Let's Play Copyright Infringement.

[kingoffighters]

Story driven games shouldn't be allowed. Fighting or games that are mechanics driven should be fine, except for the story mode I suppose. But no one buys the games for that so it probably won't matter too much.

And what is wrong with kids today that rather watch than actually play a game? Seems like a participation trophy disease.

[Opaque]

I feel like if companies are making movies and marketing them as games in the first place, the fault rests on them. If you don't have any gameplay, you aren't a video game. If your entire experience boils down to watching cutscenes with no real choices or input required from the player, then you deserve whatever negatives come from marketing your product as a video game and Lets Play videos ruining your story might just be one of them.

Some of you guys are quick to compare these to movies, but they're games. Would you say I can't live stream my poker game, monopoly, or uno? Of course not. Developers make the decision of how far they want to stretch the term "game", but if they sell you something as a game it should have the same rules as other games. If they want it treated like a movie they should release a movie.

[Shin Johnpv]

Nobody owns the intellectual property of poker though. Plus there is a vast difference between a board game like monopoly and say The Last of Us. Trying to just classify them as both games and treat them the same way is being silly. I think it's a vastly different thing to do a let's play of The Last of Us and to do a 2 hour video of you and friends playing Monopoly. Video games have become a big cross media kind of thing, yeah they're interactive but they're also visually driven with a metric ton of art and design work going into them. Very few games outside of MP driven ones, are 100% controlled by the player. There's plenty of scripted events, in game and pre-rendered cut scenes, all which are not controlled by the person playing.

I think for new stuff, that it should fall under fair use. You want to monetize your commentary about a game, that's fine go for it. You can not how ever do it over your entire 20 hour play through of The Last of Us, and instead it needs to be done over a fair use percentage of that content. I don't see an issue with that, specially when you're saying the personality of the commentator is what's putting eyes on the screen.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

As I bitched about in another thread, the game part of games seems to be becoming less and less important. It's neither your place nor mine to victim shame developers into making the kind of thing you think they should make though. I know plenty of people that played Catherine for the story. That I can go watch the parts I care about on Youtube is kind of a problem if the game just released two days ago.

[Shin Johnpv]

It kind of just came to me that it's a bit like those old VHS series of how to beat different games, or gaming secrets kind of things. I dont think they ever showed every single second of a game, instead they focused on showing the tough parts, or specific things they wanted to talk about. Maybe Let's Plays that want to monetize their videos should do the same.

[Diff-chan]

Developers can make the thing they want and they deserve the same protections as anyone else. If they don't want people to put the entire game on Twitch on release day they should be able to take steps to that end. Just saying that this is a game like Chrono Trigger is a game doesn't tell the whole story and it's not true anyway.

[Darmonde]

Large video game companies do have some authority in blocking streams of their games, don't they? I'm sure it's happened. I remember vaguely Sega having a channel suspended for streaming Yakuza 3. And Nintendo almost blocking Evo's Smash bros stream, and the whole recent p5 thing.

It's media, and I think companies do have the right to stop a public broadcast. Many decide to look the other way because of the marketing, or specifically allow it, but I don't see why anyone would argue they don't have the right. The problem is most 'streamers' don't even consider the possibility that it could be wrong, because they're dumb kids. Its probably a pain to police, and especially small companies/games will have trouble since Twitch doesn't give a shit about small fries.

[Opaque]

I don't want content creators to get fucked, but let's talk Chrono Trigger for example. No let's play that comes out this year can possibly effect sales on a game that hasn't been shipping new units in twenty years anyway. So how would you feel about a time frame? New games can't be live streamed or fully recorded without developer permission for X number of years or something like that?

Edit: to clarify I'm just trying to get your opinion since this is a nuanced as all hell situation and yes I understand and agree that Tetris is not Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. I'm not actually suggesting that as a solution I support fully though. My opinion is still that if you buy a thing that you control in real time, be it a kite or The Last of Us, you should be able to show people you doing that. I'm just curious when and where you place the line.

[YellerDog]

I don't like copyright enforcement, but if we're going to have it on a site like YouTube the consequences should be the same for all types of media. Inconsistent enforcement seems to value music first above everything else.

[Diff-chan]

Yea, I don't even think it has to be years. The vast majority of sales happen in the first month and these games are usually 50 cents on Humble Bundle in six months.

But if a developer says please don't stream our game for two months that strikes me as very reasonable.