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

Nivlacart · 2018-11-21T01:51:22+0900

In the wake of the Telltale Games shutdown, I've been wondering about this quite a lot. I love Let's Plays, but the amount of them that have full game walkthroughs are probably costing the game industry a lot of money. I know lots of people personally who refuse to buy games because 'they can watch them on Youtube'. And it's terrible. It's not free advertising. Especially with story games like Telltale's, it truly must've cost them dearly for them to shutdown so hard. Can't the games industry rally to give games the same integrity as movies? Are they able to ban full game walkthroughs on Youtube (or at least, until a certain time period past the game's release). Isn't it perfectly reasonable? You can find Avengers fight scenes on Youtube, but you'd never see anyone post the whole movie. I googled around a bit trying to find some discourse on this, but they're few and far between. It's a little bewildering why no one is talking about it as much. When a video gets taken down because of a cease-and-desist from a game company, people seem to chalk it up to 'oh no, the big sinister Game Company just wants to take all our money and ruin our enjoyment, boycott them!' It's ridiculous! It's a little upsetting that yes, it is happening because of money, but it's the truth. Game companies shutdown every day because of it. I'm taking a Bachelor's in Game Design right now, and learning about the amount of money a company makes per game sold is heart-wrenching. Consumers seem to think game devs and game companies make big bucks, but the money from each game, after going through distributors, publishers, marketers and investors, the profit that comes back is most commonly a single digit per game... if you're lucky to have made a hit. It's little wonder how often game devs get laid off from companies. It might not solve the issue of game companies going bankrupt and closing overnight, but surely at least targeting a source that gives away the free full game experience on Youtube could start bringing it in the right direction?

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Started by Nivlacart Nov 20, 2018, 04:51 PM 62 posts Page 4 of 4 View original ↗

alita

#61 Jan 23, 2019, 03:38 PM Source

As for me, walkthrough is the way to make money too.
I usually choose games after watching some minutes of walkthrough. I don't want to buy a pig in a poke. Don't know if I would buy smth without knowing the game is ok and I like it.
We can't see the statistics, so we don't know who doesn't buy after walkthrough and who buys after walkthrough. So if the companies don't ban them, maybe they are even profitable or don't make much harm?
CleanWater

#62 Jan 23, 2019, 06:41 PM Source

I added a section in the "terms of use" of my games.
"You can post videos of gameplay of this game on Youtube, but must add a link to the game's store page."

Maybe, this can be a good idea for everyone's else too?