This Is where I first came across the question. The first half of the video is the only part that I 100% agree on, but at 7:56 A small part of me disagrees. Should any letsplays be Illegal? Why or why not?

IMO I think letsplayers should only play the first part of a story driven game, just to show everything except story, so spoilers could be avoided. And I know there are videos with disclaimers with Spoiler Warnings...but What's the ratio of people that watch said videos versus those that don't?

what. why exactly they should be illegal?

Or if you don't want spoilers, just don't watch the let's play.

Yeah let's play videos should be banned off youtube and twitch should be shut down since those people are making money off playing other people's videos games without having licensees from the creators of the games to do so

Your reason why something should be illegal is that they spoil the story?

Of all possible arguments for or against your question that is quite literally the worst argument you picked there.

Past that my opinion is that there's almost no grounds to make them illegal since most of this falls under fair use, when watching a video like that you watch a person play a game, you don't play the game itself, thus it's not the product you obtain.

NotMeNotYou said:
Your reason why something should be illegal is that they spoil the story?

Of all possible arguments for or against your question that is quite literally the worst argument you picked there.

Past that my opinion is that there's almost no grounds to make them illegal since most of this falls under fair use, when watching a video like that you watch a person play a game, you don't play the game itself, thus it's not the product you obtain.

agreed and let's plays are also pretty much free advertisement. sorry nintendo, but it's true.

Theres only a problem because of how many people decide 'this is my actual real life career time to monetize this and finally have my dream job of playing video games realized'. In which the "Let's" part of it is now thrown out the window and it is now a "I must play".

If you want to complain about spoilers bitch at all the dataminers.

Honestly, I can see video game development/sales for story-heavy games being significantly hindered by let's plays (provided they aren't indie games). If some group is only buying the game for the story rather than the gameplay, they'll just watch the let's play rather than purchase the game. On the other hand, even people who purchased the game might still watch the let's play for the commentary. Not to mention, the majority of games clearly benefit from let's plays, and perhaps most let's plays are very clearly fair use.
There's not really a great solution to this as far as I can tell. The good news is there's zero chance of let's plays ever being made illegal. I think we'd all rather live in a world with let's plays than a world with slightly more developed stories in RPGs.

an indie game company with a brain in atleast one of their executives' heads would definitely NOT take down free advertisement

If you don't want to see spoilers, play the game instead of watching a letsplay of it.

I have no reason to doubt any criticism I've received in this thread. Knowing I've hit a low here tells me not only do I need better choice of words, but put more detail into what I said...but saying what I meant to say now would be pointless. I appreciate all of you for pointing out my flaws so I can learn from them and hopefully not repeat the mistakes I've made.

Lets just rip up the Bill of Rights while were at it.

Yes because banning things definitely helps companies by not having free advertising. That's the lamest argument I've ever heard, how do I know if I want a game or not by watching a video? If that game's utter shit, I don't want it.

This is a grey area for me. If the let's player is just playing the game with little/no commentary or critique, it could be classified as an unauthorised broadcast. If the let's player is actively critiquing the game as they are playing it, it could be considered a review which falls under fair use. Whether a let's play created for review purposes should be allowed to show the entire game or not is debatable.

No. If you don't want to see a spoiler, don't watch the video.

I don't even need to comment with all the people already have said what I am thinking.

ElctrcBoogalord said:
This Is where I first came across the question. The first half of the video is the only part that I 100% agree on, but at 7:56 A small part of me disagrees. Should any letsplays be Illegal? Why or why not?

IMO I think letsplayers should only play the first part of a story driven game, just to show everything except story, so spoilers could be avoided. And I know there are videos with disclaimers with Spoiler Warnings...but What's the ratio of people that watch said videos versus those that don't?

are you trippin

Only in cases where both a) the Let's Play precedes the official release in that country (eg. a LP of a fan translation of one of the thus far unreleased-in-the-west Shiren the Wanderer games, say.), and b) There is clear evidence that the company was already invested into making a release of that game in said country.

That said, due to obligation-to-prosecute laws, companies may be required to pursue this line of action, despite its ill effect on PR and probable ill effect on awareness of their product.

Spoilers are .. basically if you want to eliminate systematic spoilers, you better abolish the internet. Or alternatively abolish human beings.

Ehhh...no, it shouldn't or won't be. Not in this day and age, plus both developer and Let's Play people benefit from it.

I find wikis to be better spoilers than LPs since you don't need to watch hours of video and you have handy search and random functions. I don't really understand the monetization of LPers and their videos, but it seems that if a person likes what they see in a game, they'd be more willing to pay to own it themselves. Sort of like demos, but not as useful.

what is fair use
what is fair use
WHAT IS FAIR USE

etc

Lance_Armstrong said:
what is fair use
what is fair use
WHAT IS FAIR USE

etc

what is not fair use.

But WHAT may be.

Currently since game companies do not put out demos AT ALL frequently as they should, and game trailers are typically only as trustworth as a pathological liar. Letsplays are the only way I can decide if I want a game or not besides playing the Beta. Let me give you two examples as of recent times:

1) Rainbow Six Siege:

2) Fallout 4

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But that begs the question why would game companies NOT want lets plays to happen? Well that's easy, because we can't see how shitty their product is UNTIL WE BUY IT. All I know is if the game companies ever do this they are killing 90% of their free publicity and destroy gaming as a culture.

------------------------------------------

And for the sake of it let me give two examples of not so recent games:

3) Civilization V:

4) Supreme Commander 2:

Cynosure said:
Currently since game companies do not put out demos AT ALL frequently as they should, and game trailers are typically only as trustworth as a pathological liar.

i haven't seen a demo for a console game in...well, i know i have a demo disc for the original xbox and maybe one for ps2 as well but nothing for the 360 and that's when i largely stopped buying console games (new games anyway).

seen a couple trailers on tv lately though but, as is predictable at this point, they were for the newest halo and CoD: black ops stuff. i actually wouldn't mind that as much as i do but those trailers strike me as being the same as the bs trailers you'd see at e3 (or in my case, hear about).

i'm certain that is NOT actual gameplay in those trailers AND that they are somewhat sped up, BS trailers.

aside from that, i find it rather uncommon to see video game trailers on tv. i see vastly more commercials about random crap, car, insurance, lawyers (for every drug or medicine related commercial there is a lawyer commercial). oh and of course, viagra and pleasure gel. can't forget those. so, we have viagra and pleasure gel playing all across tv at all times of day/night which has the potential of viewers under 18+ walking into a room and seeing said commercials (it could easily happen.). how long till they expand to show other stuff on tv like say...toys?

edit: Supreme Commander, so THAT'S what the game was called. man, i've been trying to remember the title of that game off and on for a LONG time now. i knew i had played it before but couldn't remember the actual title for nothing.

treos said:
edit: Supreme Commander, so THAT'S what the game was called. man, i've been trying to remember the title of that game off and on for a LONG time now. i knew i had played it before but couldn't remember the actual title for nothing.

Best RTS game I've ever played, and I've played Starcraft II and all those. Supreme commander will always be my favorite. If you ever wana play it some time, message me on E6 PM system and we'll play a game or two. No one ever plays the original game with me:/

OTHERWISE:

Because I'm an avid Twitch viewer and youtube viewer (Yogscast, skywilliams, escapist (ZP), game theory, mrtechnicaldifficult) not to mention all the Twitch people 99.9999% of which are all League Of Legends players. Piglet (Look at my recent favorites and you might see why I like watching him) shaclone, xpecial.

Because of all these video game related channels I see a LOT of game advertisements and I can tell you without a doubt 0% of all game trailers I've ever been shown this includes in-game-footage trailers 0% of them have been honest about their gameplay. Demos NEED to be a thing and as long as demos don't exist to fool customers into buying products they actually do not want, lets plays are a 100% necessary thing to have.

And for anyone curious here is why games do not have demos:

1) Demos take immense amount of time to create

Okay I accidentally hit post, without finishing this. So I'm gonna make a new post instead otherwise my "edit time" will run out.

The reason demos need to first gut the entire game is because if they don't, script kids will run through the demo and somehow find a way to either
A) Activate all the hidden content and get the game for free.
OR
B) Discover story and plot points that have not been discovered yet cause the game only just came out and/or the demo has been released before the game and spoilers are now contained within the demo.

So basically a demo needs to be a completely different game otherwise its source code can be abused harddddd. This means hundreds of man hours picking through code and game files to determine the bare minimum that can have the game run at.

This is the reason demos are not a thing anymore, especially with crazy graphics difficult AI and all sorts of other problems that go along with a modern game there is just not the time or the money anymore.

Fallout 4 has a smaller map than New Vegas because NV had literally up to 5 minutes walk time through nothing until you went from one POI to the next.
FO4 on the other hand has a drastically higher density of POI where you can go from one ruin to explore to the next in under a minute in the city zone, or it takes a whooping two minutes outside of said ruins.

In the city you need to zoom into the map to select the place you want to travel to because they are literally so close to each other at times.

So, I'm not sure how a "small map" is a reason to not buy except if you have an empty map fetish like Obsidian seems to have, although I do agree that $75 is a lot, you might want to have a look at http://greenmangaming.com, these guys have a lot of sales going that include FO4 with something like 20% off or more.

Cynosure said:

Okay I accidentally hit post, without finishing this. So I'm gonna make a new post instead otherwise my "edit time" will run out.

That timer doesn't actually apply in the forums.

parasprite said:
That timer doesn't actually apply in the forums.

Thanks for the info :D

I think that if you make a game that people would rather watch than play, then you don't deserve their money.

well, looks like youtube content creators might not have to worry quite so much about false copyright claims now. more info here.

good news, if youtube finds a copyright claim to be bs then they may choose to prevent the takedown and keep the video up (note: this only applies here in the US), even going so far as to supporting those hit by the copyright claim with up to $1 million in legal costs if those making the claim choose to take legal action.

So I am not sure what the question here is. Are you asking should it be "Illegal" for someone to post game content that "spoils" the game's story?

If that is the question then I have to vehemently say No. Why? Because if you don't want to spoil the story then don't watch it. No one is forcing you to. Should they put a disclaimer saying "Spoilers" in their Lets Play? No, because it should be pretty implicit that the "story" will be spoiled since they are playing the game. They aren't going to edit out story bits when the whole point is to share the story.

Now if the question is: Should developers be entitled to some kind of compensation derived from lets plays of their games? then I would have to say No again, but perhaps not as strongly. I understand that a developer puts a lot of money and effort into a game and seeing people generate revenue from simply playing their work without giving them anything tangible in return may seem unfair. But you have to look at it in a more broad spectrum. Lets Plays are HUGE advertisement for the game. An LP lets a person see the actual gameplay and maybe get feedback from the LPer about the actual game itself before making the investment. In my opinion it is far more likely someone will buy the game from watching an LP unless the game is something terrible being played simply for "irony" (Ride to Hell: Retribution anyone?). I mean games that I never would have played came to me from LPs I watched like The Binding of Isaac, Soma, Life is Strange, Until Dawn, Banished, and Cities: Skylines.
The only problem there is that if the LPer is getting Ad revenue from showing videos of them playing the game it does strike me as derivative. While they may be freely advertising the game, the LPer has to actively contribute to the content of the game in some way. LPs that are essentially speed runs or people playing the game with very little commentary on the game and what not fall into this grey area for me. An LPer should be constantly and actively engaging the viewer in the game itself or else it is basically like making money off of the developers work. It would be a hard thing to enforce, but I believe there have been several instances where developers have successfully managed to get LPs of their games that had no underlying context given by the LPer taken down from YouTube.
What shouldn't be done is what Nintendo is doing. Basically monetizing a system that is monetized. You have to join a kind of "Exclusive" Nintendo club (for a fee) in order to be allowed to post LPs of the Nintendo games under a monetization system where Nintendo basically then gets like 80+% of any revenue anyway. Even LPs of their content that are not monetized are targeted for takedown which is so short sighted and only hurts the community at large.