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Kotaku: YouTubers Say They Can't Make Money Covering Call of Duty: WWII

aquavelva

Member
Ironically Max was captured on video saying the N word a few months ago and there was no backlash at all (or maybe there was and im just misinformed)

I'm actually glad Max is being negatively impacted by this. I used to watch his videos but I don't support racists/white supremacists.
 
I'm sure some Youtubers have a sense of celebrity entitlement but there's nothing wrong about complaining about problems with the company that you work for, millions of people do it. It's not so easy as "Oh just quit Youtube then, I'm sure whatever video site you make will be popular" Only the absolute biggest names like PewDiePie could get away with that, and even then it'd be extremely complicated.

It'd be like an office worker complaining about some flaws in their company and people telling them "Well just start your own business then! It's that easy".

Usually, when you complain to a big audience is because you want things to change.
Sure, but that office worker is going to complain to a few coworkers and family. Not stand in front of their building and yell at anyone walking by.

When you air your complaints to a large audience, you also get people that do not agree or simply think you are whining and should get back to work.

After a few years of seeing videos dropping by about content ID, copyright strikes, now ad issues, it is no wonder a lot of people are thinking: here are those same Youtube channels again complaining about having it so hard, get over it guys.
 
If the youtubers have enough talent they will make it without youtube. If they don't they might have to actually work for a living like the rest of us. Good luck out there streamers.
 

jabuseika

Member
I never understood what it was about streamers/Youtubers that has people, even on GAF, SO pissed off about them having jobs where they play video games for a living that they're happy when they lose said jobs.

Like, be a good person, you're not being a good person. And if you think you are, why?

I hate seeing that argument brought up here, of all places.

Youtube work is real work.



I guess youtubers will have to start do in video advertising, that's the only way out. Stop depending on youtube ads.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
I guess this is the market.

If you're making content to sell advertising, if that's what you want to do, you have to make content that does just that.

Perhaps game content makers should band together to try to evangelise youtube content to gaming company's advertising departments - though conflicts of interest may abound here. I have the impression that general advertisers have often not been particularly fond of games content anyway.

Perhaps the podcast model is an alternative. Some advertising, but build networks that can attract donations. Maximum Fun, on the podcast side, seems to do this quite successfully. You need to make really well-loved shows for this to work though.
 
If the youtubers have enough talent they will make it without youtube. If they don't they might have to actually work for a living like the rest of us. Good luck out there streamers.

Ugh, this attitude needs to die already. You seriously have no idea how much work goes into making videos. Even a "simple" 10 minute gaming video can take hours to record and edit. Then there's making thumbnails, tagging, captioning, promoting, ect. And that's just for a gaming videos. Vloggers, animators, musicians, ect spend even more time on their videos.

Streaming is also incredibly hard work because you need to have a ton of energy, be really entertaining and stream for long hours every single day. And even if you do all of that, it will still probably take months of doing it every single day before you get more than a handful of followers.
 
Ugh, this attitude needs to die already. You seriously have no idea how much work goes into making videos. Even a "simple" 10 minute gaming video can take hours to record and edit. Then there's making thumbnails, tagging, captioning, promoting, ect. And that's just for a gaming videos. Vloggers, animators, musicians, ect spend even more time on their videos.

Streaming is also incredibly hard work because you need to have a ton of energy, be really entertaining and stream for long hours every single day. And even if you do all of that, it will still probably take months of doing it every single day before you get more than a handful of followers.

I'm not saying they don't work hard. I couldn't do it, I don't have the personality. But If I did have the personality and talent required for it and I could get paid the same salary I make as a software engineer I would happily play games and edit videos for a living. It's like pro athletes or rock stars. They work hard AF but I'd trade my job for theirs any day. I'm envious of their lifestyle, I'm not hating on it.
 

FinalAres

Member
If the entire infrastructure collapses because of two people saying stupid shit, it's a problem with the infrastructure, not the stupid people.

Which is why it needs regulation, that will impact all YouTubers but its better than the consumer being taken for a ride or affected negatively in other ways,
 
If the youtubers have enough talent they will make it without youtube. If they don't they might have to actually work for a living like the rest of us. Good luck out there streamers.

Hopefully we all get dragged down to the level of some third-world peon. I hate that some people work in an office while most of the world's twelve-year-olds are dismantling motherboards for pennies while their skin peels off.
 

Ronin Ray

Member
I'm actually glad Max is being negatively impacted by this. I used to watch his videos but I don't support racists/white supremacists.

I have never seen or heard anything to remotely make this claim about max. When that happened max didn't make excuses are any bs he straight up owned up to it explained what happened and apologized . He handled it the best way possible and came across very genuine about it.
 
I have never seen or heard anything to remotely make this claim about max. When that happened max didn't make excuses are any bs he straight up owned up to it explained what happened and apologized . He handled it the best way possible and came across very genuine about it.

I dunno, when's last time you saw Max with anyone who wasn't white? I think those white supremacist accusations could hold some water. I mean he is FGC, & we know how evil those guys are.
 
honestly, you can blame fucks like pewdiepie and jontron for this.

Honestly, you don't have any idea of what you are saying.

It's advertisers, they are literally clicking on a checkbox that says 'depiction of war', saying they don't want their ads to be shown in videos with some depiction of war, be real, historical or fictional.
 

HariKari

Member
If the entire infrastructure collapses because of two people saying stupid shit, it's a problem with the infrastructure, not the stupid people.

Well if you don't control the platform, the gravy train can end at any moment. YTers should have been prepared for this scenario.
 
I dunno, when's last time you saw Max with anyone who wasn't white? I think those white supremacist accusations could hold some water. I mean he is FGC, & we know how evil those guys are.

I think hes referencing that max said the N word in rage while playing for honor

Anyway considering how flamboyant and silly fgc can be, its no suprise smash community constantly get caught being dickheads/racists/neckbeards, but max is no such guy.
 
I think hes referencing that max said the N word in rage while playing for honor

Anyway considering how flamboyant and silly fgc can be, its no suprise smash community constantly get caught being dickheads/racists/neckbeards, but max is no such guy.

Smash is not part of the FGC amigo.
 

Plum

Member
Happened to TV, then we got cable as a platform for mature TV shows.

Who will start the cable of the internet.

There won't be an equivalent as the vast majority of internet users would hate paying for content that used to be free. There's a reason only the massive Youtubers with TV-quality work (Vsauce, for example) have adopted Youtube Red; most others don't lock their content behind paywalls except for the occasional channel who lets Patreon supporters watch things early.
 

Yeoman

Member
Ugh, this attitude needs to die already. You seriously have no idea how much work goes into making videos. Even a "simple" 10 minute gaming video can take hours to record and edit. Then there's making thumbnails, tagging, captioning, promoting, ect. And that's just for a gaming videos. Vloggers, animators, musicians, ect spend even more time on their videos.

Streaming is also incredibly hard work because you need to have a ton of energy, be really entertaining and stream for long hours every single day. And even if you do all of that, it will still probably take months of doing it every single day before you get more than a handful of followers.
No I'll go in the other direction.
I don't believe this. I think it's just something people repeat enough times that they actually start to believe.
I personally think 90% of the most popular YouTubers today are popular from sheer luck and managing to cash in on something at the right time with the right demographics. There are plenty of small channels that put in far more work.
Recording yourself playing a video game and doing a bit of editing takes no meaningful work whatsoever.

Anyway YouTube was due for a good culling. I'm glad these advertisers are laying down the law.
 
honestly, you can blame fucks like pewdiepie and jontron for this.
I'm surprised other Youtubers haven't gone off about them causing this in the first place. Usually, they have no problem getting into drama about other Youtubers. This seems like ripe material, considering it's affecting all their incomes.
 

WillyFive

Member
I'm surprised other Youtubers haven't gone off about them causing this in the first place. Usually, they have no problem getting into drama about other Youtubers. This seems like ripe material, considering it's affecting all their incomes.

Since a massive chunk of successful YouTube gaming video personalities, for whichever reason, tend to be young-ish solitary white males, there's maybe a higher than normal chance that they may actually agree with people like JonTron than not. They are usually the highest at risk demographic outside of senior citizens for that kind of dogma.
 
Youtubing might well be real work, but we don't get to pick our own jobs, mores the pity. You have to do something someone will pay you for, and they are obviously going to set the ground rules. The fact the YTers have had it good for so long is neither here not there, advertisers have wised up a bit and they must adapt.
 
No I'll go in the other direction.
I don't believe this. I think it's just something people repeat enough times that they actually start to believe.
I personally think 90% of the most popular YouTubers today are popular from sheer luck and managing to cash in on something at the right time with the right demographics. There are plenty of small channels that put in far more work.
Recording yourself playing a video game and doing a bit of editing takes no meaningful work whatsoever.

Anyway YouTube was due for a good culling. I'm glad these advertisers are laying down the law.
It's a lot of work because they constantly have to provide new, daily content for their viewers. It's not really hard work, it's just time consuming due to the nature of the job. But well, that's media. It never stops.
 

MrBadger

Member
I'm surprised other Youtubers haven't gone off about them causing this in the first place. Usually, they have no problem getting into drama about other Youtubers. This seems like ripe material, considering it's affecting all their incomes.

because youtubers hate censorship (or their version of it) and give no shits about racism or bigotry. In their minds, Jon and Pewdiepie aren't at fault at all for being careless in the public eye. They should be allowed to say what they want, and nobody should care. The real enemy is the WSJ for reporting on what they said. Because nobody could possibly care about racism without the media telling them to, right?

The truth is Youtubers have had it very easy until this point, while celebrities in other mediums are much more careful about PR. And as the site gets more and more mainstream, they're slowly starting to deal with the same consequences as everyone else in the public eye.
 

Raitaro

Member
Bit off-topic but threads like these make me wonder what happened to the days where people simply made videos on youtube because they wanted to make videos and entertain people. Everything seems to revolve around monetization and videos serving as adds and / or sources of add revenues nowadays...

Nothing against people trying to make a living making videos but I have some trouble to really take a content creator seriously if they'd for instance refuse to cover a game because they did not get a free copy or, like in this more specific case, if they can't collect any ad revenue (even if that does indeed suck). Keeping your fans happy by doing the content they expect and enjoy always should come first, no?

That said, maybe I'm being too naive and unbusiness-like in my views again but that's my 2 cents I guess.

Edit: just to clarify (in light of discussions following below): I'm not saying that being a youtube content content creator is not a lot of work, that it doesn't take real skills or even that it doesn't or should never count as a job. I'm only saying that making videos shouldn't necessarily need to be a job, or be something that necessarily rewards any form of patronage or payment. Originally it seemed like many video makers were simply satisfied with just having a platform and any kind of audience, but nowadays it has shifted so far that it sometimes feels to me that, for many of them, artistic vision and the wish to entertain has been replaced by a desire or even need to get paid (in turn sometimes even leading to said refusals to cover unmonitizable games). Again, not judging any individuals (Max least of all - keep up the good work my friend!) but simply reflecting on the whole.
 

Lister

Banned
Beta testers are on extinction, lazy developers just patch the game after consumer complains.

just curios how much a Betatester can earn. Can you make a living as one ?

I don't think you can do without QA on complex game titles. QA isn't just about playing the game looking for bugs, although that's part of it. You need to use internal tools, follow integration testing procedures, they might even be doing profiling.

You can't farm that out to gamers.
 
This is not a CoD WWII problem imo, it's a Youtube problem. They don't want to regulate and take responsibility for the content they host, but they still want to attract easy advetising dollars, so the pass the burden on to content creators on their platform.

Youtubers should not lament that CoD is a WWII game or that they are considered high risk content as game streamers. They should protest to Youtube for being a garbage company run by Google, a hypocritical shitheel of a corporation.
and if they did regulate it, infantile internet warriors like yourself would argue censorship and curation issues. Truly worthless pious look at me shitposting.
 
YouTube is still getting an awful lot of ad money...so presumably family friendly videos are getting loads more revenue now? Are any of them speaking out about how good it is?
 

LordRaptor

Member
YouTube is still getting an awful lot of ad money...so presumably family friendly videos are getting loads more revenue now? Are any of them speaking out about how good it is?

Where does this idea that Youtube is super profitable come from? Because its parent company is?
 
YouTube is still getting an awful lot of ad money...so presumably family friendly videos are getting loads more revenue now? Are any of them speaking out about how good it is?

Nope

My revenue has dropped like 90%, while my cpm has gone up oddly enough lol

I don't curse in any of my videos, none of my videos have been demonetized besides the content ID'd ones

Hell I'm a black guy with dreads playing video games for children

so diversity checked

and

breaking stereotypes across the world lol

but seriously I kinda saw this coming since around like December so I started doing other online jobs to help supplement the income loss from youtube

but what I definitely didn't see coming was the sheer drop in revenue that happened in april

whew
 

Syriel

Member
Youtube work is real work.

No I'll go in the other direction.
I don't believe this. I think it's just something people repeat enough times that they actually start to believe.
I personally think 90% of the most popular YouTubers today are popular from sheer luck and managing to cash in on something at the right time with the right demographics.

Both of these statements have a level of truth to them.

Part of the problem with a lot of the creator complaints seems to be that yes, creating videos is work, but they only want to focus the fun part of it.

Being a personality is not just making videos. It is marketing. It is sales. It is advertising. It is promotion. It is brand management. It is legal work. It is handling expenses. It is...a whole bunch of things.

It seems like a lot of complaints come from people who just expect all of the back end (ie boring stuff) to be taken care of so they can focus on the creation aspect. Those who do take all of the back end components into account aren't going to be as impacted when things on the platform do change because they haven't given up as much control.

The other big aspect to keep in mind is that "making it" as a personality is not guaranteed. Hitting it bit on Internet Fame is no different than hitting it big in Hollywood, sports, or music. Lots and lots of people will struggle and try to get noticed. Only a small percentage will ever be lucky enough to get the right mix of events that catapults them to stardom.

As a web marketeer; I don't want my programatic ads targeting a poor conversion rate target.

So I'm fine with this.

Most Youtubers abuse Google ads platform but provide awful conversion rate with their audiences.

Found this at the beginning of the thread and it's worth quoting as a reminder.

Ad money is not guaranteed. Advertisers decide where to spend their dollars, and if your outlet is not seen as a useful spend, they're going to take their money elsewhere.
 

Village

Member
No I'll go in the other direction.
I don't believe this. I think it's just something people repeat enough times that they actually start to believe.
I personally think 90% of the most popular YouTubers today are popular from sheer luck and managing to cash in on something at the right time with the right demographics. There are plenty of small channels that put in far more work.
Recording yourself playing a video game and doing a bit of editing takes no meaningful work whatsoever.

Anyway YouTube was due for a good culling. I'm glad these advertisers are laying down the law.

Someone putting in more work and getting recognized less isn't unique to youtube as a platform and video making as medium, and cannot and should not under any logical circumstances be used as a justification to put down an entire medium.

Some times people appropriate people you appropriate less, that's the nature of life.

"Oh bunches of people are listening to muble rap right now, welp fuck rap music as a medium"

shits silly
 

Effect

Member
I'm actually glad Max is being negatively impacted by this. I used to watch his videos but I don't support racists/white supremacists.

Whoa. Slow down. Context in situations like this in how that word was said by him are extremely important and not once have I ever got the impression he's anything like that.
 

shanafan

Member
I feel very conflicted on this because I enjoy watching guys like Max and Boogie and pull for their success but on the other hand the fact that some individuals were making 7 figures off of YouTube just seemed absurd and never sat right with me.

But it was never about the money, it was all about the fans!

Yeah riight..
 
Ugh, this attitude needs to die already. You seriously have no idea how much work goes into making videos. Even a "simple" 10 minute gaming video can take hours to record and edit. Then there's making thumbnails, tagging, captioning, promoting, ect. And that's just for a gaming videos. Vloggers, animators, musicians, ect spend even more time on their videos.

Streaming is also incredibly hard work because you need to have a ton of energy, be really entertaining and stream for long hours every single day. And even if you do all of that, it will still probably take months of doing it every single day before you get more than a handful of followers.

Man, sounds like all these "youtubers" have so much talent! Surely they'll find a job that pays them a salary then.
 

Marcel

Member
How many more flaps like this need to happen before people on Youtube realize that it's not a stable platform for having a career anymore? The gravy train is over.
 
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