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[Schoq]

If you asked a random group of people whether or not a video game developer should have the right to get a cut of a let's player's revenue generated in a series of videos of the let's player playing and talking over the developer's game from start to finish, I'm going to guess the majority would say "yes".

ehm...



and this is a community of game developers, mind you

[Sik]

And not that small of a sample, either.

Of course, there's the bias of practically everybody being indie or hobbyist. I wonder what people working on big studios think about the issue.

[Giovanni]

It depends entirely on the game. Quick looks, reviews, and even full plays are fine with randomly generated/open world content with tons of variation. Same goes for Endless Multiplayer-style games. To games that build themselves off of being cinematic, the first two are fine, the latter tends not to be. Can't say I'd really want to play a David Cage game after watching a lets play since I already watched the feels elsewhere. I doubt the gameplay would add much to the emotion, which kinda speaks for the AAA game design process of cinematic storytelling.

[Irock]

If you asked a random group of people whether or not a video game developer should have the right to get a cut of a let's player's revenue generated in a series of videos of the let's player playing and talking over the developer's game from start to finish, I'm going to guess the majority would say "yes".

ehm...



and this is a community of game developers, mind you

There's a reason I said "random". You can't gauge general ethics on a sample of people in one community. The poll's also a very different question: it asks if they should give developers a cut of revenue, while my question asks if game developers should have the right to get a cut.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not sure of the distinction you are making between ethnically incorrect and personally immoral. if someone, personally, believes something to be immoral, isn't it, by definition, ethnically incorrect (according to that person's judgement)? i don't really understand how you can believe that something can judged by a person to be personally immoral, while still not being ethnically incorrect for that person; they seem pretty much synonymous to me, unless you're making a weird/pedantic distinction between ethics and morality or something (i've seen such distinctions made before but they don't really make sense to me)

in any case, to me, i'd think it'd be unethical to demand let's players pay you a percent *after the fact* -- e.g. phil fish, for years, said nothing about let's players being unable to play his game without paying him. he could easily have said that in the eula or something, but didn't. so, after years of people let's playing his game, to suddenly demand a cut of their profits when previously he gave no indication that he would make such demands seems like an act of bad faith to me. he certainly has the right to do it, but i can definitely see how doing so can be seen as immoral/unethical

basically it's similar to if jk rowling for years allowed harry potter fanfiction to flourish, and then suddenly demanded all harry potter fanfic writers (even those who wrote a fanfic ten years ago) now owe her money, and then sent a bill to each of them, and if they didn't pay her she'd sue them. she certainly has the *legal right* to do that. but you can see how doing that would be considered immoral, right? not everything that someone has the legal right to do is necessarily moral. there are plenty of legal, but immoral acts

another issue is that morality isn't really determined by a poll or a randomized sample, or mass opinion, that seems a silly way to approach morality. if 90% of people think something is immoral or moral that's irrelevant to whether any given individual should believe that thing to be immoral or moral. instead what people tend to use is some specific system of morality, e.g. utilitarianism or something

[Garthy]

IMHO:

Seems to me that the owner of the content (generally the dev here) should have the say in how their content is used, and if they want to insist on a cut of advertising revenue from a Youtube video or Let's Play, that's up to them.

However, a small dev trying to get some publicity and eyeballs for their game would in many cases be pretty foolish to start chasing a bigger cut of what is already a mutually beneficial arrangement. If I was trying to get a new game noticed and a moderately-known LPer wanted to play through my game, add their narration, and monetise the result, not only would I not begrudge them that money, but I'd be falling over myself to ensure they had everything they needed to do it properly. I'd be grateful to them for doing it.

[wolawolawoohey]

What I don't understand is why you would even be upset that somebody else is benefiting from your hard work. That should make you feel good, not piss you off. It's not like your game is solely your work anyway; it's been built off the hard work of countless generations of inventors, scientists, and artists. You'd be delusional to think you deserve 100% of the credit for creating your game. So why then would you have any right to demand a share of LP'ers revenue? And just because the law says you deserve all the credit doesn't mean you have to agree with it.

[Irock]

i'm not sure of the distinction you are making between ethnically incorrect and personally immoral. if someone, personally, believes something to be immoral, isn't it, by definition, ethnically incorrect (according to that person's judgement)? i don't really understand how you can believe that something can judged by a person to be personally immoral, while still not being ethnically incorrect for that person; they seem pretty much synonymous to me, unless you're making a weird/pedantic distinction between ethics and morality or something (i've seen such distinctions made before but they don't really make sense to me)

in any case, to me, i'd think it'd be unethical to demand let's players pay you a percent *after the fact* -- e.g. phil fish, for years, said nothing about let's players being unable to play his game without paying him. he could easily have said that in the eula or something, but didn't. so, after years of people let's playing his game, to suddenly demand a cut of their profits when previously he gave no indication that he would make such demands seems like an act of bad faith to me. he certainly has the right to do it, but i can definitely see how doing so can be seen as immoral/unethical

basically it's similar to if jk rowling for years allowed harry potter fanfiction to flourish, and then suddenly demanded all harry potter fanfic writers (even those who wrote a fanfic ten years ago) now owe her money, and then sent a bill to each of them, and if they didn't pay her she'd sue them. she certainly has the *legal right* to do that. but you can see how doing that would be considered immoral, right? not everything that someone has the legal right to do is necessarily moral. there are plenty of legal, but immoral acts

another issue is that morality isn't really determined by a poll or a randomized sample, or mass opinion, that seems a silly way to approach morality. if 90% of people think something is immoral or moral that's irrelevant to whether any given individual should believe that thing to be immoral or moral. instead what people tend to use is some specific system of morality, e.g. utilitarianism or something

From my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong), ethics are something along the lines of the morals held by the majority of a certain group or by a system (and that group or system requires specification, otherwise it can be assumed to be all of humanity).

I'm not implying that you should base your morals or laws on that; I'm saying I really doubt being able to get a cut of revenue from let's plays of your game goes against general ethics.

Also yeah, I'm against demanding revenue sharing for existing content when you never made it clear prior that you intended to do so.

[LightEnt]

What I don't understand is why you would even be upset that somebody else is benefiting from your hard work. That should make you feel good, not piss you off. It's not like your game is solely your work anyway; it's been built off the hard work of countless generations of inventors, scientists, and artists. You'd be delusional to think you deserve 100% of the credit for creating your game. So why then would you have any right to demand a share of LP'ers revenue? And just because the law says you deserve all the credit doesn't mean you have to agree with it.

^ this. The idea is just pretentious. For smaller devs, it's free advertising and publicity, and outside of piracy. I'd be ecstatic to see someone LPing my game, i mean damn.

For larger devs though it's just in terrible taste. I feel like Nintendo of all companies should be ashamed. They they've been living off the same damn ideas and faces the entire span of their existence, and now they try to get a penny off the loyalty of their fans? Nah.


Now, I do believe that some people can watch LPs and be disinterested in the game after they've seen everything. But I sort of feel like that's a problem with the people watching and the game played more than the streamers. If I watch an LP of a videogame i'd rather play, I immediately stop, and then get the game. But if the meat of your game can be experienced through youtube...I just think that shouldn't be a common case in videogames. Developers need to find a solution that doesn't involve pinching at YTers.

[eeedni]

i'm not sure of the distinction you are making between ethnically incorrect and personally immoral. if someone, personally, believes something to be immoral, isn't it, by definition, ethnically incorrect (according to that person's judgement)?

It is not, no.

i don't really understand how you can believe that something can judged by a person to be personally immoral, while still not being ethnically incorrect for that person; they seem pretty much synonymous to me, unless you're making a weird/pedantic distinction between ethics and morality or something (i've seen such distinctions made before but they don't really make sense to me)

By way of example, let’s take a therapist. He/she falls madly in love with a patient. It would be a significant breach of ethics for the therapist to express those feelings to the patient or to act on those feelings, however it would not (excluding some unknown outside factor such as marriage, etc) likely be a breach of morality to do so.

I grew up in a religious home, where sex before marriage was considered immoral, but generally not unethical (again, circumstances can affect that).

Lying under oath to a judge or jury, generally considered unethical, might well be perfectly moral depending on one’s own moral standards and the reason for the lie. Meanwhile, another person with a different moral guide might well find the individual doing the lying to have committed an immoral act in addition to having committed an ethical breach.

I too doubt that expecting revenue would be in conflict with many people’s moral compass (after all, religion both current and ancestral as well as the laws of the land are significant factors in an individuals morality), but ethically speaking, I find it to be, at best, on shaky ground. Demanding before or after the fact, but after of course is illogical (given the newness of the medium, gameplay streaming, etc) in addition to being unethical.

[starsrift]

i'm not sure of the distinction you are making between ethnically incorrect and personally immoral. if someone, personally, believes something to be immoral, isn't it, by definition, ethnically incorrect (according to that person's judgement)? i don't really understand how you can believe that something can judged by a person to be personally immoral, while still not being ethnically incorrect for that person; they seem pretty much synonymous to me, unless you're making a weird/pedantic distinction between ethics and morality or something (i've seen such distinctions made before but they don't really make sense to me)...

Most folks tend to think themselves more ethical (in certain ways) than what they judge their society's morals to be.

[s0]

they seem pretty much synonymous to me, unless you're making a weird/pedantic distinction between ethics and morality or something (i've seen such distinctions made before but they don't really make sense to me)

dum

basically, morals = principles, ethics = the reasoning behind the principles

[Schoq]

There's a reason I said "random". You can't gauge general ethics on a sample of people in one community. The poll's also a very different question: it asks if they should give developers a cut of revenue, while my question asks if game developers should have the right to get a cut.

Yes I can read thank you. Point being it seems a very clear indication that your guess is way way off. Game developers are literally the only class of people who could arguably stand to gain from such an arrangement.

[Irock]

There's a reason I said "random". You can't gauge general ethics on a sample of people in one community. The poll's also a very different question: it asks if they should give developers a cut of revenue, while my question asks if game developers should have the right to get a cut.

Yes I can read thank you. Point being it seems a very clear indication that your guess is way way off. Game developers are literally the only class of people who could arguably stand to gain from such an arrangement.

I'm going to poll one hundred lower-class, deep-south, rural Americans on whether or not they support wealth redistribution from top to bottom. If more people vote against it even though their votes presumably contradict their own immediate self-interests, will it be fair to assume that if I were to poll a larger group of people randomly selected from an all-inclusive pool, that more people would be against said wealth redistribution than the former group of voters? Of course not. There are way more factors than immediate self-interest that form our opinions.

That's also ignoring the fact that ~my question was different than that of this thread's poll~

[Schoq]

If I wanted to ignore it I wouldn't have quoted it you dummy. I know it's not evidence against your guess, I'm saying your guess seems dumb.

And for that matter, "Should X give money to Y" isn't as different from "Should Y have the right to demand money from X" as you seem to think.

[Irock]

If I wanted to ignore it I wouldn't have quoted it you dummy. I know it's not evidence against your guess, I'm saying your guess seems dumb.

And for that matter, "Should X give money to Y" isn't as different from "Should Y have the right to demand money from X" as you seem to think.

This thread's poll question has no context. Depending on the context, the answer to questions can differ.

Should we point guns at people?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law of trespassing?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law of trespassing on residential property?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law of trespassing in the interior of residential property?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law of trespassing in the interior of residential property while carrying a gun?

Should we point guns at people who are breaking the law of trespassing in the interior of residential property while carrying a gun that's pointed at someone else?

--

I'm going to assume most people won't have the same answers for all of those questions when presented with a yes and no option. Just like how I don't have the same answer to these questions:

Should video content providers give part of their earnings to developers?

Should video content providers give part of their earnings to developers for let's plays created prior to the developer showing any interest in asking for earnings?

Should video content providers give part of their earnings to developers if the developer makes clear beforehand that they want a cut of revenue from let's play videos of their games?

Should video content providers give part of their earnings to developers if the developer makes clear beforehand that they want a 95% cut of revenue from let's play videos of their games?

[s0]

the context is in the OP

[Schoq]

This thread's poll question has no context. Depending on the context, the answer to questions can differ.

OK so you're sure people would agree with you if you just got to slant the question properly got it

[Irock]

the context is in the OP

"Therefore, are youtube videos illegal and the revenue should be shared with the developer, or are youtube videos helpful and boost sales (especially in the indie scene)?"

And it's a completely different context than my question and leaves my inclined me to vote "no" over "yes" or not vote at all.

This thread's poll question has no context. Depending on the context, the answer to questions can differ.

OK so you're sure people would agree with you if you just got to angle the question properly got it

It's not "angling a question properly", it's asking a question with different context. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you don't try to apply the answers to that question to another question without the same context.

[Schoq]

And if you think the context is different enough to swing one fifth into over one half answering yes you're dumb, likewise if you think expanding it from people who read this thread to a wider random population will do that.

Again it's obviously not evidence, but with what there actually is to work with I dunno why you would assume what you assume.