Game Dev Explains Why He Doesn't Like "Let's Play" Videos

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I read this blog post from the developer of That Dragon Cancer and I have to say he makes some very valid points about "Let's Play" videos. Go read what he has to say and tell me what you think.

However, there is another side of this that I’ve been afraid to talk about in public. And that is this: our studio has not yet seen a single dollar from sales. That Dragon, Cancer was created by a studio of eight, and for many of us it was a full-time effort that involved thousands of hours of work. This huge effort required taking on investment, and we decided to pay off all of our debt as soon as possible. But we underestimated how many people would be satisfied with only watching the game instead of playing it themselves. And so yes, Let's Play person, I agree with you, it does suck to have someone else making revenue off your work.
 
One sided argument. How many sales were generated from somebody watching a lets play video? Unless they add that to their argument...it is a joke at best. Let's play are the modern "trial/demo" version. People don't want to buy a game that sucks either. So, all I hear is a whiny dev (no different that the RIAA) who bitches about what he/she doesn't understand and refuse to adapt to what people want.

In short....people decided it wasn't worth playing.
 
That Dragon, Cancer is one of those non-games that was pushed and hyped by the San Fran indie clique. It is $15 and can be completed in far less than 2 hours. Most people would find that to be not worth their time and money, so out of curiosity they will watch someone else play it.
 
Eh. Fuck him. I've watched LPs of games I'll never play, games I've bought and played and games I've beaten. There are some I've watched more than once because the person that makes the LP can actually add to the experience of the game.

Deadly Premonition is a great example. I love the game, but I just can't play it all the way through, but an LP by SuperGreatFriend was so well done it was akin to watching a season of a TV show and greatly entertaining.

So basically sure some people will watch instead of play, but same as piracy that doesn't necessarily mean lost sales. It could easily be people that are unable to complete the game for whatever reason, but still wish to enjoy what the game is.
 
Yes, if you're a developer who sells linear, not really a game content then let's plays are terrible. I think we can all agree to that. Although perhaps you could also say that the reason they get people to avoid these things (that the developer calls a game but it is not) is because they show off that fact. It's a difficult subject, but there because stopping let's plays isn't an viable option perhaps people should think long and hard before putting out content like this.
 
All the guy asked was that they include a link to the game's website and to tell their fans to support the developer of the project if they liked the content shown in the Let's Play . Have some running commentary on how they felt about the game instead of just showing the entire thing unedited. That's the damn least a Let's Play creator could do. Hell every game I ever pirated in my earlier life had these disclaimers from the Pirate group that cracked it.

If a Pirate group sees the need for the original content developer to make money off their work, you'd think that some Let's Play guys on Youtube would do the same without having to be asked. Common courtesy. The developer is 100% right in this case.
 
I thought that game was more about memorializing the child who died from cancer and less about making money to start with. I feel bad that the kid died and I feel bad for the friends and family, but to complain that the game didn't sale is kind of tripping...I'll just let them be.
 
First I've heard of this game; 14K sales seems decent for a point and click walking simulator?
Though I certainly agree with what cageymaru said above.
 
I guess if I watch a video feed of a parking lot and don't buy a car I see someone else driving then I am ( and the person streaming ) stealing from the auto industry?
 
I think Let's Play in and of itself is fine, but I don't like the idea of people trying to make money off of something that was produced using someone else's content. To me, that's a little too close to someone making a hack of a commercial game and then selling it. I think it makes the whole Let's Play community look bad when Let's Players try to make money talking about someone else's work. It helps strengthen the argument that Let's Plays should be illegal because they're making dirty money and not only wanting to use this commercial content, but profit from uploading it. Makes the whole LP community seem more dirty and selfish than they really are. A lot of people would be happy to make those videos as a labor of love and don't expect to profit from a game developer's work. The ones who do want to profit shouldn't be making LPs.
 
cageymaru said:
All the guy asked was that they include a link to the game's website and to tell their fans to support the developer of the project if they liked the content shown in the Let's Play . Have some running commentary on how they felt about the game instead of just showing the entire thing unedited. That's the damn least a Let's Play creator could do. Hell every game I ever pirated in my earlier life had these disclaimers from the Pirate group that cracked it.

If a Pirate group sees the need for the original content developer to make money off their work, you'd think that some Let's Play guys on Youtube would do the same without having to be asked. Common courtesy. The developer is 100% right in this case.
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Well said.
 
cageymaru said:
All the guy asked was that they include a link to the game's website and to tell their fans to support the developer of the project if they liked the content shown in the Let's Play . Have some running commentary on how they felt about the game instead of just showing the entire thing unedited. That's the damn least a Let's Play creator could do. Hell every game I ever pirated in my earlier life had these disclaimers from the Pirate group that cracked it.

If a Pirate group sees the need for the original content developer to make money off their work, you'd think that some Let's Play guys on Youtube would do the same without having to be asked. Common courtesy. The developer is 100% right in this case.
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Except you actually need to have brains to crack modern games. But you can do let's plays even if you're a dumbass. And some dumbasses have the social awareness of a granite rock.
 
Armenius said:
That Dragon, Cancer is one of those non-games that was pushed and hyped by the San Fran indie clique. It is $15 and can be completed in far less than 2 hours. Most people would find that to be not worth their time and money, so out of curiosity they will watch someone else play it.
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Ain't that the truth. Prior to release, I saw article after article on PC gaming websites, mentioning it over and over, you'd think it was the next Mass Effect or something (also it was on the front page of Steam at one point). I get that this appeals to some people, but a game about a kid dying of cancer sounds like pretty much the last thing I want to play. This isn't a game about saving the earth from aliens, racing fast cars, or some sort of deep sim or strategy game. I think the subject matter has a hell of a lot to do with sales in this case, he should be glad he sold anything.
 
the part that gets me "our studio has not yet seen a single dollar from sales."

WTF? I guess he should have charged the 'Let's Play' guys.
 
Yea, I'm confused by that sales statement, does that mean they have not sold any games? But they said they paid off their debt, so does that mean they got money but then used it to pay off their debt? Or did they go into the negative? It a bit of a miracle if they got the exact amount thye needed from their sales ot pay off their debt then.

That said, I don't really watch lets play, even the ones I "watch" I only really glimpse at and usually use them as white noise. Game sounds like crap but I never heard of it before now, so I'm going off of people calling it a point click wakling sim.

And... what is to say that the sales didn't come from people who watched the LPs? if they did makes sales.
 
Some of the stuff they brought up is different from doing lets plays. There is a difference between streaming a lets play where you talk and add something to the game making it your content and streaming gameplay from start to finish with no talking. The second is not your content and the owner of said IP has the rights to require you pay them or take the content down. If somebody rips the soundtrack from the game, that also is piracy and you can issue take downs for that.

I do agree with them, in some cases it is great and helps out the developers. But for some it fucks them over. I did that for Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice: Gods among us. Instead of buying the games I just watched a playthrough of the single player story. Then when the games were on steam for like $4 with all content I bought them then to play them for a little bit. There are some games that lets plays hurt more than they help. I can't disagree with him on that. if you know that your play through is going to be the same as everyone else. you can save the money and just watch the play through on YouTube.
 
So a game about how emotionally challenging cancer is did not sell well? Maybe we should look at the sales of other cancer based leisure material to see how it compares. I heard good things about this game, but was never interested myself. The subject matter and the game style did not fit my interests.

I watch Let's Plays for several reasons. None of them prevent me from buying the game. I have watched a few for games I do not own, but they are also games I will NEVER buy. Not every view is a lost sale. It's similar how I might ride in a friend's car, or engage in a discussion about it, but I am not running out to the dealership to get one for myself. Why are games different?
 
Cheese-Wheel.jpg


To go with this fine whine.
 
athenian200 said:
I think Let's Play in and of itself is fine, but I don't like the idea of people trying to make money off of something that was produced using someone else's content. To me, that's a little too close to someone making a hack of a commercial game and then selling it. I think it makes the whole Let's Play community look bad when Let's Players try to make money talking about someone else's work. It helps strengthen the argument that Let's Plays should be illegal because they're making dirty money and not only wanting to use this commercial content, but profit from uploading it. Makes the whole LP community seem more dirty and selfish than they really are. A lot of people would be happy to make those videos as a labor of love and don't expect to profit from a game developer's work. The ones who do want to profit shouldn't be making LPs.
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It's called Fair Use. Adding commentary or critique to something marks it as Fair Use, or transformative. Whether or not you enjoy them is entirely irreverent, they are legal under the basis of the Fair Use laws. People make money off of other people's stuff all the time too. It's really no different than what singers like Weird Al or the few hundred parody music channels on Youtube do. Same with the thousands of musicians that make money by doing covers. Let's Players are doing nothing wrong and if they make money doing something they enjoy, so be it. Being pissy or jealous that people can make money playing games is rather petty.
 
They made a two hour long game about a dead four year old, pitched the whole thing as a love letter instead of a commercial product, and they are surprised more people didn't buy it? Let's Play isn't the issue, the "game" concept is.
 
Derangel said:
It's called Fair Use. Adding commentary or critique to something marks it as Fair Use, or transformative. Whether or not you enjoy them is entirely irreverent, they are legal under the basis of the Fair Use laws. People make money off of other people's stuff all the time too. It's really no different than what singers like Weird Al or the few hundred parody music channels on Youtube do. Same with the thousands of musicians that make money by doing covers. Let's Players are doing nothing wrong and if they make money doing something they enjoy, so be it. Being pissy or jealous that people can make money playing games is rather petty.
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Pissy and jealous? Not really. I just worry that Let's Plays will be made illegal and Fair Use will be gutted or significantly curtailed once money enters the picture. I mean, people are sympathetic to them right now because most of them aren't making money off these videos, but this is the kind of thing an industry lobbyist could use to sway public opinion against Fair Use. I suspect the game developer had an agenda by pointing out one of the few people who was upset that they couldn't monetize their Let's Play in order to evoke disgust at a form of hypocrisy, and it could be something along these lines. I mean, most people don't see a moral problem with downloading movies or music for free... but on the other hand, most people would agree that a pirate was doing something wrong if they were actually ripping CDs and selling burned copies. Even though this situation isn't the same thing at all legally, I suspect people's attitudes could be similar. Let's Plays are a grey area in Fair Use, and people making money off them could be what sets off legislation to make the whole thing illegal.

Granted, maybe they wouldn't go so far as curtailing people's Fair Use rights, but they might make something specifically targeted to these sorts of videos. I would just rather not see the ESA, RIAA, and MPAA (along with their lobbyists) more reasons to target the Let's Play community by attracting this kind of money-related attention. Makes it kind of harder to keep the whole thing in that legal grey area and pushes a decision on making it black or white.
 
I watch those videos to see if I might like it or not and not to see someone play a game, watching people play computer games is boring IMO.
 
Derangel said:
It's called Fair Use. Adding commentary or critique to something marks it as Fair Use, or transformative. Whether or not you enjoy them is entirely irreverent, they are legal under the basis of the Fair Use laws. People make money off of other people's stuff all the time too. It's really no different than what singers like Weird Al or the few hundred parody music channels on Youtube do. Same with the thousands of musicians that make money by doing covers. Let's Players are doing nothing wrong and if they make money doing something they enjoy, so be it. Being pissy or jealous that people can make money playing games is rather petty.
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I am pretty sure you are wrong on that. Try doing that to a whole movie without permission. Look at the hell that breaks loose when a couple of notes in a song sound similar (Blurred Lines).

Weird Al gets permission.

Covering songs:
BMI Sues Bar For Cover Band Show, seeks $1.5M - OnStage Magazine.com
 
athenian200 said:
Pissy and jealous? Not really. I just worry that Let's Plays will be made illegal and Fair Use will be gutted or significantly curtailed once money enters the picture. I mean, people are sympathetic to them right now because most of them aren't making money off these videos, but this is the kind of thing an industry lobbyist could use to sway public opinion against Fair Use. I suspect the game developer had an agenda by pointing out one of the few people who was upset that they couldn't monetize their Let's Play in order to evoke disgust at a form of hypocrisy, and it could be something along these lines. I mean, most people don't see a moral problem with downloading movies or music for free... but on the other hand, most people would agree that a pirate was doing something wrong if they were actually ripping CDs and selling burned copies. Even though this situation isn't the same thing at all legally, I suspect people's attitudes could be similar. Let's Plays are a grey area in Fair Use, and people making money off them could be what sets off legislation to make the whole thing illegal.

Granted, maybe they wouldn't go so far as curtailing people's Fair Use rights, but they might make something specifically targeted to these sorts of videos. I would just rather not see the ESA, RIAA, and MPAA (along with their lobbyists) more reasons to target the Let's Play community by attracting this kind of money-related attention. Makes it kind of harder to keep the whole thing in that legal grey area and pushes a decision on making it black or white.
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People have been making money off of Let's Plays for a long time. Most developers really don't care about Let's Players or openly embrace them. LPers are the new "trend setters" for the industry. People like Pewdiepie, Markeplier, the GameGrumps, etc show off games to their massive audiences and can drive sales. They have a lot more impact than video game reviewers these days. Outside of Nintendo it's really only whiny indie devs like this that have a big problem with Let's Plays. Usually they're just mad that they're game sold poorly or got a bad reception and want to find someone to blame.
 
Snowdog said:
I feel bad for these guys, but someone really should have talked them out spending 3 years making a game about cancer.
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You just know they were sipping lattes talking about how this was going to be a revolution in gaming. Soon everyone will make games about diseases and they can be at the forefront!

I presume no real bank funded this.
 
Osirus said:
Let's Plays are fucking idiotic.
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Thanks for the input? I think paying to watch a bunch of guys play sports is idiotic doesn't make me right, the enjoyment of most let's plays for me are the commentary from the let's play guys.
 
Ocellaris said:
You just know they were sipping lattes talking about how this was going to be a revolution in gaming. Soon everyone will make games about diseases and they can be at the forefront!

I presume no real bank funded this.
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From what I understand it's based on the experience of the game's writer as his kid went through the stages of cancer. I got kind of turned off a bit hearing about the story. I'm all for emotional stories in games, but I just don't know if I could play a game where you're watching a kid suffer and eventually die from cancer.
 
otherweeb said:
the part that gets me "our studio has not yet seen a single dollar from sales."

WTF? I guess he should have charged the 'Let's Play' guys.
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Well..so it sold 14k copies and they haven't seen a dollar? Where did the money go?

I'm assuming maybe he means profit, because otherwise that statement doesn't make any sense.
 
Exavior said:
I do agree with them, in some cases it is great and helps out the developers. But for some it fucks them over. I did that for Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice: Gods among us. Instead of buying the games I just watched a playthrough of the single player story. Then when the games were on steam for like $4 with all content I bought them then to play them for a little bit. There are some games that lets plays hurt more than they help. I can't disagree with him on that. if you know that your play through is going to be the same as everyone else. you can save the money and just watch the play through on YouTube.
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But that's the thing... would you have bought MK9 for more if there were no lets plays of it? I'm guessing, probably not. If a lets play negatively affected your sales, it's probably because the game being previewed did not look good or at least good enough for the watcher.
 
pothb said:
But that's the thing... would you have bought MK9 for more if there were no lets plays of it? I'm guessing, probably not. If a lets play negatively affected your sales, it's probably because the game being previewed did not look good or at least good enough for the watcher.
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This, all of this. The only time I find Let's Plays or anything similar (Quick Looks, Let's Try, WTF Is, etc) have any real influence on me is either if it's something I never heard of or something I'm really on the fence about. There have been quite a few games that I've never heard of or only heard of in passing that when I see someone playing I think it looks cool and either go buy it right away or file away as a something to purchase at a later date. Firewatch is a great example of one of those "on the fence games" for me. I thought it looked interesting but I really had no idea what the game was. Giant Bomb's Quick Look combined with a video from some Lper (either Christopher Odd or Markeplier) convinced me to buy it at full price and I ended up really liking the game.
 
I think this whole situation is ironic, and find it funny how many people either insult him or just plainly miss the whole point. From what I could tell, the sound track content ID was up, someone got tagged and DMCA stuff transpired. Said person who had DMCA against them for the sound track posts comment "Sucks to have someone else making revenue off my videos", yet that is exactly what the person was doing with his Lets Play video, and IMO being a dick at the same time.

In the blog post, he stated:

All of this to say, we have removed all of our Content ID’s from Jon’s music.
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And also explains why he was stunned, despite firm proof in this forum to support this comment he made:
However, there is another side of this that I’ve been afraid to talk about in public
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Now if you read the blog post in its entirety, you get both sides of it. He does not completely bash Lets Play, and even says it has benefits to developers, along with the the detractions. Two sides of the same coin. He used the financial status of his company, which basically only made enough to pay the investment they took on and most likely keep operating. That does not mean they have enough to develop another game, or even have enough to survive long enough to make another game without another round of investment. And that most likely does not take into account the time they dedicated to get it done on time and in budget. But from what I could tell this was more of a project of passion than employment to them so that does not particularly matter. Not that they would not want to continue this company, they probably do, just that the passion of the project was more important than the financial success.

He also uses a few examples of scenarios that he has run into when it comes to Lets Play videos that he finds inconsiderate. Such as the solid play through with no added value, or the lack of a link to his website. He is not asking for anything extravagant, just a possible redirect. It is more likely that someone will do something that will pass money their way if they means are available at the time of awareness. If I run across something that feel like I would like to support, I will be more likely to do it if the means are available, if I have to take time away from my day to do it, ie all I have is the name of a game, or maybe company name, I will probably forget about it by the time I get around to doing it.

He is not asking them to take down videos, he is not asking them to give him royalties or cuts of their advertising fees, just some consideration. He was not being mean, rude or an asshole. He saw both sides of the coin and stated them. So I find it asinine how many people here are attacking him for it. If you were in his shoes you would at least appreciate the same considerations he is asking for, even if you did not ask for them. And without posts like this the awareness is not there for the imbeciles who are to stupid or inconsiderate to do it in the first place.
 
Kitebasher said:
I think this whole situation is ironic, and find it funny how many people either insult him or just plainly miss the whole point. From what I could tell, the sound track content ID was up, someone got tagged and DMCA stuff transpired. Said person who had DMCA against them for the sound track posts comment "Sucks to have someone else making revenue off my videos", yet that is exactly what the person was doing with his Lets Play video, and imo being a dick.

In the blog post, he stated:



And also explains why he was stunned, despite firm proof in this forum to support this comment he made:


Now if you read the blog post in its entirety, you get both sides of it. He does not completely bash Lets Play, and even says it has benefits to developers, along with the the detractions. Two sides of the same coin. He used the financial status of his company, which basically only made enough to pay the investment they took on and most likely keep operating. That does not mean they have enough to develop another game, or even have enough to survive long enough to make another game without another round of investment. And that most likely does not take into account the time they dedicated to get it done on time and in budget. But from what I could tell this was more of a project of passion than employment to them so that does not particularly matter. Not that they would not want to continue this company, they probably do, just that the passion of the project was more important than the financial success.

He also uses a few examples of scenarios that he has run into when it comes to Lets Play videos that he finds inconsiderate. Such as the solid play through with no added value, or the lack of a link to his website. He is not asking for anything extravagant, just a possible redirect. It is more likely that someone will do something that will pass money their way if they means are available at the time of awareness. If I run across something that feel like I would like to support, I will be more likely to do it if the means are available, if I have to take time away from my day to do it, ie all I have is the name of a game, or maybe company name, I will probably forget about it by the time I get around to doing it.

He is not asking them to take down videos, he is not asking them to give him royalties or cuts of their advertising fees, just some consideration. I find it asinine how many people are attacking him for it. If you were in his shoes you would at least appreciate the same considerations he is asking for, even if you did not ask for. And without posts like this the awareness is not there for the imbeciles to stupid or inconsiderate to do it.
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Here's the thing, I don't think LPers should have to say "If this game looks good, go buy it". They're playing the game and exposing their audience to it. In some cases, we're talking literally millions of people. Games (or experiences, if you want to get a little elitist about the term "game") like That Dragon Cancer simply do not appeal to a ton of people. They're interesting and they explore hard subjects, but most people really aren't looking for that. All "Walking Simulator" games tend to be fairly linear experiences that offer no real replay value, but they manage to capture the right audience and do well. It doesn't matter how much the mass media falls over themselves to love and praise a game, if the subject matter doesn't catch people it isn't going to sell. That isn't the fault of Let's Players. It's too bad the game didn't do well, but they aren't entitled to free handouts just because their game sold poorly.

I do agree with them on one thing though: It would be interesting to see LPers take the game and use it to share their stories and talk about hard subjects. Any game that tackles hard subjects like this could be a good platform for people to use to talk about things. Maybe they should directly reach out to some LPers or other influential Youtube folks and try to help facilitate these conversations. Hell, Markeplier's dad died from cancer, they could reach out to him and see if he'd be willing to share his story. If they want these conversations to happen on a bigger scale, they have to put in the effort to get them started. I understand that they're frustrated but turn that frustration into action.
 
Something is really wrong with a game if you're content with just watching it rather than playing it yourself.
 
pothb said:
But that's the thing... would you have bought MK9 for more if there were no lets plays of it? I'm guessing, probably not. If a lets play negatively affected your sales, it's probably because the game being previewed did not look good or at least good enough for the watcher.
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And your assumption there would be 100% wrong. Which is why you shouldn't assume everyone only does or thinks the way you do. Had I not found a video posted the day the game was released for me to watch all 4 or 5 hours of the story I would have been at the store the next day to buy the game.

I have purchased every MK game for nothing more than the single player story. I even preordered the last two non fighting game editions to the story line. So I wasn't even thinking of not buying it even being an option till I saw the video looking for a few videos of normal fights from the game and found that instead.

So yes, I would have bought the game at full price for no other reason than to play through the single player mode but that person's video resulted in me not needed to. So they went from being able to make profit from a new release sell to making $1.
 
I get his point and I kind of feel his pain BUT I've always felt that if "Let's play" videos hurt some games, then those are either bad games or more like interactive movies.
 
Some people really should read the entire article, he covers both sides of let's plays, from:

We feel the Let’s Play culture adds value to this medium. And for games with more expansive or replayable gameplay, it can directly benefit developers. Even knowing that some who streamed our entire game refuse to directly encourage people to support us, we’ve still sat on the streams and talked with streamers and viewers. We’ve watched the playthrough videos and we see the value that this community is adding to our work through sharing themselves. Let’s Play culture is vibrant and creative and really cool.
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to this:

However, for a short, relatively linear experience like ours, for millions of viewers, Let’s Play recordings of our content satisfy their interest and they never go on to interact with the game in the personal way that we intended for it to be experienced. If you compare the millions of views of the entirety of our game on YouTube to our sales as estimated on steamspy, you can hopefully see the disparity. We have seen many people post our entire game on YouTube with little to no commentary. We’ve seen people decompile our game and post our soundtrack on YouTube. We’ve also seen many, many Let’s Players post entire playthroughs of our game, posting links to all of their own social channels and all of their own merchandising and leaving out a link to our site.
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I agree with most of this. There are certain games that benefit from let's plays, and then there are some that don't benefit from much, mainly linear story based games like this one, and especially if the "let's plays" are zero-content on top of them and just the bare game with 0 commentary or extra content on top of it.

It's basically like putting up an entire movie on youtube. There's a reason the movie studios don't like that.


Personally I don't get the people who watch non-commentary play throughs, especially of linear story focused games like this, or Soma, or Gone Home, etc. It's basically like watching MTS3k but without any commentary, why watch someone else play a game that you yourself could play? You're missing out on the interaction element of gaming and what makes games "games" and not just "movies" to watch, it's a difference experience and you're just cheapining it for yourself by doing that.
 
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