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Forums - Gaming - Stadia Creative Director- Streamers should pay to license games they stream

So... I'm always in a weird mind about how all this stuff works. The software is actually a licence based system, all of it whether you think it or not. I buy a game, I'm buying a copy of a game on disc or to download, I sub to PS+, Game Pass, whatever, I end those subs I lose those games, because the licence is tied to me paying for the ongoing licence. It's not different to many pieces of software my company uses, we all know how it works, you pay nothing for the software except a licence to use it monthly or yearly.

Now, I make money from that software buy producing a product or service but I'm paying back (or my company is) to the company on a regular basis to use their product (most the time). This is all cool and fine yet iin the terms of gaming, I pay for my copy of the licence which could be attached to a disc or my steam account or whatever. I've paid for the licence to play the game. If I play it on stream, I've paid for it, so I should be able to play it, when I'm playing it I'm advertising it as a product I enjoy and am encouraging others to buy or play it, because I am enjoying it. Companies even know the value of this and will even pay streamers or youtubers to play their games as 'ads' as they know what influence they can have. So a streamer should be able to play that game as much as they want, on stream if they payed for it.

There is however a middle ground to all this. It's not streamers who should be looked at, it's Twitch or whatever platform. Steamers have paid for the licence already, Twitch has not, Twitch makes money from these games and just makes money from them. Twitch is what should be billed, sadly, that means they'll pass those bills onto streamers. However, technically Twitch's product are the streamers, not the games. It's weird.

My only other issue with the situation is that some streamers can make more money from playing a game than a lot of the devs working on the game combined, that to me is weird.

Last edited by The Fury - on 23 October 2020

Hmm, pie.

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The Fury said:

So... I'm always in a weird mind about how all this stuff works. The software is actually a licence based system, all of it whether you think it or not. I buy a game, I'm buying a copy of a game on disc or to download, I sub to PS+, Game Pass, whatever, I end those subs I lose those games, because the licence is tied to me paying for the ongoing licence. It's not different to many pieces of software my company uses, we all know how it works, you pay nothing for the software except a licence to use it monthly or yearly.

Now, I make money from that software buy producing a product or service but I'm paying back (or my company is) to the company on a regular basis to use their product (most the time). This is all cool and fine yet iin the terms of gaming, I pay for my copy of the licence which could be attached to a disc or my steam account or whatever. I've paid for the licence to play the game. If I play it on stream, I've paid for it, so I should be able to play it, when I'm playing it I'm advertising it as a product I enjoy and am encouraging others to buy or play it, because I am enjoying it. Companies even know the value of this and will even pay streamers or youtubers to play their games as 'ads' as they know what influence they can have. So a streamer should be able to play that game as much as they want, on stream if they payed for it.

There is however a middle ground to all this. It's not streamers who should be looked at, it's Twitch or whatever platform. Steamers have paid for the licence already, Twitch has not, Twitch makes money from these games and just makes money from them. Twitch is what should be billed, sadly, that means they'll pass those bills onto streamers. However, technically Twitch's product are the streamers, not the games. It's weird.

My only other issue with the situation is that some streamers can make more money from playing a game than a lot of the devs working on the game combined, that to me is weird.

It certainly is possible to make a middle ground be it with Twitch, YT or the streamers... charge it by views (that is also how the youtubers receive) so let's say small channel, less than 1000 views you don't pay anything. But after that after you pay 1 cent for so each so many views. No flat rate so I don't think that would make streamers run away. And that also don't invalidate the possibility of the companies paying for the streamers to show their product.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:

It certainly is possible to make a middle ground be it with Twitch, YT or the streamers... charge it by views (that is also how the youtubers receive) so let's say small channel, less than 1000 views you don't pay anything. But after that after you pay 1 cent for so each so many views. No flat rate so I don't think that would make streamers run away. And that also don't invalidate the possibility of the companies paying for the streamers to show their product.

This would make a lot of sense. Smaller streamers would find it hard to compete and grow or just enjoy it more if they had to pay a licence fee for streaming the game when someone with thousands of viewers pays the same amount, plays the same game and generally receives far more than a living wage.



Hmm, pie.

foodfather said:
sales2099 said:

I don’t watch them, but the idea is to replicate the feeling of being over a friends house playing a game on the TV. The commentary by the streamer and the comments of the viewership simulate a sense of togetherness and unrehearsed emotions, just like the real thing.

Personally I see it as a waste of time but I get the appeal. 

OK that part I can maybe, MAYBE understand. But I still don't get it. There seems to be hundreds of streamers as well. I always wonder what percentage of the viewers actually play the game they are watching. 

Bit weird take, anyway SasXshadow for example makes youtube videos about Gears news/skins and he streams aswell.  And yesterday he let viewers play with him so I did aswell.(https://www.twitch.tv/videos/779530754)  If I don't play with him I enjoy watching his playstyle and learn from it.  As a kid I played many games that no one else played (digital devil saga for example) watching someone stream the game and finding a like minded group of people who enjoyed the game/lore is a great experience and I envy that kids today can do so.






Free advertisement is bad okay?
Pay us extra (ontop of buying the game) if you want to play it while streaming.

Really?



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foodfather said:
I still don't understand how lets plays are a thing.

I like to see what a game plays like, before makeing up my mind.
Sometimes a lets play, is good for that. Watch abit of a playthroug (not the entire thing) before makeing up your mind.



Id agree to this if Streamers didnt already pay for the games they Stream.



I'm sure most successful multiplayer games get pushed a lot by streamers so that they make even more money (games like Among Us would never be as big otherwise) and I guess smaller singleplayer games get a push as well. Not sure about big AAA singleplayer experiences but I guess they won't really suffer from that

Same with music. People don't stop to buy a song or listen to it with their Spotify account just because they heard that in a stream. No, many will search for that song only because they heard it in a stream.

The only things which I see as big problem is music on Youtube if it isn't from the official channel. Or if streamers would just stream a movie and let people watch that movie for free.



The Fury said:



My only other issue with the situation is that some streamers can make more money from playing a game than a lot of the devs working on the game combined, that to me is weird.

Isn't this the essence of capitalism? The shareholders who invested in gaming companies who never put a hand on a game code are profiting much more from games than the dev teams as well 



IcaroRibeiro said:

Isn't this the essence of capitalism? The shareholders who invested in gaming companies who never put a hand on a game code are profiting much more from games than the dev teams as well 

For the big games sure, many smaller games with fewer devs, story driven potentially by small studios reply on people buying the game. But this isn't just some board members or the owners of a company making month on their product and then paying employees for their work (it can come with bonuses for completing work and such alike or profits are even shared based on the company). It's streamers or content creators making money from someone else's work. It's why the debate of "Let's Plays" came up a little while ago and it's why if people on Twitch did a 'let's watch such and such a film together' something like that, they'd no doubt get shut down, banned or DMCA'ed. The game industry essentially let's people stream games because they know the benefits in the end but they also have the complete legal right (if they wanted) to one day just say "No, these are our games you are making money from, you can't stream them." and suddenly, no more Twitch.



Hmm, pie.