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Suspicious Dish posted:Actually, do people consider giving a free game to LPers to be "promotion", even if it's no strings attached? It is called a "promotional copy" after all. It's promotion, but I think there's a difference between, "Here's this game you can cover if you want, free of charge and obligations", and, "We'll pay you an extra amount per 1k views if you play this game." There's no motivation for them to play a free game, at the least. I think it's fine, and nothing's stopping the LPer from tearing the game apart if they don't like it.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:10
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There's always been a general distaste for "selling out" in every form of entertainment, though music has often gotten the brunt of it (probably due to having a large underground/indie segment of fans). A lot of fans of media, especially the elitist pro-independent and pro-art ones, hate the idea of an entertainer or artist "going corporate" or "selling out" because they feel that their material is inferior if driven by money rather than by the love of the art. For the most part, accusations of selling out are a lot of bullshit. Extremely few artists do what they do purely for love of the art with no efforts to profit from it, and even artists who do their stuff for the love of it want to make money; the ideal for any artist, be he an actor, painter, musician, or game developer, is that they can make a living off of doing what they love. Which is why they usually ask to be paid or do work on commission instead of just doing entirely pro bono work.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:21
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http://www.reddit.com/r/Yogscast/comments/2afpqz/an_open_letter_about_yogdiscovery/ This seems relevant given the current conversation. The Yogscast are doing a deal with the Space Engineers devs, and potentially other game companies in the future, where they get a percentage of the sales that result from the bump in exposure their featured videos give to an indie game. It seems above board as described in that post. It gives a bigger reward to their youtubers for featuring lesser known games in lieu of their usual bread and butter (Minecraft), and developers get a low-risk bump in sales and exposure. I do recognize the ethical line they're going to have to walk to keep it clean, but so far they've been open about it.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:38
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Heffer posted:http://www.reddit.com/r/Yogscast/comments/2afpqz/an_open_letter_about_yogdiscovery/ Speaking of, the Yogscast seems to have added a group of guys who do a lot of Source mods like Trouble in Terrorist Town and such while screaming and yelling. The Thumbnails for the videos always feature at least one of the guys miming out a scream. It's like they've acknowledged the direction they need to go in to maintain popularity now.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:51
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Well, that content is pretty easy to make and works. Not that the Minecraft stuff was too extre work besides the building. Personally, I wasn't too into the Yogscast anyway.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:10
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RSCNyx posted:It's promotion, but I think there's a difference between, "Here's this game you can cover if you want, free of charge and obligations", and, "We'll pay you an extra amount per 1k views if you play this game." It's not just promo copies of games - developers have recently been inviting LPers to events, and doling out compensation like flights/hotels. Northernlion mentioned it on his Twitter a little ways back. Obviously this is only offered to, er, "high-profile" LPers. There is probably a subset of people who watch LPs for "unbiased, if incidental review" although they're probably not the majority of watchers. I agree that disclosure is the key there. If there is any chance of bias, it's good to know, I suppose. I guess I don't see anything unethical since LPers aren't really games journalists. Retsupurae got offered a couple of Steam keys from indies but we never really did anything with them since playing new games doesn't really fit in with our channel.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:52
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Lazyfire posted:Speaking of, the Yogscast seems to have added a group of guys who do a lot of Source mods like Trouble in Terrorist Town and such while screaming and yelling. The Thumbnails for the videos always feature at least one of the guys miming out a scream. It's like they've acknowledged the direction they need to go in to maintain popularity now. The biggest reason I like them is because, albeit famous, they haven't been the traditional famous LP:er (although they aren't LP:ers) but that seems to change more and more. First they started with scare cams but they don't do it all the time so I looked the other way on that one; but they seem to lean more and more to the traditional content on Youtube. I hope they realize what big of a mistake they are making
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Jul 14, 2014 20:54
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Surely, at a certain level, LP is counter to the mission of marketing really terrible games, as the Let's Play shows off all sorts of things you'd encounter on day to day play. I'm trying to imagine someone getting an advance copy of Aliens: Colonial Marines for LP purposes, for example. Even with the LPer going "Oh my God guys this is so much fun" the stuff on the screen would still be...Aliens: Colonial Marines.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:54
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slowbeef posted:Retsupurae got offered a couple of Steam keys from indies but we never really did anything with them since playing new games doesn't really fit in with our channel. I don't see how a developer looked at you making fun of other people and thought "Hey, they should play my game! That's awesome publicity!"
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Jul 14, 2014 20:55
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slowbeef posted:If there is any chance of bias, it's good to know, I suppose. I guess I don't see anything unethical since LPers aren't really games journalists. Why would it be different if they were journalists? Video game journalism is journalism for a silly hobby and thus being unbiased doesn't really matter.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:56
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Yogscast posted:We are not journalists and we do not provide reviews or opinions on games. However we feel it’s worth clarifying that we wouldn’t ever give ‘positive opinions’ on a game in return for any form of remuneration. It either sounds like they know what they're doing or that they are really good with PR
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Jul 14, 2014 21:02
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Samiz posted:The biggest reason I like them is because, albeit famous, they haven't been the traditional famous LP:er (although they aren't LP:ers) but that seems to change more and more. First they started with scare cams but they don't do it all the time so I looked the other way on that one; but they seem to lean more and more to the traditional content on Youtube. I hope they realize what big of a mistake they are making Are they making a mistake, though? The reason people do the cameras are because audiences, on the whole, want them to. There's definitely a subset of LP-watchers (especially here) who think they take away from LPs, and perhaps they do, but from a business standpoint there's really no reason not to if you can do it well.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:26
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yogscast fucks around with the "scarecam" stuff pretty well sometimes, see the hearthstone thing they just did where they put on dumb costumes and use sony aftereffects to cast lovely specularity spells
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Jul 14, 2014 21:28
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kidcoelacanth posted:Are they making a mistake, though? The reason people do the cameras are because audiences, on the whole, want them to. There's definitely a subset of LP-watchers (especially here) who think they take away from LPs, and perhaps they do, but from a business standpoint there's really no reason not to if you can do it well. Yeah; from a publicity standpoint they are really doing the right thing. But I guess it's me being too conservative with my LP:s. muike posted:yogscast fucks around with the "scarecam" stuff pretty well sometimes, see the hearthstone thing they just did where they put on dumb costumes and use sony aftereffects to cast lovely specularity spells They are one of the few who have manage to actually do something creative with scarecam, but sometimes they use it unnecessarily but I guess that's a given
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Jul 14, 2014 21:44
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Genocyber posted:Why would it be different if they were journalists? Video game journalism is journalism for a silly hobby and thus being unbiased doesn't really matter. A silly hobby that supports a multi-billion-dollar media form consumed by uncountable millions of people across the planet?
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Jul 14, 2014 21:55
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chitoryu12 posted:A silly hobby that supports a multi-billion-dollar media form consumed by uncountable millions of people across the planet? lol
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Jul 14, 2014 21:59
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Samiz posted:I don't see how a developer looked at you making fun of other people and thought "Hey, they should play my game! That's awesome publicity!"
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Jul 14, 2014 22:01
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Genocyber posted:Why would it be different if they were journalists? Video game journalism is journalism for a silly hobby and thus being unbiased doesn't really matter. The problem with games journalism (and a lot of hobby journalism for that matter) is that the journalists are funded by ads for the things they're reviewing. Book and film reviewers working for the New York Times and other generalized outlets can afford to be unbiased because they're funded by a lot of different industry ads and subscriptions. If we want unbiased game reviews, we'd need something along the lines of Consumer Reports which refuses to take any money from companies. As it is, most game review sites have become little more than advertising companies who review a few indie games for legitimacy.
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Jul 14, 2014 22:38
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Madden 2015 is the best sports game to come out this year! Any small problems you find are inconsequential to an overall amazing game! Buy it today! *sees website is plastered with Madden and EA logos everywhere* yeah i'm not to sure i can trust this review. It's always great to see somthing that gets so hyped get less than great reviews by the same reviewers. Titanfall is probably the best example of this as pre-release there was this goddamn hype machine that will be THE killer app for the XBone and it's the reason to get one! Now that it's actually out reviewers didn't like the fact that it's a vertically oriented shooter that doesn't have 50 carbon copy guns like any Call of Duty or Battlefield game will have on release. Yet they still give it a 7 because it's "average"
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Jul 14, 2014 22:46
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:Madden 2015 is the best sports game to come out this year! Any small problems you find are inconsequential to an overall amazing game! Buy it today! The best example of this poo poo was Sim City and Battlefield 4 reviews on Polygon. Both got decent enough reviews (7.5 each, I believe) at launch, but then after a couple months there was a Re-review where Polygon decided that their initial review wasn't accurate to the player's experience and dropped the scores to 3's or 4's. Oddly enough, ads for those games started disappearing from the website a couple days before the reissued reviews showed up. Almost like they were timed to come out at the end of a contract.
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Jul 14, 2014 22:49
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Genocyber posted:Why would it be different if they were journalists? Video game journalism is journalism for a silly hobby and thus being unbiased doesn't really matter. Oh please it's a pseudo-hobby AT BEST Also I got sent a Steam code for a game from the developer for my lovely small LP and it's how I truly know that I've Made ItTM (ignoring the fact that they just spammed codes at anybody making Youtube videos of their game)
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Jul 15, 2014 01:50
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What Civilization V: Brave New World LPs would you recommend? I've already went through the ones here at SA, and I'd like to see more.
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Jul 15, 2014 09:09
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paradoxGentleman posted:What Civilization V: Brave New World LPs would you recommend? I've already went through the ones here at SA, and I'd like to see more. It kind of depends of what level of play you want to see, and if you want informative style, or something more offbeat like that Metal Gear Solid thread. Here's a couple of youtubers who have several good informative Civ5 playthroughs: Quill18 is a all around nice guy who plays pretty fast and loose, so his playthroughs won't take dozens of hours to watch. He's not the master of all things civ, but is good at explaining his decision making processes, so you can form your own opinions about his play. Marbozir plays at deity level and usually pulls off a win. Also completely awesome accent. The two have recently been doing co-op games as well, if that's more your thing.
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Jul 15, 2014 10:36
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paradoxGentleman posted:What Civilization V: Brave New World LPs would you recommend? I've already went through the ones here at SA, and I'd like to see more. Smite (who I believe is a goon) does some games on his Youtube channel. He usually releases a 30 minute video every day, and so far has 68 videos up on his channel. He does most of his games in a single sitting. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVzW5E8pn2CMtYKKpfWevBLKSXnlQHfWR
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Jul 15, 2014 13:06
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I had already heard of Marbozir, but he is by far too competent for me to follow what he's doing. I did enjoy his Age of Wonders 3 LP, though. Smite not only is a goon, but he has recently completed a Let's Play of the Overlord series that I enjoyed very much. I will check out both his and Quill18's take on BNW. Thank you both!
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Jul 15, 2014 14:31
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Speaking of YouTube reputations, apparently something weird is going on with mid-roll ads. A mid-roll ad is a video ad that plays at a specific part of the video. These are generally used on longer videos, usually at specific break points. That's acceptable. However, it seems some networks are going haywire with this mid-roll business. NorthernLion posted this video earlier this morning, and...it's pretty insane. Usually, I leave videos on the background, and just listen to a playlist for the commentary, and then alt-tab to skip ads and whatever, but...a 30 minute video has like 5-6 mid-rolls. An hour-long video can have 9 or 10! It's not just NL's channel: I checked out Two Best Friends Play, and they have the same issue. As far as I know, people aren't doing this intentionally, and it seems to be a network issue. Doing a bit of quick research, I checked out the hour-ish Wrongpurae videos of Darkseed 2 on the Retsupurae channel, and they didn't have the horde of mid-rolls. I do wonder what's causing this to happen. Most YouTubers aren't thrilled about a ton of ads being placed on videos without their consent. RSCNyx fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 15:29
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Looks like a those affected are people who placed for a mid-roll ad in their video and the system just went nuts recently. Don't really think this is some sly update youtube made to their system.
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Jul 15, 2014 15:49
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RSCNyx posted:As far as I know, people aren't doing this intentionally, and it seems to be a network issue. Doing a bit of quick research, I checked out the hour-ish Wrongpurae videos of Darkseed 2 on the Retsupurae channel, and they didn't have the horde of mid-rolls. I don't understand it. Our YouTube/Fullscreen API allows us to insert midroll ads where and when we want to. (For hour-long videos and above, I think it's fair to put one in. I think the generally accepted "rule" is one ad per 30 minutes of content - see Retsupanel video most recently.) Partner networks do insert new functionality to your YouTube upload pages, so maybe it's a partner-specific bug? Northernlion is Machinima if that helps.
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Jul 15, 2014 16:01
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slowbeef posted:Partner networks do insert new functionality to your YouTube upload pages, so maybe it's a partner-specific bug? Northernlion is Machinima if that helps. Thinking about it, so is TBFP, I believe. I checked out TotalBiscuit's stuff, and his longer videos have no mid-rolls at all. Have to look at more channels myself, but it seems to be a Machinima exclusive thing. I believe it's just a bug, but who knows.
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Jul 15, 2014 16:13
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RSCNyx posted:Thinking about it, so is TBFP, I believe. I checked out TotalBiscuit's stuff, and his longer videos have no mid-rolls at all. Yep, TBFP is Machinima (SocialBlade will tell you who a channel is partnered with). So is DSP. TB is Polaris, so yeah, it might be a Machinima thing. edit: Actually Biscuit is the one who told me the "30 minute = 1 ad" rule, so maybe he changed his mind?
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Jul 15, 2014 16:25
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Personally, I'm fine with seeing one ad per 30 minutes/an hour. I think that's acceptable for a channel I enjoy watching. I did a bit more research, and looked at various channels under various partnerships. Polaris, Fullscreen, and ScreenWaveMedia aren't sharing the same problems. Every Machinima video, on the other hand, is showing it in spades. A 16 minute DSP video has two mid-rolls, which is pretty extreme. Has nothing on an Inside Gaming podcast that has, literally, 15 mid-rolls. The podcast is an hour long.  I really don't mind ads that much, but...this is kinda overkill. RSCNyx fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 16:50
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They seem randomly placed around the video, what determines where the mid-roll ads go?
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Jul 15, 2014 16:57
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Golden Goat posted:They seem randomly placed around the video, what determines where the mid-roll ads go? I believe you can have them placed automatically, but the one uploading has an option to manually place them. NorthernLion uploads his streams to YouTube, and every time there's an ad break in the stream, he places a mid-roll then. There's two for a video that's 90 minutes long, and I think that's fine. It's just the videos he didn't manually place them that are going haywire. I want to say Machinima messed something up, and that is causing this, but XB1M13 still comes to mind. Either way, the content producers aren't at fault.
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Jul 15, 2014 17:03
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I wouldn't mind mid-roll if they are placed properly. Ads mid-sentence irritates and makes me click skip as soon as I can. But I'm too lazy to use annotations so I doubt I'd even bother with mid-rolls.
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Jul 15, 2014 17:56
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Machinima is doing something lovely in an effort to get more money? Stop the presses
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Jul 15, 2014 21:19
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I'd imagine it's just a bug in their code. The YouTube APIs are bad. I've been there.
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Jul 15, 2014 21:45
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Suspicious Dish posted:I'd imagine it's just a bug in their code. The YouTube APIs are bad. I've been there. Yeah, agreed, they're not stupid. That many midrolls is pretty much begging people to close the video or use adblock.
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Jul 15, 2014 21:58
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On the topic of mid roll ads YouTube seemed to update recently to push for more people to use them even going as far as to insert annoying little messages everywhere.  Which were never there until very recently. As RSCNyx said though you are at the very least able to choose where they are placed if you decide to have them  but if networks are automatically turning them on for their networked users then they will just have that annoying spam of mid roll ads throughout the whole thing. Speaking of Yogscast seems like they hosed up with some developer they probably should of looked in to more before having people invest into something that is probably never gonna happen.
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Jul 17, 2014 16:08
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Tip: Inconvenience your audience to grow it!
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Jul 17, 2014 16:26
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It's like Youtube is begging me to use adblocker at this point.
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