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[Deleted member 17706]

Really sucks for those who make a living off this stuff, but I always thought it was weird that receiving money for let's plays was even possible. Definitely seemed like a "too good to be true" wild west Internet thing that just wouldn't last.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

At this point do youtubers need to find another site? Or make one collectively? Cos the amount of shit google has pulled lately with gaming content on youtube has been ridiculous.

What about twitch? Would this affect that?

 

[NTom64]

It's not a rumour, I got an email from my partner company earlier.

Not sure how it's gonna pan out tbh.

 

[starmud]

eh, i only expected the beginning with nintendo. though, seeing nintendo produce content with LP'ers gives me hope they have gotten the message.

some of the moderately known LP'ers like VGAwesome live have had a good work around of posting the first video on youtube and the rest on their own site. it works.

 

[Jarmel]

I'm expecting a huge backlash from this, if true. No way Google's getting away with that unscathed.

I can see why there would a backlash but ultimately the publishers/developers own the rights.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

They were most likely being sarcastic.

Are you being sarcastic? I know several people in real life who do this with many games, including TLOU, and I did it for the first part of the game to get a grasp of it.

 

[Corran Horn]

Damn :/

 

[Einbroch]

At this point do youtubers need to find another site? Or make one collectively?

What about twitch? Would this affect that?

This wouldn't solve anything. The companies would just threaten to sue X site.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

They were most likely being sarcastic.

I know what you're getting at but I do believe that people did actually do this to see what the fuss was about and experience the story.

 

[bender]

I used to really care about let's players and them not getting pushed around but I just can't bring myself to care anymore. If the one's I watch have to get a different job that isn't my problem. I've always felt the people who made the game should see ad revenue from this sort of thing despite it basically being free press for their game.

Also how soon does this spill over into the livestream arena. How soon are Twitch partners going to get hammered by this.

Some sort of split between the publishers and let's players seems more reasonable.

 

[Jarmel]

Are you being sarcastic? I know several people in real life who do this with many games, including TLOU, and I did it for the first part of the game to get a grasp of it.

There are people who do it but it's also a running joke, one that isn't funny, with ND games.

 

[BizzyBum]

but what happened to "This is done because its fun and we enjoy it!". Oh yeah, its all a lie so they can be relatable to the viewers. They choose to make their life's finances revolve around using other people's work for monetization. Its a gray area and they know it, they really have to right to argue when the hammer gets thrown down. TotalBiscut, WoodysGamerTag, Syndicate, etc can all complain about it, but they know they have no right to monetize any of it.

If they really want to make money by doing this, just sign a contract with companies like RoosterTeeth does.

I agree that it's absurd these people can make a living doing this. They are not even good, they just play the game and do commentary.

DSP is horrendous at every game he plays. Like, a fucking 10 year old can play games better then him. People watch because they find him entertaining. I watched a few Pewdpie videos and I have no idea how people watch and enjoy that crap. He couldn't be more annoying.

 

[James93]

Best case scenario is the networks can work out a royalty deal with the publishers. Its going to hurt profits off youtube vids, but you couldn't get away with making millions of copyrighted work.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

This is absolutely happening. As an affiliate, I received a few emails recently about whats going on. Starting January, YouTube is going to check EVERY single video that users upload going forward. Partners don't get the auto pass that they used to get just by being partnered with someone. We have been told to schedule all of our videos if we want revenue out of the gate.

Additionally, come Monday, YouTube is implementing a new content ID scan which is going to essentially reevaluate everything across YouTube.

People are certainly going to be up in arms (and already are). What I'm curious about is how the major networks are going to protect their major money makers during this process.

How are they even going to handle this? Are people who uploaded bad windows movie maker Green Day lyrics videos ten years ago going to get "HEY REMOVE THIS VIDEO!" emails?

 

[malfcn]

Incoming DSP rant tomorrow night.

 

[ZeroGravity]

Nintendo are the evil ones though, right guys?

 

[zhorkat]

I wonder if the changes Youtube are planning to make include fixing problems like long, original videos getting taken down because they include tiny snippets of copyrighted material.

 

[Valnen]

What the hell Naughty Dog? They're WAY more draconian than anyone else on the list.

I guess the share button won't work on Naughty Dog PS4 games?

 

[Eusis]

eh, i only expected the beginning with nintendo. though, seeing nintendo produce content with LP'ers gives me hope they have gotten the message.

some of the moderately known LP'ers like VGAwesome live have had a good work around of posting the first video on youtube and the rest on their own site. it works.

It seemed that Google approached Nintendo in the first place anyway. Guess they reached out to everyone else and are cracking down more, either to pre-emptively cover their asses, because they see more profit from getting these companies on board, or because some of them were getting antsy about it and so Google decided to act.

It's a shame, a lot of them actually seem to be agreeable for just putting content up and for those that just want to put out a video showing something like a glitch or a trick I guess it'll be fine so long as it's not a zero tolerance publisher/developer, but it definitely sounds like making a business out of it is either going to require consolidation around a few big players or simply end.

 

[-MD-]

They were most likely being sarcastic.

Definitely not sarcastic, I've seen/met dozens of people that watch full playthroughs of games on youtube so they don't have to play them themselves.

I know someone on GAF that watches playthroughs of pretty much every PS3 exclusive because he doesn't own a PS3.

 

[abstract alien]

Generally, I can understand this. I wouldn't want someone leeching money from my work either. Sure, we lose since it's just one less option for us, but it's easy to see them coming to this conclusion. Full on Let's Plays probably shouldn't be allowed, other things like Dark Souls lore explanations for example, probably don't step on toes much.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

There are people who do it but it's also a running joke, one that isn't funny, with ND games.

You're being over sensitive. Story is a big draw for certain games like TLOU. It makes sense to me that ND wouldn't want people being able to get the story out of a youtube vid. I'm not trying to insult the game or make a joke.

 

[kewlmyc]

This will kill Super Best Friends which is super not okay with me. I can understand where the publishers are coming from; a bunch of people are making money off off your product and can also hurt the sales if it's a story driven single player or a bad game. However if your game is truly great, it is free advertising. For example, watching TBFP Walking Dead made me buy the game, but I'll never buy any of David Cage's games due to watching them on the TBFP channel. It's a double edged sword, but I hope Let's Plays don't die. Even the terrible ones like DSP and PewDiePie.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

Best case scenario is the networks can work out a royalty deal with the publishers. Its going to hurt profits off youtube vids, but you couldn't get away with making millions of copyrighted work.

Yea, i expected an LP market crash eventually as publishers got pissed off, but this is much sooner than expected, since the LP market is still skyrocketing. Hopefully a deal is worked out, so that most people who use LP money as their primary income are not completely fucked and have time to land on their feet.

 

[Can Crusher]

I think it's crazy publishers are cracking down on free publicity. They aren't going to put out walkthroughs, let's plays, guides, etc... so they are just doing this out of spite. It makes no sense in the long run.

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.

 

[SolidSnakex]

I'm expecting a huge backlash from this, if true. No way Google's getting away with that unscathed.

There was a lot of backlash against them implementing Google+ into Youtube for comments and they didn't give a shit about that reaction.

 

[Hero of Legend]

It's not a rumour, I got an email from my partner company earlier.

Not sure how it's gonna pan out tbh.

Was wondering how this would affect you.

Hope everything works out, do you have a Plan B? You use Twitch so you'd just move everything to there?

 

[Jarmel]

You're being over sensitive. Story is a big draw for certain games like TLOU. It makes sense to me that ND wouldn't want people being able to get the story out of a youtube vid. I'm not trying to insult the game or make a joke.

I'm not saying you were. However 'watched it on youtube' isn't exactly an uncommon joke in regards to 'cinematic' single player games. Yes there are people who do it seriously but it's also something to be taken tongue in cheek to an extent as well.

 

[Duxxy3]

I have the following on my PC right now

Spelunky
Super Meat Boy
Binding of Isaac
Awesomenauts
Fez
Sonic all stars tranformed
Mirror's edge
Starcraft Brood Wars

Starcraft and Mirror's edge are the only games on that short list that I did not buy because of footage from twitch or youtube. Publishers don't understand how much these videos and streams make them. The uploaders/streamers are not charging publishers a dime to play these games. It really is free advertisement for the publisher.

I have two physical games for my PS4 - Ghosts and ACIV. I bought both because of twitch streams and youtube videos. I don't watch television, so whatever the publisher paid to have commercials on television... that had no effect on my purchase. It was the ordinary people playing and enjoying the games that sold me.

 

[dragonbane]

I'm ok with this.

 

[Onion_Relish]

While this seems rather draconian, it might lead to the downfall of pewdiepie. We might have to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

 

[Fantasmo]

I wonder if I'd be allowed to record me and my family playing Monopoly?
Maybe we should just gray everything the fuck out. I don't make a dime off this stuff but fuck these companies. Instead of being happy about free advertising for their video game, they're bitching. Hint to the gaming companies: the pot is only so big and you're not going to get richer by doing this. Sorry to burst your bubble. Oh and there's going to be another service. This move will probably push more peoples' buttons, and make them collectively not care about you the same way you clearly don't care about us. See recent history of music/movie/TV industry to see what will happen.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

Nintendo are the evil ones though, right guys?

Well, the others have a stance of "Yeah, go ahead and make videos. Just no ads, you can't make money off our copy righted content."

Nintendo's stance is. "Yeah, ho ahead and make videos. We'll put ads on your videos and we'll make all the money off your videos. Thanks for your money!"

 

[HariKari]

Generally, I can understand this. I wouldn't want someone leeching money from my work either. Sure, we lose since it's just one less option for us, but it's easy to see them coming to this conclusion. Full on Let's Plays probably shouldn't be allowed, other things like Dark Souls lore explanations for example, probably don't step on toes much.

Leeching implies that the publishers are somehow losing revenue here. They aren't. It can be reasonably argued that a great number of them have gained quite a bit from Youtube exposure. I understand wanting to cut down on the really crappy stuff, but they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.

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.

Exposure leads to greater sales, plenty of studies have shown. So I'm afraid you're totally off the mark here.

 

[NTom64]

Was wondering how this would affect you.

Hope everything works out, do you have a Plan B? You use Twitch so you'd just move everything to there?

Oh I'm not going to stop making videos. We'll see how it pans out, like I said. Twitch is still there at the end of the day.

 

[imadinosaur]

At least good videos will have more exposure. Fuck pewdpie.

This.

Also, DSP is not really any better.

 

[Clarkus Darkus]

I did enjoy gamefronts Dark Souls walkthroughs aswell on youtube, Gutted for them if this affects them.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I'm deeply worried about the control factor; many can't stand to not be in complete control of all they have or are responsible for. It's the negative, reducitive version of removing chance.

With the PS4/XBone walled garden dealios, we also get the "money already spent" factor. Things getting interesting...

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

Pretty much. Alot of whitelist freedoms will fall before it's complete, too.

 

[Valnen]

Also, I hope this doesn't mean the end of some of my favorite channels. If it does I'll be pissed off.

 

[eot]

I don't see why publishers would care if someone makes a few 100k on youtube, it's peanuts to them anyway. It's not like they're stopping youtube LPs, just cracking down on monetization.

 

[Contra11]

Sometimes the difference between a video and a game that you push 1 button in the game

 

[syko de4d]

I will never understand why devs/publisher have such a problem with free advertising. Videos of Indi games will be still fine, or? Starbound for example.

 

[phileep]

How are they even going to handle this? Are people who uploaded bad windows movie maker Green Day lyrics videos ten years ago going to get "HEY REMOVE THIS VIDEO!" emails?

No it's not really about removing videos, it's all about revenue share. If said Green Day Move Maker video is actually making money and this new content ID scan sees it as something that shouldn't be making money, the ads will be turned off on it.

So if for some reason this scan sees LP channels as a copyright infringement, it's just going to flag these videos and turn off the ads. People will then have to make a case as to why the ads should be on.

The larger networks are clearly going to support their big money makers. It's not just the users that are under fire, but the networks as well. They're flipping shit just as much as the users.

 

[bearythebear]

The two biggest games: league of legends and minecraft would be nowhere without YouTube.

 

[Einbroch]

Leeching implies that the publishers are somehow losing revenue here. They aren't. It can be reasonably argued that a great number of them have gained quite a bit from Youtube exposure. I understand wanting to cut down on the really crappy stuff, but they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.

I haven't purchased games because I've watched Let's Plays.

I've purchased games because I caught a chunk of it on Twitch.

I think the biggest issue is the fact that I can watch any game beginning to end on my own time. At least on Twitch, I'm watching whatever the user is currently playing. Of course, there's also archiving on Twitch, but disabling that for many games I think is the perfect solution.

 

[Felsparrow]

I personally don't believe people are entitled to watch games on youtube, but at the same time I've been convinced to buy as much as I've been turned away.

I'd also like to note that the people who have been doing these videos the longest and most successfully have their own interesting personalities and show elements that make it work beyond just showing gameplay. Various people will have a preference for various channels, but overall they do a lot more than just sit around and record. Many are funny, many are critical, many do a lot of fun editing to highlight humor or drama.

There are some channels that are essentially video piracy mills that run through the latest games as fast as they can on youtube with no commentary. Publishers will want to go after those first.

The better channels that I watch play old games. There's a well known group that honestly just runs around being silly in half-life 2 gmods and it's hilarious, or play older games in co-op. I find how other people play games fascinating and interesting, so even after I finish some games I wach how others have played them, did this for the Dead Space series and for TLoU.

 

[Marauder Shields]

So I can't get paid for sitting on my arse playing video games in my bedroom anymore?

If it's that easy you should try it sometime.

 

[Yards]

Good. It sickens me that figures like PewDiePie make obscene amounts of money for being obscene while playing video games.

 

[VE3TRO]

Too much shit happening this month and next year with YouTube/Google policies which favours companies and pushes out uploaders.

I've already given up my channel a few months ago after 6 years and now looking for something else to do for a living. I'm just glad I saved all my money so I have something to fall back on for the time being.

While this seems rather draconian, it might lead to the downfall of pewdiepie. We might have to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

I'm sure it wouldn't matter to him anyway with the money he's already earned.

 

[KissVibes]

So I can't get paid for sitting on my arse playing video games in my bedroom anymore?

That's a gross over-simplification of what people actually do.

While this seems rather draconian, it might lead to the downfall of pewdiepie. We might have to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

Only he'll get a pass because he's the biggest money-maker on YouTube.