Telltale games and youtube.
Hi! So i was doing some research and it seems that it is ok to do youtube let's play of telltale games as long as you do not monetize it.
But that was like a 2 year old post, i was just wondering if it still applies?
Been trying for over a year to get a reply for the support mail so i'm hoping i can get an answer here.
Thank you all for your time.
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I am not Telltale staff, nor am I answering on their behalf, but I believe you should be fine to do so.
Thank you for your opinion, do Telltale staff usualy replies to something on the forum?
In some cases, they might not respond on the forums. However, just trust me on this - you should honestly be fine.
However, keep an eye out for false flag reports from other parties - some people on YouTube in the past have abused the Flag/Copyright reporting system by flagging people with fake copy right reports on Telltale gameplay footage, but Telltale was not behind that.
Outside of copyrighted music from their games you should be fine.
Pretty sure you can monetise any game. It's not like a song or a movie where it should only be played on the creators channel, making gaming videos is free promotion for developers (unless you slander it), i'm 99.9% sure you are fine to both upload and monetise.
Just have a short blurb about the game in your description and maybe a link to where it can be purchased.
A company would have to be full of top-tier morons to sue people promoting their games.
cough Nintendo cough
This depends. What is usually auto-flagged on Youtube for video games is the music. While I have not heard of Telltale doing this, you bet Nintendo has. You cannot monetise videos of Nintendo games. Apparently, this was supposed to change, but last I heard from the people in the business, it hasn't. They will strike your account.
Also, the fact that they aren't actively flagging monetised videos, doesn't mean they approve of them. Especially if you are just playing it with game audio.
I think you'd be surprised just how many publishers do not see it as free promotion. Very surprised. It's far less than half.
Posting let's plays is one of the most common things youtubers do on youtube. It's not the same as posting movies because even if you watch a let's play you still can't play the game. I would imagine anybody who is watching a let's play strictly for the story has no intentions of buying the game anyhow. And those that actually do want to play they still would likely try to get their hands on a game because they want to play it and not just watch it.
I stand corrected.
I don't understand it though, if people see others actually PLAYING the game and having a good time, it's all the more incentive for them to go out and buy it themselves.
If the videos can't be monetised, there'll be less of these games being played on YouTube, and less 'free' promotion.
Maybe I don't know the full story or logistics of the whole situation, but from an outside perspective, YouTube is the best way to get a game to reach out to broader audiences.
They think of it this way: You drew a picture and shared it. Now even though it's watermarked and everyone knows you drew it, a ton of people start sharing it, writing whatever they want about it, using to support their advertisements, or views which have nothing to do with what or why you actually drew it. It's yours and all this is happening without anybody even talking to you. While most people might just be saying "hey check this out" and it can increase your sales, the other side of that, which you have no control of, can be scary.
They also worry about the individual assets rather than the game as a whole. They own the music, the voice acting, the images, etc and they want full control of these which they paid so much for.
Now, there are triple A publishers whom do view Youtube as a positive. They do exist. There are also those whom see it as a scary unknown.
As I said earlier, music is the main culprit when it comes to strikes on your account. Even if you have permission specifically from a game and it has licensed music playing, you can expect a flag and strike. This even happens with uncopyrighted music. Let's say Sony released some greatest hits of classical music. Even though a particular song has an expired copyright, just because they have released it at some point, their bots will auto-flag it and strike your account. There are a few large companies whom do this and most of them ignore grievances, so even if you challenge it, they will automatically respond with confirming the strike and then you are in danger of losing your account unless you want to pay for court.
I chose classical music for a reason. It has caused a LOT of people problems. Make sure it is quiet, you are talking over it or have the music off entirely when putting up a LP.