Blog Archives

Twitch Introduces Audio Content Matching System For VODs

The YouTube-ification of Twitch continues this week. With the shut down of Twitch Interactive’s original live-streaming website, Justin.tv, on Tuesday, Twitch made another move that moves it closer to being a live-streaming arm of YouTube. In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitch announced that they were introducing an audio content recognition algorithm to identify and mute copyrighted audio in VODs.

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Tags: Copyright Law, Google, Twitch, YouTube

Yogscast Reveals New Program In Which They Earn Revenue From Indie Game Sales

Jul 17

Posted by Steve Murray

Somehow, the gaming press has only now clued into the fact that some YouTubers are being paid by developers and publishers to cover some games. This isn’t exactly news given that most YouTube personalities that have some respect for themselves and their viewers disclose which videos are paid promotional content.

What we should all be focusing on is the implications of the new revenue scheme dreamt up by the team at Yogscast. Their new YogDiscovery program will see the company have indie developers pay a portion of the sales increase from Yogscast coverage of their game.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, YogDiscovery, Yogscast, YouTube

YouTube Adding Support for 48 and 60 FPS

Jun 27

Posted by Steve Murray

Even if it didn’t seem like a slow end of the news week, this would be a big headline. At VidCon last night, YouTube announced that the internet’s biggest video site will soon be adding support for videos that will play back at 48 and 60 frames per second.

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Tags: Google, VidCon, YouTube

Nintendo to Start YouTube Affiliate Program to Take Some, Not All, of Fan Channels’ Money

May 28

Posted by Steve Murray

Nintendo has had a hell of a time figuring out how this whole YouTube thing works. Last year, they started cracking down on Let’s Play videos on YouTube by using the video website’s ContentID system to claim revenue from those videos. They also claimed that they were dropping story mode from the upcoming Super Smash Bros. on Wii U because the cutscenes would end up on the internet so it defeated the purpose.

Now, Nintendo, in their great benevolence, have decided to meet Nintendo fans halfway. Rather than take all the ad revenue from the people who help promote their games on YouTube, Nintendo has announced a new YouTube affiliate program that will see both parties splitting the ad revenue.

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Posted in Games

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Nintendo, YouTube

YouTube Reportedly to Buy Twitch For $1 Billion

May 20

Posted by Steve Murray

If you can’t beat them, buy them. While YouTube has tried their hand at live streaming, they aren’t as big as live streaming powerhouse Twitch. So how do you fight back? You buy them.

YouTube has dipped into Google’s massive pockets and reportedly come up with $1 billion to buy Twitch in what would be the online video site’s largest acquisition.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Google, Twitch, YouTube

Disney Buys Maker Studios, Owner of YouTube MCNs Polaris and RPM

Mar 27

Posted by Steve Murray

YouTube isn’t going away any time soon if big corporations have anything to say about it. The latest proof of that is Disney buying one of YouTube’s largest multichannel network owners, Maker Studios. The owner of such prominent MCNs as Polaris, Maker Music and RPM was purchased by Disney for $500 million.

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Tags: Business, Disney, Maker Studios, Polaris, YouTube

Sony to Add More Video Sharing and Recording Features to PS4

Mar 21

Posted by Steve Murray

We knew it was going to a happen, it was just a matter of when not if it would happen. In a post on the official PlayStation blog, Sony Computer Entertainment America announced that a firmware update coming in the next few weeks would see the HDCP copy protection on PS4 games removed which will make video content producers (and the people who watch them) very happy.

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Tags: PlayStation 4, PS4, Sony, Twitch, YouTube

Guise of the Wolf Dev Censors TotalBiscuit’s Criticism, Tries to Shut Him Down

Feb 17

Posted by Steve Murray

Back in October, popular YouTube personality John Bain, AKA TotalBiscuit, was embroiled in a brief brouhaha with the developers of a poorly received indie game called Day One: Garry’s Incident. The devs of that game, Wild Games Studio, filed a copyright claim against TB’s video to get it pulled down and it hit the fan. News spread quickly about what happened in a classic case of the Streisand Effect and the game and studio were shown in a bad light as a result.

It seems as though people forget things quickly because TotalBiscuit is in a similar kerfuffle with the developers of another game. Guise of the Wolf is another poorly received indie game, this time by FUN Creators. They also used a DMCA claim to remove TB’s video and had the story blow up to Streisandian proportions.

The funny thing is that FUN Creators didn’t stop at the DMCA claim and strike on the YouTube channel. When TB fought back, things got really weird.

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Tags: Censorship, Fun Creators, Guise of the Wolf, TotalBiscuit, YouTube

EA and Xbox One Paying for Positive YouTube Videos

Jan 27

Posted by Steve Murray

Anybody who is overly positive about almost anything in the gaming world is almost instantly hit with accusations of being bought by a publisher. Most of the time, statements like these are completely outlandish and unfounded. On rare occasions, though, these accusations find the mark.

Recently, it came to light that Microsoft was paying Machinima content creators for positive coverage of the Xbox One. Now, various outlets on the internet have revealed that EA has also been paying YouTubers for positive coverage of its games.

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Tags: EA, Games Journalism, Machinima, Microsoft, Xbox One, YouTube

YouTube’s Content ID System is Also Hurting Your Favourite Channels

Not only are YouTube content creators having to deal with a massive change to the networking system that will affect their ability to make money, but YouTube made a massive sweep of videos in a content matching check that caused a lot of YouTubers to lose the monetization rights to many videos.

YouTube’s content ID system is fairly indiscriminate. If it finds content that matches copyrighted content in their data base, the monetization rights revert to the original creator. The problem is that it makes no provisions for fair use and the dispute system is often considered as non-existent.

But rather than rehash this week’s column about YouTube on monetization, this detailed explanation of YouTube content matching, monetization and the implications of the current system by Force of Force Strategy Gaming does a much better job than I ever could.