Phil Fish compares Youtubers to pirates

Cal » Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:19 am wrote:

Moggy » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:15 am wrote:...people are making money by adding their own thoughts to clips of Fez.

Isn't that just a bit like singing over the top of your favourite records and then selling them as your own work..?

Not really, that is known as a cover version and you would have to pay royalties.

These examples are more like a review of a film, although a film review with clips is more "damaging" to the makers of the movie as movies are actually designed to be watched, whereas games are designed to be played.

Let's run quickly through the six scenarios, with the reminder that these only apply to copyrighted works, not to public domain or Creative Commons-licensed items.

Comment or critique. "Video makers have the right to use as much of the original work as they need to in order to put it under some kind of scrutiny... So long as the maker analyzes, comments on, or responds to the work itself, the means may vary." Just don't copy so much that the new piece becomes "a way of satisfying the audience's taste for the thing that is being quoted."

http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/20 ... ine-video/

The only argument against Youtube videos there would be if so much is copied that it "becomes a way of satisfying the audience's taste for the thing that is being quoted.". I find it hard to believe that a video commentary of Fez is going to make anybody think "I really enjoyed that, that game looks amazing fun and now I don't have to play the game that I really enjoyed watching!".

Cal » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:00 am wrote:

TheTurnipKing » Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:15 pm wrote:

HSH28 » Thu Jun 19, 2014 6:03 pm wrote:Those of you saying that videos on Youtube don't negatively effect sales of a game (and might even help those sales) are completely missing the point. That isn't the point, its got absolutely nothing to do with the point.

If you are making money out of something that belongs to someone else then they deserve a cut. In fact the owner of that content should be able to decide what you can and can't do with it.

It's that simple.

If it belongs to them, what the strawberry float are we giving them money for?

Oh, that's right. A licence to USE their software. And what is this, if not using it?

Andrew: I'm certain that you consider what you do to be professional - this is not a personal dig at what you do.

I never took it as a personal attack Cal (far from it), I was merely replying to TTK's response with my own thoughts. One in which I agreed that such developers have rights to, because it IS their work you're using as the basis for your own, additional, content. There are creative ways around using their footage, but that's on a more case-by-case basis (and certainly wouldn't be of any use to LP'ers).

But they need to be careful with how far they wish to go with this as well. Going in heavy-handed will simply mean the bigger YT'ers won't cover any of your future games and that could potentially cut out a lot of lost direct sales in the long-term (potentially worth more than taking the YT rev).

What's next, paying out royalties to games developers for publishing plot lines on Wiki?

DaddyBrown » Fri Jun 20, 2014 2:10 pm wrote:What's next, paying out royalties to games developers for publishing plot lines on Wiki?

You know the FA has a copyright on the date of each match match of the premier league football season.

There is a lot of grey areas in this argument, although under UK law any one providing commentary is probably in the clear.

Although I just wanted to say anyone who does any kind of editing, multiple take stuff is doing a lot of work.

lex-man » Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:56 pm wrote:

DaddyBrown » Fri Jun 20, 2014 2:10 pm wrote:What's next, paying out royalties to games developers for publishing plot lines on Wiki?

You know the FA has a copyright on the date of each match match of the premier league football season.

Citation needed.

God knows why, because there's innumerable examples of public videogaming, and the nature OF videogaming would seem to separate it out from videogaming. To play a videogame is to perform it.

The clue is in the name: "Player".

Moggy » Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:02 pm wrote:

lex-man » Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:56 pm wrote:

DaddyBrown » Fri Jun 20, 2014 2:10 pm wrote:What's next, paying out royalties to games developers for publishing plot lines on Wiki?

You know the FA has a copyright on the date of each match match of the premier league football season.

Citation needed.

Just checking I think the Football League may have lost a case with Yahoo over this thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17218968

But I did find:

http://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-law/r ... ebsite.htm

I think it's out of date though.

1cmanny1 » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:31 am wrote:

Fade » Fri Jun 20, 2014 11:09 am wrote:He's right. Anyone playing a board game on youtube should also have to pay royalties to the company that made it.

Also anyone posting pictures of a museum or attraction on the internet should have to pay royalties to the creator.

Shut up Phil Fish you stupid banana split.

1cmanny1 » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:25 pm wrote:It's like someone setting up a business on your front lawn that sells pictures of your house. Even if they put a lot of work into their business, (which is rare for LPers) it is still only possible due to your property. So I understand why some developers feel entitled to a cut.

They are stupid to voice their opinion on the matter though. Youtubers usually increase sales if the game is good (more so for indies), and saying that you hate youtubers will only result in bad PR.

But there are plenty of places that sell photos of faomous places/buildings with no compensation to the creator(s)

Good (Proper good, as few as there are) let's players are as good as good sport's commentators.
And as Total Biscuit has said many times. People don't watch a let's players videos for the game footage, they watch them for the let's player. If it were just footage of the game with no commentary people would no WAY watch those videos. At least not to such an extent.

Do you have an example? I am talking about the owner.

Also not many people would watch LPers just talking either, so you can easily twist that around. Not really on topic, but I was shocked to hear that TB is only 29. He looks like 40. The guy has cancer as well.

Yeah they do, they're called podcasts or vlogs

What people like Pewdiepie and co. do is the kind of interactive marketing and PR that companies cannot hope to pull off - and is seen as increasingly legitimate and believable compared to the super-slick vertical slice/bullshot material we see for many games. This generation of community seems to be far less important to companies than raw sales; focussing on making a quick buck now and pumping out derivative annual sequels rather than trying to keep a long tail of interest going around and active and involved community.

Sure they're a business and they want to make money etc, but I want to look out for my own interests and avoid wasting money on gooseberry fool that is bad. I think that people paying for a game is enough financial servitude to publishers as it is; The games industry existed before lets play videos, and will continue to do so, in the same way the film and music industries are making profits despite the existence of home recording in all its forms for decades. This comparison between games and films on youtube is completely flawed - films are the same everytime and have no audience involvement at all. Think of games like cars, if you put up a video of you driving a car and talking about it, would the manufacturer of the car be entitled to a cut of the ad revenue, seeing as you're making money from their manufactured product? No. That would be silly.

I think the point that Jim Sterling made in his vid is interesting - that silencing critics on youtube is tantamount to censorship, not just copyright infringement, and that I think is far more insidious. Also this idea of people watching vids of a game rather than playing them could be seen as a satirical commentary on the over-linear and "cinematic" nature of some games, in which watching it is almost exactly the same experience (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, Call of Duty singleplayer etc).

Ultimately, I think the only reason to be afraid or against Youtubers is if you know your game is gooseberry fool, and don't want people finding out before they buy it, going instead to incestuous and paid-for reviews. Look at some of the turds that have cropped up on Steam, Earth 2066 and Air Control. Despite lots of people talking about them, the all-time maximum player numbers are (in respective order) 3 and 8. Youtube views do not equal lost sales, especially if people weren't going to buy the game in the first place.

tl;dr i watched a full playthrough of catherine AND outlast on youtube - and purchased both after. Don't regret a thing. I *wanted* to buy silent hill, gooseberry fool i strawberry floating did - but it was broken (hd version), so i pirated it but am too pussy / n00b to play sh2 alone - so i'm probably gonna watch a playthrough online. The guy sounds like an idiot. I knew we'd hear more from him after he threw a hissy fit.

Orbital » Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:11 am wrote:tl;dr i watched a full playthrough of catherine AND outlast on youtube - and purchased both after. Don't regret a thing. I *wanted* to buy silent hill, gooseberry fool i strawberry floating did - but it was broken (hd version), so i pirated it but am too pussy / n00b to play sh2 alone - so i'm probably gonna watch a playthrough online. The guy sounds like an idiot. I knew we'd hear more from him after he threw a hissy fit.

He has already said that all modern Japanese games suck and that PC's are for spreedsheets not games, so he already doesn't have a great track record. If this goes on much longer people will probably just shrug and say well that's just Phil Fish at it again.

Story has it that even in his pre-Fez days Phil Fish was always thought of as a bit of a dickhead who doesn't think before shooting his mouth off.

lex-man » Today, 10:32 wrote:

Orbital » Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:11 am wrote:tl;dr i watched a full playthrough of catherine AND outlast on youtube - and purchased both after. Don't regret a thing. I *wanted* to buy silent hill, gooseberry fool i strawberry floating did - but it was broken (hd version), so i pirated it but am too pussy / n00b to play sh2 alone - so i'm probably gonna watch a playthrough online. The guy sounds like an idiot. I knew we'd hear more from him after he threw a hissy fit.

He has already said that all modern Japanese games suck and that PC's are for spreedsheets not games, so he already doesn't have a great track record. If this goes on much longer people will probably just shrug and say well that's just Phil Fish at it again.

Yeah i know about that, he definitely needs a little inner peace - but i read up a fair bit about his japan comments and i have to agree, he worded it badly but overall he has a point - Japanese games have stagnated for too long, really lacking innovation in all departments. I know some japanese developers who took the comments hard but thanked him afterwards, stating they agree and vow to make better games.

Ultimately, I would approve of devs getting a cut of YouTuber ad revenue if and only if the YouTuber gets a cut of the game in question's sales as a direct result of their videos. Fair's fair, after all.

(Absolutely no dev would stand for that)

No industry on the planet has that kind of reciprocal advertising arrangement, don't be absurd.

Channel 4 don't get a cut of Transformers' profits because the ads ran during Hollyoaks.

Skarjo » Sun Jun 22, 2014 4:49 pm wrote:No industry on the planet has that kind of reciprocal advertising arrangement, don't be absurd.

Channel 4 don't get a cut of Transformers' profits because the ads ran during Hollyoaks.

Dark Dragon 64 » Sun Jun 22, 2014 4:58 pm wrote:

Skarjo » Sun Jun 22, 2014 4:49 pm wrote:No industry on the planet has that kind of reciprocal advertising arrangement, don't be absurd.

Channel 4 don't get a cut of Transformers' profits because the ads ran during Hollyoaks.

It does though ads are paid for this is more like paying for reviews which does happen as well.

Phil is wrong here. If YouTubers are making money from your game, it's only because you didn't think to do what they are doing first. You get a lot of exposure through some of the channels. One channel with several million subscribers did an epic playthrough of our game. We were so impressed that we sent him some free gooseberry fool. There's no point in getting bumpain because someone is making money out of giving you free advertising.

Phil, bless him, has always had a problem with other people. He's a walking sense of entitlement, but watch this:


It might make you feel a bit better about him.

Funnily enough I watched that video an hour ago. I don't think the Phil Fish problem is down to Phil Fish himself more than it is down to the culture that surrounds him.

I actually quite like Phil Fish he's one of those guys you go down the pub with who is fun to hang around with but has some crazy ideas. Also I really like Fez's art and music style but not actually playing the game it's just a bit dull.