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> In other words, it seems arguable viewers view for the games more than the Let's Player. If people would tune in without the games then there's no reason for the Let's Player to have the games at all.

Successful Let's Play personalities like PewDiePie or Markiplier, or even the more critique style of TotalBiscuit, tend to get very similar video view counts if they're covering a $2 indie game versus if they're playing some $60 AAA title. I think there'd be a way bigger difference in video view count if the specific game being played was particularly important.

You're significantly devaluing the streamer's contribution. The streamers who make money have spent years cultivating a following. That network effect is hard to value, but I'm pretty sure 0 isn't quite right.

>Share the revenue? Don't know what the correct split is. As a game creator who spends 2+ years per game on a team of 20 (so 40 man years) and then some one spends 4 to 80 hours recording themselves playing and then editing I'd tend to think the game creators deserve the lion's share of the revenue but maybe I could be convinced otherwise.

A game nobody has heard of and never will hear of vs any popular streamer who has spent 3+ years streaming and has 1,000's if not 10,000's of followers. Some of those followers will buy the game. That's the dev's split.

Even a no-name streamer (like myself) who pulls in 10-20 people tops during a good hour can still manage to sell some copies of the game merely by playing it (assuming they're enjoying it/it's a decent game worth buying). The dev still get's their split: free advertisement.

Dev's are, of course, free to not let streamers stream their game. I think it's stupid and wouldn't buy their game on principle: largely I assume the worst. Is the game so bad they want people purchasing it without seeing any gameplay? Well, I'll pass. Myself and 100,000's of others who have changed their purchasing decisions from "game reviews" to "someone who's gaming taste is similar to mine enjoys it and it looks fun".

Game development is a business. Fail to keep up with the times and find yourself using an outdated business model and you will go out of business. It's just a matter of how long it takes. For better or worse, many people make their game purchasing decisions based on streamers and seeing live gameplay so judge if a game looks fun or not before purchasing.

I think a dev is free to not allow people to stream their game or to profit from streaming their game. But I will point out to them that they're shooting themselves in the foot and that I think they should reconsider.

The only games that I've ever seen hurt by free advertisement are games which are awfully bad. Which I consider a win for the consumer, even if the dev loses out on. Just like any other business: it doesn't matter how hard you worked on something if the end product was bad. It's sucks for the creator/people who spent so much time on it, but that's how business works and I'll side with the consumers every time.

You do this work for free and you'll make it up in extra PR. Sounds like the typical artist/designer/photographer deal.

This is an interesting reaction. It could seemingly apply for the game creator or the "Let's Play" creator.

For the game creator, their work is being built upon without permission or license (other than, hopefully, a single game sale) to create something new and interesting, but their name and pedigree is bolstered by the exposure.

For the "Let's Play" creator, their work is produced without expectation of licensing payments but they gain the ability to grow their audience using another's work as raw material.

This comment put into words the weird, hand-wavey feeling I've had about the two being symbiotic. I'm still not sure that we've found a good example of the right balance between the two, but I like the Dragon team's tone when describing the tensions.

>You do this work for free

I still had to purchase the game to stream it, but your point is taken in this regard...except it goes both ways.

As a Let's Play streamer - why the hell should I play your game if I can play some other game that will allow me to be compensated for my time? Name me an advertisement agency that will advertise your product for free. Because that's essentially what large streamers have become.

Can always license out the rights to stream the game to already large streamers rather than rolling the dice with small no-names.

You're free to play some other game and be compensated. I suspect though that most streamers would lose their audiences very quickly if they weren't streaming the top 30 games. People tune in for Fallout, Uncharted, Last of Us, GTA5, Division, etc, not for Fuzzy Bear's Adventures. In other words is more about the games, not the streamers. Again this would be easily provable. Remove the games. If the streamers manage to keep their audiences for several months then it was about the streamers. If not it was about the games.

In any case, I suggested some kind of split would be more equitable. IMO. They already kind of do this for music. Why not for games but give the streamers more than people get for music since they are adding more to it.

Pewdiepie has spent years building up his "brand". People don't come to watch some companies game, they come to watch him.

Royalties to the game creator for usage seems fair, but the player should get more.

Pewdiepie is an exception. Kind of like Conan's Clueless Gamer segment. But he just that, he's an exception. You can't take Pewdiepie and extrapolate to all streamers.

Adding that to my suggestion for splitting revenue, maybe it should be a sliding scale based on audience size. If you've got an audience of 10 people you get 1%. If you've got an audience of 10 million you get 99%