Twitch Revenue should be shared with Game Devs?
polycounter lvl 6
I was thinking about something that seemed unfair to me and i was wondering what you guys think about it. Do you think streamers/twitch should pay game developers for making a living off of playing their games. To me its seems fair. I believe some people would actually prefer to watch a game for free rather to buy it. I am guilty for this once when i watched some guy play through outlast 2 after watching i felt no reason to buy the game as i had already experienced everything it had to offer through someone else's screen. I really think something should done about this, maybe it will give the game studios higher salaries, more jobs and more resources as they will have another source of revenue. It could even allow devs to have more freedom for developing more unique games instead of sticking to the winning formula to avoid going out of business. I know some people think that twitch serves as advertising for games but is it really that? or is more of an alternative to playing/buying the game.
Replies
Seems more like a reality developers need to plan for -- i.e. make your game have a strong enough hook that anybody who see's it will just have to play it.
Interesting question. I agree somewhat with the premise -- many things in life aren't exactly fair, but so what? you got to survive anyway. So, practically it's probably pointless to discuss unless you have enough pull in the legislative world to do something about it.
The best you could ask them would be to promote a new feature of your title, characters or DLC's and make contest that would encrouage more player to join in. Use them as collaborators..
I remember there was a time when CapCom decided they would charge and file Artists who would do fan art of their property (Street Fighter) without asking their permissions first...
How stupid could they be??? Fan Arts are one of the BEST source of a license promotion done for you, and you never paid for it, especially if said fan art was made by popular artist (Sakimichan for say)...
And how were they going to control this shit anyway? Fan Art could be sold at any moment, during conventions. Artists often get requests at their table/booth to make a quick ink sketch of a character asked by fan and they usually do so getting paid by them...
After complaints from the artist community (''I'll never draw a capcom character/ or I'll just draw a lookalike''), they kind of gave up the idea...
trying to nickle and dime some slice of the ad revenue is just bad short term thinking in most cases. Game companies are getting huge exposure for their titles and when something like PUBG or Fortnite blows up due to catching steam and a huge community forming around the game which = millions of dollars of free marketing for them.
having thousands of people playing and streaming your game keeps capturing peoples attention and in the forefront of their mind, which means more opportunity to grow and scale your brand and audience.
that capcom example above is a fantastic demonstration of how short term nickle and dime thinking can sour an audience towards your brand. you want people being huge fans of whatever you are putting out, sharing it, talking about it and promoting if for you because they love it. why do people wear nike? not because its the best sports gear, they just love the brand.
Fortnite is probably the most perfect example of this. A free to play game, which means there is no barrier to entry and it's easy to scale (if the content is actually good), their product resonated with the huge audience of under 18 year olds who don't even watch tv anymore, let alone consume tv ads for games. this combined with their business model of changing things up with "seasons" and constant new micro content that is quick and easy to impulse buy means they are printing money.
I wouldn't be shocked if the next big battle royale contender like the new COD marketing team are approaching every big streamer they can hit up with massive cheques (ie: $50k-100k+) to have them exclusively play their game for the month of launch. and at that price it would be a steal. This shit is gonna get super crazy as more money shifts from print and tv ads to influencer and digital ads over the next 5 years. people have to actually be aware of your product in order for them to give you money for it.
guys.....this is why I keep saying building an audience is super important. if you are putting out youtube tutorials or something and getting tons of subs and views, chances are squarespace, or nvidia or some one is going to want to pay you thousands of dollars to sponsor a video.
on the argument of watching vs buying, I would say that if you are looking at streams of a game, chances are you were not a big enough fan to have been a potential customer anyways. but maybe by watching people play fortnite or outlast or uncharted for 20 hours might just turn you into a fan/paying customer. its just another opportunity for good content to sell itself.
I don't want to owe a fee on the shovel every time I clear my driveway, or every time I make a video about how to clear a driveway, I just want to buy a shovel one time and do whatever the f*ck I want with it
If you wanna rake in money forever then charge a subscription fee and see if your customers will swallow it... if they do then congrats I guess
Fact is most of this streaming stuff is actually indirectly making money for devs anyway as a marketing tool
In this case it isn't money for nothing, all 3 parties are getting value from the equation.
1) twitch invested time and millions of dollars into building their platform so for sure they are entitled to a large chunk of ad revenue. try starting your own audience without using a social platform and see how long it takes. they provide massive leverage and scale to creators. . >Win
2) the creators/streamers invest hundreds of hours of work into building an audience through consistently putting out content and videos, often times for several years before they become profitable, providing value to their viewers. their profit/income model almost always looks like a hockey stick with a long period of making no money while still putting in the hours until they take off.
At least there is an option for people who want to play video games for a living to earn a living doing what they love rather than being stuck in a 9-5 living a life they hate. good on them for sticking with it long enough to actually make it if they do. If someone can make 30-60k a year playing video games they enjoy vs 90-150k a year stuck in a job they hate, I would say they have won already. or you know...be Ninja and make $500k a month. > Win
3) game companies - they are getting massive exposure and attention to their product, at such an insanely low cost to them relative to other media forms. It's in their best interests to keep creators playing their games, it's pretty much like having dedicated tv channels that run your ads for free...24/7. > Win
if anything I would say the only ones losing are the people sitting there passively consuming the streams instead of working towards actual goals of their own or increasing their own value with actual output. But hey, if they get value in some way from that, I'm not gonna judge them for that. But by far they are the ones on the losing end of the equation an probably don't put a proper dollar amount on their free time anyways. Their attention is feeding/providing value to all the 3 of the players mentioned above.
It's easy to sit there and shout about money and all that, but what people should be focused on is value. Money is always a byproduct of creating value for others. instead of thinking "how can i get/make more money?!" think "how can I create as much value/solve problems for as many people as possible?" and I can almost guarantee you will make a shit ton of money as a byproduct of that, if what you put out is actually good.
The human world is an ecosystem like any other, but you get to choose what kind of animal you're going to be in it.
But storytelling-type games (Detroit: Become Human, The Last of Us, any Telltale game etc.) are getting screwed.
A lot of the value in these games comes from the carefully crafted cinematics. Streaming these parts -- which are linear media, so everybody will see the same when they play -- it's imo no different than streaming a TV show or movie.
I know I bought god of war day 1 because I'm a huge fan of the brand and love the game, exploring the world and experiencing that all for myself. watching it stream would be a sub par experience for me. same for any of the uncharted games.
Because the quality is so high, I'm a massive fan of the brand and I know i'm going to enjoy them, its a day 1 buy. same for cyberpunk, witcher etc etc. the gameplay is what pulls me in, maybe a bit of the story but mostly the overall gaming experience. hence why they get my money.
The sheer amount of crazy videos of random shit happening in GTA 5 online hasn't effected their sales, and I bet rdr 2 isnt gonna be hurt by people streaming it or youtube lets plays. If anything it will sell more copies because most likely people will watch an hours worth of content, see how random and interesting the experience is and rush to the store to buy it.
if your game is 90% cinematic, don't complain when a majority of the gamer market simply streams it. Games can be whatever you want them to be, but most gamers (aka your target customers) find the value in interactive gameplay, and their own reactions to that input/output on the fly thing that makes games interesting and fun as a medium. watching someone solve the chest puzzles in god of war does nothing for me, the tiny jolt of dopamine when i figure it out for myself does however.
the market is the market, and it will always dictate what is profitable and whats not. multiplayer games are huge right now because the massive audiences watching emergent gameplay and funny shit that can happen from random stuff. that is where they are finding value. Plus they dominate youtubes 18 and under market which, if you win their attention, you have won. (spoiler alert: there is a 6 year old kid who made 11 million in ad revenue last year doing toy unboxing and reviews)
90% of games stories are terrible in comparison to even mediocre films, with cringy writing and bash you over the head storytelling, so if that makes up 90% of the experience you are putting out, I don't find it too shocking when the market determines the value of that experience is a free stream. That's straight up people voting with their dollars.
I wasn't too terribly shocked when telltale games shut down, no disrespect to all the people who busted their ass there. But their games had so little actual gameplay and mostly relied on cinematics and story in a medium that the majority of customers tend to favor gameplay. that graph someone posted showing one runaway success with the walking dead and then a continual flatline of unsuccessful titles after that, you woulda thought they would have pivoted after 1-2 failures worth of market feedback. to me, it was the equivalent of someone who won the lottery once thinking they would win again by playing the same numbers over and over, thinking that was the key to success. If anything I would say their initial success was from walking dead fans , not the actual core gaming market. Kind of a bad recipe for a game studio. I could be totally wrong but that would be my quick analysis of it from an outsiders perspective. *pours one out for the homies*
Now I am not saying stifle your creativity. Make whatever kinds of games you want, but don't sit there and point the blame finger at streaming or piracy, or any other factors you cant control. In almost every case, the brand, quality or marketing probably wasnt strong enough to sell your target audience on it.
Nothing wrong with story/cinematic driven games though, but I guess it becomes an issue on where to draw the line, since I guess movie companies wouldn't be to happy about anyone streaming their full length movies on twitch.
My friend, Ryan Green, one of the lead developers on That Dragon, Cancer has remarked that the "Let's Play" broadcasting seemed to actually hurt their sales, especially given the SP only format of the game:
https://www.thatdragoncancer.com/thatdragoncancer/2016/3/24/on-lets-plays
I've watched the Uncharted 4 playthrough on Youtube with a player with an actual sense of humor and made the whole thing very entertaining. Althought, after watching the series, buying the game didn't ssem that appealing...
I mean I had seen all that had to be seen, the visuals, the story, the set pieces and got to see so with an actual fun players cracking jokes at every corner and gunfight...
Story-based or Visual Based games are often than not more entertaining to watch sometimes than to play (for SOME players)...I've done the same with Detroit Become Human...why go through the hassle of playing average choice based, fully scripted games when you can watch all of the story/cutscenes (game's point of interest) and endings on Youtube?
Mind you, I didn't have this feeling with,say Mairo Odyssey, Zelda BOTW or GTA. Watching gameplay made me really wanna buy said games...
Uncharted 4 also has great multiplayer, as do all the ND game's I've played.
I mean there's those streamers that have audiences for very obvious reasons, but if the rest of them pigeons are too broke to purchase a legit copy, its as good as downloading the bootleg.
I'd be curious to know how many new fans a game gets because of twitch alone, maybe to them its worth the expense.
If it works for streamers that's good, but god I've seen so many lives destroyed by gamers wanting to be youtube/twitch partners/social media influencers when they don't make a dime and suffer.
Its difficult to tell them if they're doing something wrong, or what more they can do. Its very subjective and needs a whole lot of luck
Thus I would never recommend this a career, maybe esports is a better option if they are any good.
At times it does provide some supplementary income.
Like this person I know got a laptop (twitch donations) for uh, revealing a bit of themselves everytime they got a kill in fortnight, though I'm not sure if they enjoyed that act as much as they did the laptop.
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In that sense it was a win for everyone, I think. o_O
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I still think working on their portfolio would have been a better use of their time, but maybe this is a step up from doing... well you get the idea.
Its kinda creative in a sense though I'm certain their fortnight skills certainly wasn't the draw for their audience.
I also wonder if all this online time is good for heath, teens these days have seriously short attention spans and can't make eye contact. I wonder if that's worth the dollars and ad revenues.
I also use adblock plus, so I've never seen an ad on any site for a long time.
Twitch must really despise me...
For game artists starting twitch channels, it does help if you are working at a prominent company since that does give credibility.
Else its quite the grind with no real guarantee if its worth it.
Ultimately like everything else its all down to what motivates you, if its money there are many ways to that end, some with more dignity than others.
Makes me wonder if I should recommend entering the adult industry as a solid career move to that person that got the laptop.
All in all, what I'd like to see is a twitch audience demanding money to watch a streamer stream, that should balance the market right away!
There seems to be 2 types of stream viewers as well, people there for the streamer, and people there to watch the game. People there just to watch the streamer. I could see developers possibly arguing for a cut of ad revenue for their games being used as content, but developers are definitely not entitled to the money made from subs, donations, etc.
I stream almost every day, and MANY times, I've had people come in and say they didn't even know the game was out yet, or they didn't even know of the existence (Detroit Become Human was the most recent example). They ended up going out and buying the game.
I've also watched my buddy stream, and ended up buying the game, which I could have just watched, but honestly, it drove me nuts watching him skip things, or not investigate things properly. I'm a 'do everything' kind of guy, while some streamers just try to get through the game, so they can move onto their next game (to keep things 'fresh'). Watching streams has driven me to buying games, several times.
I agree, as mentioned above, that this is very greedy, and shortsighted. Even EA has learned the benefits, and reversed their attempts to flag videos, on YouTube (years ago).
Look at where Nintendo is... they won't let anyone stream, and they still suffer to get a console to match the sales of other systems. I know there are many other variables, but I suspect this attitude has hurt their sales. I know it prevents me from getting one (aside from not having a good enough game lineup)