This is so similar to the whole piracy debate that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to call it an extension of it.
The restrictive attitude as to what a game should and shouldn't be is absurd, imo.
But who is the one arguing they should be treated differently in this thread?
Honestly. Yeah.
A simple and direct solution.
Sounds like that restrictive attitude people keep talking about.
Yeah, it sucks.
Even though gaming is rapidly expanding and redefining itself year over year, the bulk of gamers are stuck somewhere in the 00s in terms of mindset. "Puzzle games are not worth $40", "storytelling games are not worth $15". Value of a game is still unreasonably focused on raw playtime (regardless of quality of that play time) and conservativel notions of "gameplay". For certain types of games, a Let's Play is basically redistribution of other people's product. That people think games are this one, immutable, concrete thing with only one standard for valuation doesn't change reality.
Too bad, I loved That Dragon despite its many flaws.
I think all of your posts in this thread are due for a rebuke, but since I don't want to bloat up this post with five or so quotes, I'll just try answering all of them at once while being as succinct as possible.
In the post above, like Griss, you want to make this seem like this is about some push back by old fogies stuck to their traditionalist ways. This is very misguided for two reasons: 1) "Let's Plays" and the youthful(!) YouTube culture (watch, don't play) surrounding them was just as disruptive to traditional games, 2) If the developer/publisher cannot deal with the market, maybe THEY are the ones who are stuck in the past. To put these points together, this whole bloodbath already happened and the result was mostly to let it fly free and wide - we are now even including one-button streaming right inside consoles! Who's stuck in the 00s, really? It's as if you are trying to project the developer's entitlement onto their customers.
It's not only videogames who are going through a weird time in this new age. Look at what has happened with television and music; it's even more dramatic than with videogames. Your whole line about this having
anything to do with "games are art" comes across as bizarre, more so when considering these mediums people would struggle not to call art (nevermind that you could take a photograph of a painting or sculpture and put it on the internet, this is a pretty good analogue to "Let's Plays"). I won't get into a "what is art" debate (usually I can't resist!), but your whole point seems to come down to the idea that games are being limited by the rather obvious fact that people will only put money down on games they deem "valuable" and this "value" is (unfortunately, you may think) depended on various disruptive trends and technologies - so much for art, as you say. A notion like this becomes completely absurd if you treat it as any more serious than usual self-serving bellyaching (such as when those 00s guys (you want to wag your finger at) lament the effects of F2P, mobile, etc. - myself included!), and is yet another example of trying to pin the blame on the customer. Maybe people want to play this or that type of game, maybe enough don't, maybe this is influenced by streaming -
so what? Are the artists
owed the people's money? The problem is this: You want to play the capitalism game while also decrying it. They could have made this a totally "artistic" endeavor (whatever that may mean to you) and made it 100% free and wash their hands of the market (or, at least, the literal market). It's easy to see why they didn't: videogames are difficult to create. But why are they, rather than the hundred of thousands struggling artists, due a free pass here?
Then you strike a low blow, saying this game should be seen differently (morally speaking, no less!) because it happens to be based on an experience involving the death of a loved one. Truly, pure evil, these overly-popular youtube dorks. Do we really want to play that 'game' with what is a commercial product to begin with? Profit is being made off of the tragedy no matter who is getting it and considering this is a separate artistic recreation, it's not like anyone literally grave-robbing. Frankly, if people watching someone play on your game is theft, then it should be considered theft no matter the subject matter. What you've lost is the x amount of dollars you think they would have otherwise paid, no more, no less. And since the world of media has no troubles with cancer, war, and so on being common themes in commercial products, it's seems ridiculous to try to put your foot down on this and not genocide documentaries on Netflix (or Piratebay, if we want to see it that way). Moralizing attempts like this are best left to politicking.
If the the developer feels that they are having their content stolen, they have the tools on YouTube to stop that (and YouTube is enough of a nightmare to usually favor your side); this is mentioned in the article/blog itself. However, as we have seen in the past, this will result in a huge hit in your public image. Again, I'm reminded of the piracy debate. You could put DRM on your game or make it always online. The question is will you hurt yourself more than you would have doing nothing at all. There's no clear cut answer, but the way the things are now, a liberal approach is favored. This conclusion was reached naturally and the market adapted to the best of its ability.
Going back to the first paragraph, I don't know why you insist on combining the issues of interactive-lite games and free-form streaming. The latter may affect the former, but only as a matter of consequence, not intent. To become so bothered by this that you begin to call Let's Play streamers stuck in the past, all the while flailing from one semi-related point to the next, I can't help but accuse you of being the one stuck in the past. I'm no big fan of Let's Plays, in fact, I can scantily recall watching one, but it would be delusional for me to ignore their new place in the economy of things simply because I didn't like what they did to games I like. The people who want to make those games and profit, not the gamers who you seem to want to blame, are going to have to figure out how to solve that (and attacking Let's Plays directly doesn't seem like a good idea).
