ID matched on those channels. Unless there's an airtight case, I can't see that sticking in a legal arena.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Dear people who do gaming videos on youtube,

welcome to what I experienced by doing random crappy remixes since 2 years ago.

Yours truly,
Buf

Btw all what this guy says about Letsplays somehow being protected by Fair Use is bull. Read up on it at least before you do a 20 minute video about it.

 

[Nasym]

Add a normal social life

I dont really know for how long people have been erning money on this but im sure the passionate people who do it for x game is gonna stay, money or not. Just as they would write a FAQ on the most intriquite part of a game they are a fan of.

I might be in the minority but if i wanna follow a funny dude i think lets plays is a pretty bad forum for that, what i want is absurd knowledge of a specific thing and that wont go away.

Ofc it sucks for you if you cant make a living on youtube but since youre not in the minority the market will find a way, could be a bit bumpy though.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Yup and I'm not a large channel like some. I expect larger ones are earning $10,000-20,000 a month easily. Wouldn't surprise me if Pewdiepie, Yogscast and some other massive ones were earning triple that.

Last month Pewdiepie had 207,521,700 views. That's 207 million. I was earning $6000 on 4 million. Even if Polaris was taking a 20-30% cut imagine how much Pewdiepie has left over. Quite possible $150,000. I'm sure he's already earned a few million.



I'll PM you the channel later today.

Good for the companies and pubs, then.

 

[J.W.Crazy]

Nintendomination just made a video about this. He's says he's getting a claim every 3 minutes

http://youtu.be/5u_AAJuO7Bs

He probably should be getting a lot of claims. I know he uploads other stuff but a lot of it is just press footage or official trailers with his intro slapped on the front and a watermark. More than anything Youtube is making these changes because there are thousands of videos like that on the site with people claiming copyright over something because they changed it 1%. The wild west of the internet can't last forever and they don't want to get stuck with the tab when the real copyright holders come to collect.

 

[dhonk]

Well, I've been thinking of starting up and Youtube'ing some game related stuff.

Luckily I was already planning on playing weird, strange, obscure games.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Well, I've been thinking of starting up and Youtube'ing some game related stuff.

Luckily I was already planning on playing weird, strange, obscure games.

You can still do that. You can't make some money off of it. I know, strange. I get paid $5000 to put up game FAQs and only do it for the money. Every OT op on this board gets 2 blow jobs and $500 for each thread and only does it for the cash. You could just do it for the love of games but nobody does that anymore. That's loser talk.

 

[AlexMogil]

You can still do that. You can't make some money off of it. I know, strange. I get paid $5000 to put up game FAQs and only do it for the money.

I wrote The Simpsons Pinball FAQ in 1991, for rec.games.pinball. It has been viewed thousands of millions of times. If only we had monetization then.

 

[dhonk]

You can still do that. You can't make some money off of it. I know, strange. I get paid $5000 to put up game FAQs and only do it for the money. Every OT op on this board gets 2 blow jobs and $500 for each thread and only does it for the cash. You could just do it for the love of games but nobody does that anymore. That's loser talk.

Hahahaha, I love this post.

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

You can still do that. You can't make some money off of it. I know, strange. I get paid $5000 to put up game FAQs and only do it for the money. Every OT op on this board gets 2 blow jobs and $500 for each thread and only does it for the cash. You could just do it for the love of games but nobody does that anymore. That's loser talk.

People also make movies for fun too. Might as well shut down Hollywood.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

Dear people who do gaming videos on youtube,

welcome to what I experienced by doing random crappy remixes since 2 years ago.

Yours truly,
Buf

Btw all what this guy says about Letsplays somehow being protected by Fair Use is bull. Read up on it at least before you do a 20 minute video about it.

DSP's an idiot so no surprise there.

 

[daman824]

People also make movies for fun too. Might as well shut down Hollywood.

Might as well. They are just in it for the money anyway. Directors and actors all hate their jobs and are only in it for the cash. The indie scene is the only place to find people who really care.

 

[mrdark]

It's not about being in it for the money. It's about supporting yourself. If you want me to spend most of my day creating, editing, and uploading videos, then I better get compensated. If I cant support myself by playing games, then I'm getting a full time job. Add a normal social life (going out with friends on the weekends), and I'm barely going to upload any videos. I love playing games. I've been playing them ever since I got a Sega Genisis and Sonic 2 from my Uncle. But now that I'm older, I have very little time to sit down and play games. Let alone time to cleverly edit videos of them and work on building a community around my channel.

If you love your job but your boss comes in to your office one day and tells you you're getting a total pay cut, damn straight you're going to tell your boss to fuck off and quit. And you would call anyone who says "good thing he's not getting paid anymore, now the people not doing it for the money can take over" an idiot.

There is so much whiney, entitlement, garbage here that I can't even start to break it down. My brain is having a hard time figuring out if this is a serious post or a magnificent troll.

 

[daman824]

There is so much whiney, entitlement, garbage here that I can't even start to break it down. My brain is having a hard time figuring out if this is a serious post or a magnificent troll.

Try arguing against it then. And entitlement? People like the game grumps get paid for a reason. They release incredibly high quality videos on a regular basis that people want to see. One of the reasons they release videos so frequently is because they get paid to do so and thus don't have to spend time earning money elsewhere. If they can no longer support themselves off of their videos, then you bet they wont have time to release as many.

Acting as if the reason they wouldn't release as many videos is because they are only in it for the money is insane. They love their jobs. And they love games.

 

[SolidSnakex]

If you want me to spend most of my day creating, editing, and uploading videos, then I better get compensated. If I cant support myself by playing games, then I'm getting a full time job.

It's probably safe to say that any company that has these rules in place probably doesn't want you make videos of their games in the first place. The ones that do want you to make videos aren't putting restrictions on their games.

 

[daman824]

It's probably safe to say that any company that has these rules in place probably doesn't want you make videos of their games in the first place. The ones that do want you to make videos aren't putting restrictions on their games.

See and I guess that's what it all boils down too. Developers have the right to prevent these guys from making money off of their games in cases that aren't protected under fair use. But if a developer releases good games that they are proud of, then there should be no reason not to let these people on youtube keep doing what they are doing. It only increases sales and awareness.

As an example, people may not like him here (I find him mildly annoying), but pewdiepie is currently doing a walkthrough of Dark Souls. He praises the game in each video and looks like he is having a ton of fun. The videos already have millions of hits. It's great publicity. Dark Souls no doubt experienced a small sales bump, and more people are probably interested in buying the sequel.

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

It's probably safe to say that any company that has these rules in place probably doesn't want you make videos of their games in the first place. The ones that do want you to make videos aren't putting restrictions on their games.

The point is it shouldn't matter what the company wants. Whether or not "Let's Plays" fall under Fair Use, there are a lot of other videos being caught up in this that absolutely are Fair Use.

 

[zainetor]

Reviewers make money out of the game/movies/music/books. They couldnt make money without your product. The problem is that it's not a law. For example, there is book clubs out there on the internet that talk in lenght about the book and tell you the beginning, the intrigue and the ending. Same about movies or even music.

Everybody monetize on other people stuff. It's legal, since it's art, that we critique and rate it and discuss it. Art is public stuff. The discussion is about let's plays. Who is pretty much like playing the whole movie and discussing about it while playing it entirely. And you cant do that with a movie. Fair use do not allow you to take a full video and simply talk over it to make it legal. But fair use allow you to take bits and chunck of it.
Total Biscuit format is legal under fair use, even if he play 1 hour chunk of the game sometime. Because it's critique.

Of course i was talking about lets plays and not reviews or faqs.
A lets play is not so different from uploadijg a brand new movie on yt, with your own commentary on it.
There arr laws that stop you from doing it. Thats ehat i was trying to say.

Edit.Meh shitty phone spell, sorry.

 

[Orayn]

There are a variety of perfectly reasonable ways to approach derivative works and IP when it comes to video game content and monetization thereof. Responding with disgust and incredulity when someone doesn't share your viewpoint isn't really conducive to any sort of discussion.

The point is it shouldn't matter what the company wants. Whether or not "Let's Plays" fall under Fair Use, there are a lot of other videos being caught up in this that absolutely are Fair Use.

Probably, yes. At the same time, it's understandable that YouTube wants to shoot first and ask questions later, since acting too slowly could put them on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the publisher.

 

[EBCubs03]

Daman is posting garbage and hiding behind the ARGUE AGAINST ME BRO tactic

 

[daman824]

Daman is posting garbage and hiding behind the ARGUE AGAINST ME BRO tactic

Fine then don't argue against me. Please state how you feel on the topic.

In the meantime, I'll scour the thread to find posts by you (if you've made some) so we can have a meaningful discussion.

Edit-- I found one post of yours so far (I'll keep looking): "Glad the people making a living off these shitty videos will take the hit lol. Go do some real work"-EBCubs03. Care to have a friendly conversation over what you mean by this post?

 

[SolidSnakex]

The point is it shouldn't matter what the company wants. Whether or not "Let's Plays" fall under Fair Use, there are a lot of other videos being caught up in this that absolutely are Fair Use.

I'm not saying that it's right. My point was simply that those companies are putting those rules in place specifically because they know it's going to greatly decrease the amount of people posting full walkthroughs of their games. So, they don't necessarily have to say "No, you can't make any videos of our games", they can just say you can make them but you can't turn a profit on them. That alone is enough to turn many away from them.

I think this was a long time coming. You see more and more people making comments like "I'll just watch this on Youtube" while being dead serious about it. That was eventually going to piss companies off and they were going to try to do something to stop full walkthroughs from being posted. Killing revenue is the #1 away of them doing that.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

People like the game grumps get paid for a reason. They release incredibly high quality videos on a regular basis that people want to see. One of the reasons they release videos so frequently is because they get paid to do so and thus don't have to spend time earning money elsewhere.

Danny has a normal 9-5 job in addition to Game Grumps.

 

[daman824]

Danny has a normal 9-5 job in addition to Game Grumps.

Shit good for him. I didn't know that. Guy must be working all the time.

 

[Ragnorok64]

Danny has a normal 9-5 job in addition to Game Grumps.

How does the timing of that even work? 9-5 job + full days of Game Grumps + Starbomb and NSP. How does he have any energy?

Actually what is his 9-5?

 

[xk0sm0sx]

Bottom line, these guys are getting paid for a reason. They provide entertaining content to millions of viewers. And while they are making a living in part by using other peoples content, they are helping those people by increasing game awareness and sales. The only reason developers are doing this is because a bad game can get roasted by these guys or they are just salty after looking at internet celebrities making money doing something they will never do.

I was quite against the practice, but I can see how LP'ers can contribute to sales. However, I feel that if publishers wants to allow this, LP'ers should get proper endorsement.

Publishers will not want certain games (large games, like GTA5, Final Fantasy) to be Let's Played the day the game got released. That's the part they might feel it's wrong. Maybe they can allow it after a certain period has passed. I can see it being beneficial to sales if Let's Plays are conducted after the sales wave had died down.

The games that got the most impact from Let's Plays are usually the unknown games. If anything, indie studios should be the ones asking LP'ers to play their game and allow them to monetize their views. If the video turned out to be popular, it is a win win situation for both sides. If a publisher is going to release a risky game like Wonderful 101, endorse a LP'er to make a video. LP'er makes money, and the game will likely see increased sales.

However, the core of the problem right now is not about ethics. It is how the law is being interpreted. Why can Brady release strategy guides for games? Why can reviewers release footage of a game? Their positions are certainly different from independent Let's Players.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Who are you partnered with?

Fullscreen, debating if I should stay though with all the YouTube changes. I was fine with them honestly, but this all makes things questionable. My two-year contract ends in a month anyway (January 11th).

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Shit good for him. I didn't know that. Guy must be working all the time.

Well they've also implied Game Grumps doesn't make anywhere near as much money as people think. Arin and Ross both have other online income + well-off wives with good jobs, so it makes sense why they wouldn't have typical jobs. Sure, Danny has NSP, but the channel isn't that big just yet.

Or I could be completely wrong and the guy just has super expensive tastes.

How does the timing of that even work? 9-5 job + full days of Game Grumps + Starbomb and NSP. How does he have any energy?

Actually what is his 9-5?

No idea, but it's the reason Arin sometimes takes over for him on Steam Train and Steam Rolled happens. Must be a job that tolerates him travelling all the time. I have no idea how the guy has time to even go out considering he said he's a massive extrovert. I couldn't imagine a hectic life like that.

 

[mavs]

Probably, yes. At the same time, it's understandable that YouTube wants to shoot first and ask questions later, since acting too slowly could put them on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the publisher.

Did they lose safe harbor protection?

I'm not saying that it's right. My point was simply that those companies are putting those rules in place specifically because they know it's going to greatly decrease the amount of people posting full walkthroughs of their games. So, they don't necessarily have to say "No, you can't make any videos of our games", they can just say you can make them but you can't turn a profit on them. That alone is enough to turn many away from them.

I think this was a long time coming. You see more and more people making comments like "I'll just watch this on Youtube" while being dead serious about it. That was eventually going to piss companies off and they were going to try to do something to stop full walkthroughs from being posted. Killing revenue is the #1 away of them doing that.

This is affecting videos of games made by companies who don't want to stop it at all.

 

[Orayn]

Did they lose safe harbor protection?

Stump gave a better explanation in another thread, but my impression was that they have a limited form of "safe harbor" that requires them to immediately put the kaibosh on infringing content and disallowed forms of monetization.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Fullscreen, debating if I should stay though with all the YouTube changes. I was fine with them honestly, but this all makes things questionable. My two-year contract ends in a month anyway (January 11th).

Interesting. Wanted to weigh my options when I start an LP channel with my tenant/roommate in a month or so, but seems like I'll have to do more research with all these changes coming.

 

[SlasherJPC]

How does the timing of that even work? 9-5 job + full days of Game Grumps + Starbomb and NSP. How does he have any energy?

Actually what is his 9-5?

Well with this stuff going on, it's a good thing he does have one. A lot of these folks that do this for a living obviously don't. Scary times for them. I did a video about it though... pretty sure this is how most youtubers feel about it all right now. Short and sweet.

 

[mavs]

Stump gave a better explanation in another thread, but my impression was that they have a limited form of "safe harbor" that requires them to immediately put the kaibosh on infringing content and disallowed forms of monetization.

Hm, it seems my knowledge of the legal proceedings involving youtube was not up-to-date. There's nothing in the DMCA (or any other law) that requires them to take this step, but last year an appellate judge opened the door to the possibility that service providers may be judged on how proactive their takedown efforts are. The more safeguards like this they have, the better they will look to a jury. Having none would be very bad.

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

Weird how after this thread went up, a couple of my old videos were claimed (one by Namco and one by Capcom), but I didn't get my account penalized or anything. I'm partnered with Machinima.

 

[devilhawk]

I've long questioned the validity of complete single player Let's Plays of story driven games. These single player games have limited variance in the way the game is played and typically have little replay value. They probably are hurt by these Youtube videos.

 

[Orayn]

Weird how after this thread went up, a couple of my old videos were claimed (one by Namco and one by Capcom), but I didn't get my account penalized or anything. I'm partnered with Machinima.

I think the idea is that when these changes go into effect, being partnered with Machinima won't matter and you may the ability to monetize those videos like anyone else would.

 

[Nokterian]

Reading on twitter the id content from youtube is going on haywire. So it begins. This so damn idiotic.

https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/410313763699429376

maximilian ‏@maximilian_ 1m

So, using anything from a Capcom trailer will get you an ID claim on YT now. Even if there's no audio/talking over it.

https://twitter.com/Boogie2988/status/410313309447942145

Boogie2988 ‏@Boogie2988 3m

Youtube is going INSANE on content-matching ID's tonight. Lots and lots of flags everywhere. I hope I don't get hit. WTF @YouTube

 

[LeMaximilian]

Reading on twitter the id content from youtube is going on haywire. So it begins. This so damn idiotic.

https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/410313763699429376




https://twitter.com/Boogie2988/status/410313309447942145

Just to clarify, this was the video of mine that got flagged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPt1Mulo_jU

I believe it was for the Monster Hunter trailer footage.

 

[Cynar]

Hm, it seems my knowledge of the legal proceedings involving youtube was not up-to-date. There's nothing in the DMCA (or any other law) that requires them to take this step, but last year an appellate judge opened the door to the possibility that service providers may be judged on how proactive their takedown efforts are. The more safeguards like this they have, the better they will look to a jury. Having none would be very bad.

DMCA is such a bad law. In a perfect world it wouldn't exist.

 

[Nokterian]

Just to clarify, this was the video of mine that got flagged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPt1Mulo_jU

I believe it was for the Monster Hunter trailer footage.

It's still stupid that capcom are doing this. Hell all company's are just dumb and youtube even for changing this. Don't they want free publicity?

 

[Dragon_Rocks]

I am confused on how they can stop people from making money from these if the customer has legally purchased the game. Whether you compare it with a hardware or software, it still does not make sense. For e.g. if someone buys some hardware product like say cycle or skateboard and then does stunts using it and gets paid for the same. The cycle or skateboard company does not prevent this do they? On the other hand if someone buys a software like Microsoft .Net or any other paid application programming tool and then creates a software product using that and makes money of it the software company which owns the tool you used to create it does not prevent you does it? Then why games should be any different?

 

[zainetor]

Well, flagging videos like that is just plain dickish.

 

[Joni]

I am confused on how they can stop people from making money from these if the customer has legally purchased the game.

You didn't buy the right to earn money on broadcasting the content included.

 

[Orayn]

It's still stupid that capcom are doing this. Hell all company's are just dumb and youtube even for changing this. Don't they want free publicity?

Okay, how about people who re-upload trailers, stick a watermark on them, then enable monetization? The content ID system is "blind" and can't really tell the difference between the two, it just flip a switch when it sees a recognizable amount of something it's been told to look for. It's not like there's a YouTube or Capcom employee personally running each of these content checks.

I am confused on how they can stop people from making money from these if the customer has legally purchased the game. Whether you compare it with a hardware or software, it still does not make sense. For e.g. if someone buys some hardware product like say cycle or skateboard and then does stunts using it and gets paid for the same. The cycle or skateboard company does not prevent this do they? On the other hand if someone buys a software like Microsoft .Net or any other paid application programming tool and then creates a software product using that and makes money of it the software company which owns the tool you used to create it does not prevent you does it? Then why games should be any different?

Well, what if I legally buy a bunch of movies on DVD and start my own drive-in theater with a big projector. Am I in the clear because I paid for the DVDs?

I'm not saying that situation is analogous to video games, just that there are situations where you aren't in fact allowed to profit from something you legally bought. I feel that derivative works involving video games fall somewhere in between the two extremes of making something with productivity software and rebroadcasting content like movies and music.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

So people here actually think Making Let's Plays videos is hard? Hahaha.

Look, I make videos as well, for fun. I spent $100 on a Blue Yeti mix (like most have), and $150 on an HD capture card, and pay $50 a month for Adobe Creative Cloud for video making purposes (and mostly school). I do it all for fun and I can tell you first hand, making videos on the levels of GameGrumps, PewDiePie, WoodysGamertag, etc isn't hard. Seriously shit is done like this:

Play games and make sure your footage is capturing.

Now, if a commentary, just record yourself and talk about whatever you want to talk.

If Live, get your mic, put on headphones, and record your audio and game play.

FOOTAGE IS READY, LETS "edit"

If commentary, just slap that fucking audio on and lower the game audio, takes 2 minutes. Render that shit and wait a few minutes, and then upload and wait a few minutes. No effort.

If a live Let's Play, find whatever moment you started recording, sync it up with your commentary, lower the game audio, BOOM DONE. Took 4 minutes. Now render and record. In case you want to split it into "parts", render the complete thing, now put that new finished file into your program, quickly slice shit and render that. BOOM 1 MINUTE.

Commentaries and Let's Plays are not hard at all, they aren't time consuming and they aren't super hard editing intensive things that only select pros can do. EVERYONE in this thread could do it if they had a way to record, and are willing to quickly slap stuff together in whatever editing software you use.

Stuff like Jontron Videos? MatPat (Game Theory?)? RoosterTeeth Red Vs Blue? Now that I will defend and say that is time consuming and hard, and requires effort, talent, and dedication. Let's Plays don't.

The hardest part with making a Let's Play channel? Just getting someone to watch. Even if you're the worst, least entertaining guy to watch, you can have a viewerbase, it just takes forever to get a viewerbase naturally without losing self respect and advertising yourself to hell and back.

Guys subscribe to www.youtube.com/pewdiepie

 

[Dusk Golem]

So people here actually think Making Let's Plays videos is hard? Hahaha.

Look, I make videos as well, for fun. I spent $100 on a Blue Yeti mix (like most have), and $150 on an HD capture card, and pay $50 a month for Adobe Creative Cloud for video making purposes (and mostly school). I do it all for fun and I can tell you first hand, making videos on the levels of GameGrumps, PewDiePie, WoodysGamertag, etc isn't hard. Seriously shit is done like this:

Play games and make sure your footage is capturing.

Now, if a commentary, just record yourself and talk about whatever you want to talk.

If Live, get your mic, put on headphones, and record your audio and game play.

FOOTAGE IS READY, LETS "edit"

If commentary, just slap that fucking audio on and lower the game audio, takes 2 minutes. Render that shit and wait a few minutes, and then upload and wait a few minutes. No effort.

If a live Let's Play, find whatever moment you started recording, sync it up with your commentary, lower the game audio, BOOM DONE. Took 4 minutes. Now render and record. In case you want to split it into "parts", render the complete thing, now put that new finished file into your program, quickly slice shit and render that. BOOM 1 MINUTE.

Commentaries and Let's Plays are not hard at all, they aren't time consuming and they aren't super hard editing intensive things that only select pros can do. EVERYONE in this thread could do it if they had a way to record, and are willing to quickly slap stuff together in whatever editing software you use.

Stuff like Jontron Videos? MatPat (Game Theory?)? RoosterTeeth Red Vs Blue? Now that I will defend and say that is time consuming and hard, and requires effort, talent, and dedication. Let's Plays don't.

I'm not going to disagree with you fully, but I don't fully agree either. I can say the LPs I do don't take much effort, but I have friends who put a lot of effort into their videos. Some make animated segments in the middle about things that happen in the game. One friend keeps a custom counter and editor for things, draws tile-cards for each video and edits in time lapse and comparisons to previous games, and some play the games before-hand to prepare themselves and then replay while recording.

Again, I'm not fully disagreeing with you, but there is a definite way and I know people personally who put far more time into it than just slapping stuff together. You can do it like that, but that doesn't mean that's how everyone does it.

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

So people here actually think Making Let's Plays videos is hard? Hahaha.

It's hardly only Let's Plays that are being affected.