Can the games industry ban just full game walkthrough Youtube videos?

Hmmm I play a lot of VNs and tried to watch some on YT, and you know what? Watching them still doesnt give me the same experience as "playing" them.. It probably differs on a per VN basis, but at least those I've played still gave me a different experience than just watching their YT videos.

Also, as a gamer, why will I consider watching a video over actually playing a game? I play games because I want to experience it. If you're fine with just watching, then you're not really in for the playing experience.

This is like... opening a can of worms. If you somehow manage to ban full game walkthrough, a lot of people will be pissed because they might consider this a form of censorship. But is it really? Maybe. Like people have pointed out, the difference between games and movies or even music, is that games are interactive. You can watch people play a game and understand everything about the story, but you won't get the "experience" of playing it. Think of it this way: you watch a video of me eating a rabbit. Now you see how it looks like, understand what it tastes like, but you don't have the experience of eating it yourself. Or think of it as watching a video of me walking around Tokyo, versus walking around Tokyo yourself. :cool:

I haven't heard of this game you mentioned, so I am not sure what exactly was the reason the game tanked or why the company went under. But I find it hard to believe full game walkthroughs can cause much impact on overall sales. I know some people don't have time to play so they watch playthroughs instead, like my boss. Or people who just want to know the story but are not interested in gameplay. I never played MK, because I am not interested in its fighting mechanics. However, I watched the story cutscenes of the game, so I know what its plot is. That was enough for me. I didn't have the experience of playing it, because I didn't care. Some games have interesting story, but boring gameplay, like Uncharted 3, I will gladly skip playing them. Yep. I played U3 and hated it. Now this depends on the individual and how much they really want to own or play the game themselves. Corpse Party is a game that relies 90% on story to draw people in, and its gameplay is just basic exploration. However, I will gladly buy the game just so I can experience everything about that game myself, because I just love it that much. :biggrin:

Another problem with your proposal is how it can't realistically work. Let's say that you successfully ban full game walkthroughs. OK. That means people can still post little segments of the game, right? So let's say I post a gameplay segment at the beginning, another person posts the middle part, and another one posts the ending. Well, you can't ban any of us, since we're not technically breaking any rules here. None of us posted the full game, so we should be fine, right? :confused:


These people are not your target audience. Your target is the ones who want to play games for their own enjoyment. Just because you ban full game walkthroughs doesn't mean they will automatically go out and buy your game. Why?

1. They weren't interested in buying it to begin with.
2. They weren't interested in playing it to begin with.
3. See my example above.
4. Let me give you one more: Let's say I am a poor high school student who can't afford to buy games, so I watch people play instead. Now if you ban those videos, you think you would get a sale from me?

Try this: "I know lots of people who personally refuse to go out and date because they can just (wait, why is the f word censored, lol?) to loli porn instead. Therefore, we should ban pornhub in order to force people to get out more." :rolleyes:


That is the consequence of not being able to make your game interesting enough to attract customers. o_O
Developers/programmers get laid off after they are done with their contracts.

One last thing, OP: if you are worried that full game walkthroughs will hamper your game's sale, I guarantee you that if you ban them, you will not get more than 10 sales for your game. :stickytongue:

I don't get the point of this discussion...

Why would walk-through videos hurt ANY games? If anything, it's free advertisement for them, no idea why would you deny this... You know how many people watch some famous youtubers play these games? All of those people got to know more about the game because of these youtubers, even if they only watch for the comments of these youtubers during gameplay. The spreading of knowledge about a product is called advertisement. That is precisely what happens on youtube in these cases, intentionally or not.

People not buying a game because they can "watch" it on youtube? For real? Sorry, I don't buy it. (It seems I'm high on puns today, sorry. :p)
Seems like everyone here already pointed it out, but it never hurts to do it again:
Those people wouldn't buy your game anyway, they are not gamers.

You are comparing movies and games in your opening post...

Movies are meant to be watched (and heard, if you really want to get technical about it), and that's it. There is no other interaction in that, so of course, if full movies are uploaded, it would kinda drop the income of the movie maker. Ohh, wait... There ARE full movies on youtube, tons of them! Ohh, well...

Games are meant to be played, which means they require human interaction to progress. Watching a game does not equal playing a game.
Watching another guy/gal play a game is a whole new experience for sure (especially if the player makes good comments during gameplay, which is kinda rare nowadays, but still), but it is definitely not the same than playing it by yourself.

I don't know where did you read that a game company went bankrupt because of this, but it's obviously a ridiculous rumor only, so if that was the reason you thought about this... insane (no offense :D) suggestion, you can rest easily, misinformation cleared.

How am i supposed to know if the game is worth my time if i cant get a good, unbiased look at it, no commentary lets plays let me make my own descion on if what i see is something i want to spend money on.

Uh, guys, just remember that OP wants to ban full game walkthroughs, not short gameplay videos. :cool:

But even so, the points brought up, from Tai_MT especially with that astonishingly large post :kaoeh:
only justify reasons for watching full game walkthroughs.

Of the reasons, the one that actually sounded like a real hazard of banning full game walkthroughs was:

Oof, oh damn that actually would be quite damaging to game history indeed. I did mention in the original post that it probably would be fairer if games were allowed to release full game walkthroughs only after a certain period of time, but it IS kind of hard to implement. Persona 5 did try with the ban on uploading story footage up to a certain point, rather brilliant of them.

And also, if we're going with the opinion that you can't fully experience a game if you don't play it, then in a way, full game walkthroughs don't retain game history accurately at all. The preservation of ROMs do.
(which unfortunately, recently has seen a policing of. I do feel the crackdown on ROMs of long outdated games was a bit over the top there).



And as for the quotes on Telltale:


For the record, I'm not a big fan of Telltale games, but it is through the insights of lecturers and veterans of the game industry that have spoken and taught in my Games Design degree in university that brings up these concerns. It doesn't matter which company. To put it simply, the job of a game developer has a hazardously low job security rate. The addressing of this issues isn't "Hey fellow RPG Maker devs, what do you guys think about this sure-fix to be even more greedy and make EVEN MORE MONEYS' but 'Increasing our job security as game developers'.



I didn't mean to imply that Telltale was wrecked entirely via Let's Play videos, but it certainly was a factor in it. Telltale games are relatively well-known in the games community (famously and infamously), so it's a simple study of correlation. If it has a relatively known fanbase, they aren't objectively bad games. Even Nier has a smaller, more unknown community before Nier: Automata came out. There was a market for it.

However, they went way beyond bankrupt. The game developers in that company, without any warning, were told to pack their stuff and leave the office in 30 minutes, without any prior warning, no severance pay. Here's news on it, amongst many.
https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139

How is it that a franchise with a supposed dedicated following, acquire such a huge loss within that short a time frame? Their financial decisions with managing I.P.s wasn't the wisest, but it couldn't have accrued such a huge loss on its own. The faults do lie in what many have mentioned in this thread already: Telltale games are entirely story, they can easily be fully experienced with a Youtube video.
From the plethora of Youtubers that stream the full Telltale games, it's quite clear that if we correlate this info, there's is definitely a slim-to-large margin of sales lost just from Youtube views watching the whole game.



Does that make Telltale games bad games? Well, arguably, from the definition of games we're agreeing on, yeah, they're bad games.
However, who takes the brunt of the hit when things fail? It's the game devs, people who are just like us, who put time and effort into the things they create.
Are they any less deserving of being reimbursed for their work? Did they deserve to be left unemployed at the drop of a hat?

We do all deep down believe that games are interactive, valuable experiences that we are in charge of designing. But unless you stay indie or a hobbyist forever, majority of the time you don't have much of a say or get to choose what job you work on. Or even, sometimes as an indie developer, you just happen to create something absolutely wonderful centered around story. But either way this could hit you.

But pointing out that 'if your game can be entirely experienced through a Youtube video, it isn't a game', that comment only serves to harm fellow game devs just like yourself. Even if you believe that you would never make a game without at least that minimal amount of needed interaction, you can't control how consumers choose to consume your game experience. To imply that other devs deserve it for not making a 'good-enough-to-be-called-a-game' by your standards, that is possibly harmful developer elitism that could continue to be said until this situation happens to you personally.





This is also another reason why full game walkthroughs should be banned. If they can't afford your product, they simply shouldn't have access to it, just like anything else.
Every game dev loves having people appreciate their work, but this is still a product that earns money and pays bills. Do they get a free access pass just because they can't afford it? Does it allow them to have 80% access? 50% access? 20% access? How much does the content they watched weigh?

(also, games charge more than movies because a movie only engages you for 2+ hours, a game usually engages for much longer. Price equivalence ought to factor in that)

----

Once again, the point of bringing this all up isn't for greed of earning more, more, more money. It's ensuring that game devs in the industry out there are rightfully imbursed for their work and have job security. These concerns I'm bringing up could happen to any of us too once we put ourselves out there.
Aren't you worried that you might lose your future game dev job one day because not enough revenue came in for a game you crunched and worked tirelessly on?
Unfortunately, not everyone can be Toby Fox, who can survive on his smashing hit success with Undertale.

Youtube vids like 'Before You Buy', game reviews, videogamedunkey who posts snippets of gameplay whilst adding in his flavor of comedy.
Those vids help sales.
But full gameplay walkthroughs don't offer any benefit that the above don't already provide.
I love SuperBestFriendsPlay, but I can't agree with them posting full game walkthroughs.

Games are a labor of love, and receiving love for your labor is nice. But love doesn't pay bills.

I'm gonna back to requote mlogan's post

"Do you have statistics on how much money is lost in the gaming industry because of Let's Plays, aside from anecdotes of a few friends of yours? "

@Nivlacart, I understood that your mind is already set about this situation. Everyone has their core beliefs and you have understood it is hard to convince people another way of think. Everyone should learn to agree to disagree and move on. Everyone has opinions; if you do not like the option that people here provide, you could just ignore his/her explanation.

You said "Games are a labor of love, and receiving love for your labor is nice. But love doesn't pay bills." That is true. The dilemma is that you get a job to want to do while you are living poor or get a job that you hated and make a massive amount of money. It hard act for us all to having a cake and eat it too. Money or Happiness that can want most in your life. The game business is a high-risk business and entrepreneur unless you owned a big game business already.:LZSwink:

Ho, I warned you about talk something about emotion or being self-petty here; moderators will give you tough love respond back to you. I think you are ready now that ha ha ha ha ha. :LZSproud: We are here to help not to fight.

Can games walkthroughs be banned from youtube? Yes they can, but it would be a a public nightmare and do more harm than good. I doubt anyone would buy said banned game or future games from any company or dev that tried to do this.

Fact of the matter is, people are going to either buy a game or they aren't. If someone doesn't buy a game because they can just watch it on youtube, then they were never really going to buy it in the first place. You can not attribute monetary loss for a product to people who were never going to purchase it.

If a video of someone playing a game costs the dev/company money, it's probably because they created a pretty bad game in some way (story telling, game mechanics, lots of bugs etc..), and people will see that and not purchase it. It wouldn't be because someone just uploaded a video of their game.

The whole linchpin of this argument lies in proving that walkthroughs cost game companies money, which hasn't been proven. I would safely venture that there is no evidence, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary. There are a myriad of games and companies who focus on heavily story driven games in lieu of interactive games who do just fine. While their financial success may vary, it all comes back to 2 simple things, good business practices and a good game. Although I do disagree that just because a game is less interactive and relies more heavily on story, that that in itself makes it a bad game.


Welcome to the world of creative arts and business. Or life in general. No job is truly secure. And just because certain fields may be harder to succeed in or have no guaranteed job security, doesn't mean you should try and regulate the marketplace to your favor or whim. You will always setup yourself up for failure that way. Instead adapt, learn, and address the weaknesses of your product, business and yourself.


Well that depends? Did they make a bad game that few to no people wanted to play? Did they have bad marketing and make bad business decisions in various areas? If so then yes, they deserved to fail. It's only logical. Make a bad game, make bad business decisions, go out of business. Failure isn't even a bad thing, as one can hopefully learn from the mistakes made and go on to new projects with a better path to success.



But people don't have access to games they don't own. However, they can watch the experience of someone who does have access to it. Those are 2 completely different things. Playing a game, or even experiencing a game for yourself is not the same as watching it, regardless if the game is more story driven or more interactive.


That is the risk that one assumes when going into this field or other similar fields like the arts. Unfortunately, not everyone is cut out for it, even if you create good/great art. If your business skills are not up to par(which is common for most beginner creatives), or you haven't taken the time to learn valuable life skills (personal responsibility, time management, communicating with others etc.) you're not going to survivie, or have lots of trouble doing so.


You're right. Much like worrying about a practice like game walkthroughs won't. Which at this point is impossible to ban anyway. Scarcity mindsets hamper and kill life endeavors. However what will pay the bills is continually learning, adapting and improving upon your business and product. Those who don't become dinosaurs and go extinct. Don't be a dinosaur.

Admittedly, I don't. There isn't any concrete way of quantifying amount of sales lost for any product. My standpoint comes from correlating the nature of Telltale's Games' renown (sales estimates are the closest to answering that question, put in scale to the popularity of the franchise) to the nature of its bankruptcy, and bring this up as an example of a possible factor in lost revenue that eventually influenced large layoffs.

It's largely circumstantial, but I know if it was an objective truth to begin with, there wouldn't be any need for a mention.
It's because Youtube videos have always been a grey area that the question on whether LPers are helpful to the games industry is still a debate that exists today.





In my defence, I'm not here to fight with this community, I could get myself banned for entertainingly much less if that was the goal XD
I think that this IS a question that ought to be asked by any game developer.
I've nothing to gain from being emotional about this, really, so let's continue to keep this civil.

I did come from the same opinion as the rest of you, I love watching LPers.
I regularly watched SuperBestFriendsPlay (and even back when they were TwoBestFriendsPlay) and Game Grumps,
I watch TheWarOwl, Fitz, Videogamedunkey, Afrosenju, HotPepperGaming, NerdCubed; I think Pewds is a pretty cool guy.
Even now I still watch some and listen to their podcasts on the bus rides to school.

But I'm weighing in on this because of knowledge I've gained from expanded awareness of the industry that I didn't have back when I was just an indie developing RPG Maker/Construct/GameMaker hobbyist. Awareness that I've gained from real veterans of the games industry that have gone through layoffs, that have seen the volatile situation that the average game developer is in.

So as much as they were entertainment to me before, I have to antagonise the existence of full game walkthroughs because of it.
I would like to reiterate that I'm not here with a burning pitchfork like 'BAN ALL LPS THEY ARE EVIL'
But still, everyone so far has only kept trying to bring up 'full game walkthroughs have nothing to do with game sales' but has anyone even justified the merit of full game walkthroughs existing for anything more than what game reviews or game snippets provide?

Even regarding the solving an obstacle in a game doesn't require a full game walkthrough, only footage of that challenge.
Even Primagames (rip) didn't have the audacity to show a full game walkthrough to market their game solutions.





I don't mean to offend, but addressing the point itself, that is a dangerously arrogant standpoint to take.
As mentioned before, not everyone has the position to make business, marketing or development decisions on a game project.
Many a game dev come into this line of work because they believe they have something to offer the game world, with their ideas and their vision. They all want to be the next Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Todd Howard etc. famous game developers who have rocked the game world.
But we have to humble ourselves, for a good period of time until then, majority of the time we're going to be cogs in the games industry machine. Workhorses that are disposable. The uproar whenever the community hears about a company forcing its employees to crunch (recently, Red Dead Redemption 2) wouldn't be so significant otherwise.

And while this isn't meant to say 'oh, we should allow everyone to make bad games', as much as that's opinionated, but we are all collectively responsible for shaping an work environment that's going to be fair and liveable for fellow creatives.
Saying 'if you didn't survive in this work environment, you're just not cut out for it. You're not good enough' is just such a lofty, elitist, gatekeeping standpoint to take in an industry that is dependent on teamwork.

There's going to be people that start off bad and improve. There's going to be people that come into their own. There's going to be people that will have something to offer to the game world once they've gained their footing. But they're going to be put through a unfairly difficult filter if they continue to be the victims of the game industry's oversights.



As for the other points, particularly the dinosaur comment,
Just as we're all expected to evolve in the industry we're in, we also have to continue to help our own industry evolve.
An example would be like the anime industry, addressing animators' low wages. Apart from lobbying to increase their salary, they've also begun projects such as Animator Dormitories.
Changing the industry you work in along with the times is also an integral part of evolution.
Every generation of creators and creative business owners will be pit against challenges that the previous generation didn't have, that's why raising issues about the modern dilemma are important topics to debate upon. E.g. Youtube and mobile gaming weren't issues game developers had to even consider back in the SNES or N64 era days. It's nothing to be apathetic about.





And this goes back to this point:


A stretch of an equivalence for movies would be if a Let's Watch craze started, with people watching full movies on Youtube. The resolution would be a lot smaller, such as 480p or 240p, and maybe... let's say the sound only came out from one side of the speakers while the youtubers commentated on the other. You don't get the full movie experience, do you? Fans could say that they're watching these Let's Watches because of the content the Youtuber provides, but it doesn't matter, it's not allowed on Youtube anyway.
So why don't games get that same level of integrity?

@Nivlacart, I respect your belief and good that you are feeling offense. I think people are misunderstood if they insisted on your words. So it is your job to provide clarification. The more you tell me here and about your emotion or logic. The more information here the more we know. It is not like all of us can see personally. However, if you change subjects on the discussion, people here have the right to reference or talking about the subjects. You do not want to frame the subjects or intentionally misinformation, don't you?

If people like watching a walkthrough game, it is their choice, isn't it. People who post the video I think already notified the game company because youtube is very strict on the copyright infringement. Youtube will shut down the copyright violator video. Plus walkthrough video helps game players out about solving puzzle or quest if it is very hard to accomplish. The problem is many games around the world and how any of games show the full game in walkthrough videos?

When I talk about the moderators, many moderators here publish their games already. You can ask them privately about their success if you want to know the first-hand experience look like.

Finally, your game on stream looks good and you should be proud of yourself.

Then, I hate to break it to you but what you're spreading is just a rumor.
You're trying to convince people, you make a point, but it didn't get supported by the fact of data. Then it just an opinion, a rumor.
Again you're assuming "lost revenue that eventually influenced large payoff". How could u say that? what's supporting this argument?

People who watched a full game walkthrough is an objective truth that they maybe didn't buy the game.
But is it an objective truth that it's a fact of the factor of bankruptcy?
Correlation doesn't help. Just because something is true, you can't say another thing is also true without the support of data, Again, you're seemingly trying to convince people. You've heard a few news about an airplane crash. So you conclude that airplane transport is dangerous. However, you ignore how many successful flights that had been happened.

I'll take that challenge. I think Let's Plays should be recognised as a separate art form that obviously depend on games, but can have merit in their own right beyond commentary on games. At the moment, I am in a long-distance relationship, and watching Let's Plays together is one of our most important ways of spending time and enjoying each other's company while giving us something to talk about together.

There are other things we could watch, but I think we both enjoy Let's Plays for a number of reasons. One is following along, challenging ourselves to spot things the player missed or solve puzzles before he does. That tickles some of the same urges as actually playing the game would, but it's more relaxed -- he'll get it eventually, so if we don't get it, we're not cut off from the rest of the game. Sometimes we watch someone play a game we already know; then it's more about getting to re-experience what it was like to be new to the game, which normally is an experience you can only have once. A different player can come up with different ideas and take the gameplay into new directions that we wouldn't have found for ourselves. (And yes, the fact that we couldn't afford to buy all the games we watch is important too. You say "if they can't afford your product, they simply shouldn't have access to it, just like anything else", but have you never heard of a library?)

Incidentally, the LPer we watch the most, Alex Diener, is also an amateur games developer, and frequently travels to gaming conventions and meets other indie devs. When he gets to the credits roll of a game, he often spots names of people he knows from the community. You'd think that if there was any animosity between the development community and the LP community, it would come through, but instead, it sounds like the relationship is a mutually positive one. Several developers ask him to LP their games, or comment positively on the videos.

So... You yourself don't know the actual reason as to why their games tanked. What you see from the people of this thread, opinions and speculations, aren't the real reason why their company went under. o_O

I'll be honest with you: if you are not capable of making a product that sells well, because you are incompetent or it doesn't appeal to a big enough audience, the fault is on you if you go out of business. You admitted that yourself, that they are bad games. If you make only bad games, why should I support you? This is capitalism. Give me a product that I like, and you shall get the cash in return. :confused:
"Putting time and effort in what they create".
Yes, don't we all? But if your effort and time are wasted, then you need to reevaluate yourself. Just because you spend X hours studying for a test, doesn't mean you automatically deserve a passing grade. It's not the effort that you are graded on, it's what you show you know and can do. Not everyone gets a participation trophy, you know? :oops: If your games can be enjoyed just by watching, uhm, I think you need to reevaluate your products.

Did they deserve to be unemployed? The way you asked this question, given the context, I feel like you have yet to deal with crappy products that annoy you to no end. Again, if your product sucks, then you should be fired and forced to reevaluate yourself. Let me give you one example: the PS Store on the PS3 before 2012 was fast and worked nicely. Some idiots decided to change the layout completely, and it became 10x slower. Whoever the hell produced that deserved to be fired and sentenced for crimes against humanity.
My point is: make bad stuff -> get fired.


They literally don't have access to it. This is the difference between watching full walkthroughs and pirating games. They really have no access to your product. Like I said, just because you watch a video of me walking around Tokyo, eating ramen, doesn't mean that you experience what I experience. What's next? Banning all travel videos? :rolleyes:

I'm going to admit that this reply did offend me.
All I've done throughout this whole thread was respond to points directed against my viewpoints with counterarguments, further elaboration, examples of news articles and so on.
'You're trying to convince people', that's right, I'm trying to convince people just as much as people are also trying to convince me. This is an ongoing debate.
How does spreading rumors like this benefit me in any way? Absurd. Like I'm getting into the cool books of the RPG Maker community by playing devil's advocate.

Even if you cover your ears and go "NA NA NA NA Nivlacart doesn't have any evidence so he's just speaking rubbish'
I mentioned before, there isn't a way to directly quantify lost sales because of Let's Play videos. A study can't be done yet, a method has yet to be found without having to intrude into too many people's and companies' financial records in order to find a pattern.

But it is still an issue in the industry. Evidenced by developers voicing out such as:
https://kotaku.com/not-every-developer-is-convinced-let-s-play-videos-are-1766985440

If full walkthroughs brought nothing but benefit to the industry there wouldn't be initiatives like:
https://r.ncp.nintendo.net/guide/

And there wouldn't be discussions happening in other forums and spaces like:


And the list goes on with theses and studies and debates into Fair Use if you did a search on it.
Hypothesises are all we have to work with but we have to work with them and not just ignore this matter because if there even is a slim risk that we, as game devs could lose income because of this, it should be something we have to be prepared to address if the time does come.
This ongoing debate isn't going to go away even if I didn't continue to reply, so I'd at least appreciate if I wasn't replied to with the tone of addressing a lunatic.

And there's still the further debate of 'Is it ethically right for Let's Players to profit off the work of game devs' because that's a different can of worms, and the point of this thread isn't to antagonise Let's Players as a whole, but to suggest that we should have control over one of the mediums of which our game footage can be propagated that holds the highest risk of affecting our sales or revenue.

Let's Play videos are still considered a relatively new medium that no other business has had to tangle with before, the legal ramifications, dependency, psychological perception of value lost through vicariously experiencing a game through another player, so if these discussions aren't brought up now, it's going to appear in some form or another in the possibly near future.





That's beautiful. I'm sorry, it isn't my intention to condemn an activity that you and your loved one share. In fact, I have had some great experiences with Let's Plays too.
Me and my best friend used to hang out after school at his house and binge watch Two Best Friends Play, because, well, we were two best friends too.
One of those that I remember in particular is their Catherine (PS3) playthrough, from which we derived tons of gut-busting laughter.
Mid-playthrough, I went out and bought it and beat it for myself before I finished the last few episodes of their playthrough.

Certain Let's Plays did serve as advertisement for me personally. It's not like I'm disconnected from the rest of you.
However, while I did buy the game, were I a man of different personality and wasn't so purist about how I liked to consume my games,
I could easily sat on my bum and finished the playthrough and would have been satisfied with consuming the game.
Personally, I hate spoilers, and I hate experiencing things the way things weren't meant to be experienced, so I would be the kind of viewer that would stop watching a playthrough midway, and go out to get the game.



But at the very least, I'm aware there are people like there unlike me.
To quote 'outdated username' in the comment section of the above Kotaku article:
'Before The Kinja erupts in disputes between “Some people can’t afford it either way!” and “People should buy this game just to support the developers!” - let’s just remember that Willingness to Pay exists on a spectrum that is unique to everyone. While I’m sure they wouldn’t have “millions” more downloads, it’s safe to assume that there could be some (many?) people who would have purchased the game at full price, but chose to watch it on YouTube instead.'

It's just unfortunate we're not in an ideal world.
There could be other methods to approach the same problem:
Only allowing demo vids (footage up to a certain point)
Or even being able to funnel some of the revenue back to the developer, like the Nintendo Creator Program,
But out of those, the simplest one was simply to not allow full game walkthroughs (up to a certain time period, say, maybe 6 months after the game's release? It's roughly the same time period of how long a game is released after the game is revealed) while allowing gameplay snippet footage and game reviews.

I certainly think it's fair and civil, and a good compromise without necessarily outright ostracising either side of the spectrum.

You have a point, I have to agree that it hurts -some- genres games, while for others it explodes their fanbase to super sized proportions (FNAF, Undertale etc).

But just like Let's play videos are new, the line between an actual game and an experimental interactive movie branded as a 'game' is starting to blur. As sad as the true story in That Dragon Cancer was, it's a very very niche 'game', its a voiced linear novel with interactive bits sprinkled in. It's closer to a movie than an actual game.

Yes, in a perfect world, the developers might have gotten some compensation from all the watch time the Let's play vids had.
But without Lets players, I can bet you lesser people would know of their game since from the trailer alone it isn't something that read as 'this is fun/exciting, its a must buy!' according to the mainstream gamer crowd either.
The clear number difference between the Official trailer for the game vs the lets play video numbers shows the larger coverage it gotten because of them.

Did it help with more people sending them money? Possibly. More traffic to your game = statistically more sales because bigger chance it reached someone who would buy it.
But keep in mind that Gamers who buy games still consists of a large portion of people who is in it for the gameplay, whether it be a visual novel where you get to woo one of the girls for best waifu or a really cool battle system. There is still the element of playing it for yourself instead of 'its a movie game'

If someone can watch your game and that be that, then they just aren't that invested to buy it in the first place or was using that as a gauge to see if it was good enough for their money, and your game didn't cut it for them afterall. If you read through the posts on that reddit thread, most of them are in favor of let's play videos as a sort of gauge to buy the game or not as well. So if your game works with your primary target audience, you'll get your money at the end of the day.

I think this is really hyperbolic. I dont think lets plays have that much power.

For the record, I don't think your discussion point is a bad or unnecessary one at all. When I asked about statistics, I was truly curious, as, at the time, all you were providing was anecdotal evidence. And my point was, that there was anecdotes to show the opposite true as well.

You've provided, at least one article that seems to back it up, and it is rather unfortunate that YouTubers seem so entitled to make money off of a game at the detriment to others. However, I do question if it truly is the reason for that game's lack of sales. It's easy to point out the fact of millions of views compared to much lower actual sales. But, I would wonder how many of those views were people actually watching the LP in it's entirety. And of those millions of views, why did so few feel compelled to buy the game? Maybe they watched and realized it's not a game they would be interested in paying for. I dunno, perhaps I'm not making sense and am just rambling.

I think the point that many of us are trying to make is not to say that banning full LPs, as full movies are banned, is necessarily a bad thing. But, at this time, we are a bit skeptical about the true impact it has, and would like actual facts supporting the position for a ban, before jumping on the bandwagon.

As far as Telltale goes, I read several articles and never once does it point at full LPs as the reason. Low sales, yes, were a factor, but nothing claims that those low sales were a result of full LPs. All articles point out poor management years before their demise, and one specifies the reason was that a financial backer that they were in talks with backed out and without that support, they were unable to continue. But, nothing connecting it to LPs.

Those are just my thoughts.

It isn't arrogant or dangerous. It's reality. It applies to all business. Bad product and bad decisions lead to companies failing. Don't have the skills required to succeed for the business side of your art? Well then acquire them. Or find a way in which to acquire people who do. You can't whine, or complain because you don't want to put in the work and then be surprised when you don't succeed. Or worse, turn around and blame the industry for personal failings. As I mentioned before, that is recipe for constant failure.

Vision and creativity is useless here unless you have the proper skills to execute your vision or monetize your art.

This especially applies to people who run own their business and indie game companies. Now if you're talking about creators in the industry such as writers, artists, composers, programmers etc, who lose their job, because of bad decisions that were made in which they had no involvement, then sure, it's not their fault. And it can be sad at times, but it's still a risk they choose to partake in. That's the risk of business, or of any job really and of capitalism. That's life. Tough cookies. But that's what make capitalism so great too. You can take your skill set, move on and find success somewhere else. I don't see the problem here.


It isn't. It's just reality. Teamwork has nothing to do with it. If you can't pull your own weight, meet the standard set, or get along with others, that's an individual fault, regardless of what industry you are in. Don't have the skills or knowledge needed to succeed? Acquire them. Take personal responsibility. Will it be easy? Of course not. However, success is merit based. As it should be. This is assuming we're talking about ethically run environments and not ones with shifty and unethical work practices such as labor exploitation or rampant discrimination.

And some people really aren't cut out for certain industries regardless of their creative skills or what vision they may offer. That being said, I'm not implying they should be excluded from certain careers or give up on their dreams or goals. Simply that they need to improve in certain areas. So if company or creator fails, it's usually because they lack the business acumen, knowledge or skills as I initially stated before.

Sometimes it's not even a lack of creativity or vision, but simply that whatever one may be offering has no value in the marketplace. Implementing some basic tests to get a feel for the demand of their product/service is what smart entrepreneurs do.


Don't want to be cog in a machine? Then don't work for a game company, start your own, or be a free lancer and save yourself from the shackles you despise. Don't want to be a disposable workhorse? Then work to be a valuable workhorse. Someone who is valued and will not be let go so easily. Do these come easy and without other challenges? Of course not. No one is forcing anyone to partake in creative fields or rules they don't agree with. And in fact, there are many more options and ways to succeed in the creative fields than ever before at any time in history. That includes not working for large game companies.


That's usually the process for every job, career, industry or skill you acquire. You work your way to the top or to the position or level you want to be at.


I think you're getting off topic here. This may be an entirely different can of worms. I'd think it's best to stick to proving how game playthroughs negatively impact games first before moving on to anything else..



I would agree here. I just don't agree with the current premise of game playhroughs negatively impacting the game industry has any merit. And that the problems and failings of the game companies you keep bringing up either have more do with business practices or aren't problems with game walkthroughs, but are just the healthy but risky nature of business, or the individual choices and failings a creator makes.


I think you should reread what I said in my original post as I don't think you understood it. Watching someone play a game is not the same thing as having access to the game. Even if it''s an entire walk through of the game. It just isn't. If you cannot interact with the game, then you do not have access to it. This is something specific to video games and no other medium.



Because they are two different mediums with different business practices. Games aren't movies, no matter how story driven they are. It would be a false equivalency to equate video games with movies. Despite some similarities they may share. While an essay could be written between the different business practices of the film and game industry, there's one major point of importance, movies are accessed by viewing them, video game are not. So the film industry has a right and legitimate reason to stop people from viewing their art in it's entirety on youtube. The same does not apply to games, because as I said before watching video games is not accessing them.


You keep mentioning this but have failed to provide any evidence that supports this statement.

Do you know why the discussion happened in the first place? Because someone makes a correlation. Someone is spreading the rumor. Someone thinks that LP/Walkthrough hurts sales. Someone make a correlation that if all people watched the walkthrough video buy the game, they would get more sales. Where is that base from? why did they think if all the video watchers are their potential player base? Did they even think that those who watch video might be random people stumbled upon youtube recommendation that could be either "Eh, I'm not interested" and stopped (maybe not even) halfway through the video (then the view count increased anyway) or some people who actually interested and plan to buy sometime later in future.

Then there's a discussion, "What do you think?". Someone throws their opinion. "Eh, it's fine" with a wall of text explaining why based on their opinion. The problem with you is, you think this as a fact that it hurt sales without the support of actual evidence.
Now, I'm not sure how about everyone else. I'll accept this as a rumor and potential risk of "maybe". But accepting this as a fact of "largely affect the sales", no. Nothing supporting this argument. Even with that Kotaku article you posted (I'm still questioning the credibility of the site)

In the topic of "Do full LP hurt/Help developers", the Reddit topic you posted linked into the /r/gamedev

Which again, looks like people agree that it's either "it depends", "no real answer on this", "It's fine". And none of them seemingly tried to put the word in your mouth while you do the opposite. They accept it as an insight.

However, about monetizing the LP video, that one I agree it's a jerk move (and I think it's the main point of the Kotaku article you put above). But I believe it isn't what the thing we're discussing in this topic.