FFXIV bars YouTubers and streamers from monetising their videos

[Andytizer 268]

After a bumpy pre-launch, Final Fantasy XIV is now available. However, a curious new 'Materials Usage Policy' has been unearthed which comes into effect today, and makes statements such as:

You may not monetize your video via the YouTube partner program or any similar programs on other video sharing sites.

Obviously having a restrictive monetisation policy is an enormous mistake, given the size and importance of the video streaming audience. This kind of policy discourages professional streamers from tackling the game, for example, TotalBiscuit who stated on Twitter that he will not be covering Final Fantasy XIV.

 

What do you guys think? Is this totally mad?

 

And of course with the launch, we're looking for help to update the Final Fantasy XIV PCGamingWiki page, so please update away if you have a copy of the game.

 

Via /r/games.

 

Click here to view the article

[Andytizer 268]

An enormous number of PC gamers watch streams and video reviews in order to help making purchasing decisions, and it's madness to ignore such a captive market. I've made so many purchasing decisions after having watced game videos, and I probably use videos more than reviews to make the final decision to pull the trigger on buying a game. This is probably because watching 'amateur' or 'end user' gameplay often gives you a better impression than words on a page or a website about whether you'll end up liking a specific game or not.

[BONKERS 32]

I think it's silly on both ends.

And I could really care less about people like Total Biscuit or other so called youtube celebrities.

Oh you can't make money off making a video? I thought it was the game that mattered and NOT the money?

Guess I was wrong and you only care about giving your opinion and recommendation if you can make a buck on it. /sarcasm



But at the same time, Commentary is considered Fair use so ..

[Newmansan 30]

Oh you can't make money off making a video? I thought it was the game that mattered and NOT the money?

 

Guess I was wrong and you only care about giving your opinion and recommendation if you can make a buck on it. /sarcasm

 

I don't think that's fair. Some people do make a living on youtube commentary. Cutting off some of their avenues for making money isn't cool. Cameras and stuff don't pay for themselves.

 

Plus I think it's shortsighted on Square's part. Fan videos only raise interest in the product, and while they may make a little money off this, they'll pay for it in bad PR and lost interest in the game.

[Andytizer 268]

It's not that YouTubers or professional streamers have a right to make money from videos of games.. - it's that it just makes business sense for a games company to allow monetisation of videos. We have seen over and over again that there is a really big net effect in incentivizing professional, money-making streamers like TotalBiscuit and others to cover your game. For example Mike Bithell, creator of Thomas Was Alone attributed a lot of the success of the game to streamers in this interview during the Nintendo crackdown on monetisation.

 

Technically though, the game's assets are owned by the developers/publishers - if they don't want someone showing off cutscenes and spoilers that might stop people buying the game that's their right.

 

But yeah it's bad PR and it throws a whole load of free marketing they could have used down the toilet.

[Nicereddy 109]

This has been redacted, I believe. You may want to update the article!

[Andytizer 268]

I think it's a bit late to update or to post the new updated story, sorry! I was (and still am) terribly ill.

 

I'm happy to consider having other News editors help to post up interesting News/Articles that are relevant to PC gaming and would be nice discussion points for our community, let me know if anyone is interested. This was a large reason for moving to the new system - to allow others to update, and to encourage community participation. Just haven't quite got round to it yet :).

[KingCyrus20 2]

I get extremely irritated when game publishers do this. Videos in no way give the viewer the full experience of the game, they even motivate viewers to buy the game, resulting in free publicity for the publishers. Money matters to the people that make these videos because most of them make a living spending their time to record and edit videos for their viewers.