Let's Talk About Let's Play
- zmh157
- Oct 9, 2015
- 3 min read
This week I've switched gears a little bit.
Next week I'll be back to talking about video games on a social scale (so stayed tuned), but for this week I've decided to talk about video games and Let's Play videos, a practice that has captured a large YouTube following (including myself).
The entire Let’s Play concept is pretty straightforward—gamers record themselves playing a video game (usually with commentary) and then post the video online. But Let’s Play videos aren’t like walkthroughs, which show other gamers how to beat a particularly challenging level, where to find a rare item in-game, and so on.
Walkthroughs are designed to instruct, but Let’s Play videos are supposed to entertain.
"The top five Let’s Players collectively have more YouTube subscribers than Peru has people."
— Christopher Zoia, “This Guy Makes Millions Playing Video Games on YouTube”
The gifs above come from videos from three different YouTube gaming channels (from left to right: Markiplier, Gavin Free of the group Achievement Hunter, and PewDiePie).
While PewDiePie is my least favorite of the three mentioned above, he is the most famous in the YouTube gaming community. In fact, PewDiePie is the most watched YouTube channel of all time (at least, as of August 2014 it was).
And, apparently, depending on how many viewers he gets per week, PewDiePie makes between $140,000 and $1.4 million a month thanks to YouTube ads.
Most gamers hope to make money off of their videos. Some spend a lot of time, money, and energy in order to put up a new video everyday for their viewers to enjoy, so it makes sense that they would hope to be compensated in some way for that.
Unsurprisingly, many YouTube gamers have had to deal with copyright claims.
In the past Nintendo was firmly against the Let's Play community, but its policy has changed, allowing YouTubers to make some money off of their videos.
The issue is this: YouTubers are using content from games owned by companies like Nintendo, and that material is protected by copyright, trademark, and/or patents.
But some argue that the commentary that accompanies the videos, which is what attracts viewers in the first place, qualifies the videos as fair use.
I love Let’s Plays. Achievement Hunter and DashieGames are two of my favorite Let’s Play channels. Like many other viewers, I watch Let’s Play religiously and regularly. Both of the channels I just mentioned are updated daily (though I’m not always interested in the games being played that day).
Sometimes I watch to see if I think a game is worth playing or not, but, for the most part, I watch purely for the commentary the gamers provide.
So, clearly, Let's Play videos should be protected by fair use, right?
Some game developers have readily embraced Let’s Play videos, since the videos can lead to increased sales for those games. Other game developers, on the other hand, discourage Let’s Play videos and will force YouTube to take down videos that feature their content.
The following video is a little lengthy (13 minutes) but if you’re interested in learning more it’s worth checking out:
"Your favorite YouTube gaming stars aren't going anywhere any time soon, but this is definitely an important discussion to have, and one that's likely to be increasingly loud in the coming years."
— Philip Kollar, “Are Let's Play videos from PewDiePie and others actually legal?”
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