A mature POV on the yogscast situation

Hi!

READ ME FIRST!

First of all, this is not a rant neither I will use harsh words on the DEVs, on the You Tube Channel or anything like it.

Second, I hope the Devs and the moderators are wise enough to not close this thread before reading what I have to say.

Third, to people here in the forums: Can you think twice before posting something? I mean, just don't rant all the time.

My opinion and thoughts about the deal

After I saw this THREAD I did a research about the You Tube channel and watched some of their videos.

I think all this false moralism around the deal, people insulting KSH and etc is just unnecessary. Bigger companies do worse and you still buy their games. Let's face it people, they need to profit.

You bought the game, is paid and that's it. The same goes to all players, we bought the game, paid for it and want they to continuously developing the game. Guess what, they ARE.

The thing is, they have to pay taxes, employees, their IT infrastructure, that costs money. Minecraft went on for so many years because it kept selling over the years. SE is in a very disputed environment, also very competitive with support of Valve, but he disputes space with many other games.

Making a deal with a You Tube Channel to advertise your game isn't wrong, will never be. Face it people, Youtube is a type of marketing environment. How many You Tubers advertise products in their videos? Hell, almost everyone I subscribed.

I saw the videos, they are just playing the game, making fun with it, is a Gameplay, they are not giving a final opinion influencing people because they had been paid to do so. Maybe they will be more polite with bugs, but I don't see them overpraising the game. That is what movie critics do. I hope you people complaining see the difference.

The choice of this specific channel to advertise the game

Here I have to give a point to the Forum members. The channel's popularity amongst players above the 16's is quite questionable.

They are targets of a lot of questioning about their projects, behavior and deals. This is what creates so much controversy.

My take on it is, KSH tried to seize an opportunity to advertise the game, the deal just went bad with the current community. I sincerely hope this doesn't affect in a bad way the game popularity and the sales.

KSH is a new company, they are good professionals, they will learn and improve, as we all do. So don't point fingers on them.

This kind of websites, like Gamasutra, I see a lot of "hate news" there, everything that is against their beliefs, they release a article using even some biased arguments. Want an example? They criticize You Tube channels for doing paid reviews, because they will be partial and this is bad, so their opinion is impartial? No, it is not. That's even funny. Don't use only this type of website to make up your opinions, check other sources... well... you should do this with every information you get these days.

This is similar to a conflict we see in the Open Source Software community. We have people that wants software to be all open source, but understand that profit is needed in order to keep the development, but in the other side, we have some extremists, who despise any commercial type of service related with the software, even support contracts.

The Feedback from KSH and the moderation hammer

I was following some interesting arguments on this thread, then I saw this other thread. I'm not sure if that person is someone from Gamasutra trying to cause turmoil or a sincere gamer trying to make up his mind about buying the game, he even created another thread, well I keep wondering about his intentions.

In any case, the Moderation Hammer came from Asgard and smashed both threads. I get it RedPhoenix, you are just doing your job. KSH can't speak openly about it, I understand all that. What bothered me is they way this is been handled here in the forums and on Steam.

Trying to keep things quiet will just upset more people, I saw this more than once with games like Rust, Star Trek Online, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3. The more the hammer smashes, more people will talk about it, here or out there on You Tube. Fights in the comments of Yogscast videos will end up badly for KSH and SE. Also, people love to criticize, don't give them more than the casual arguments.

My humble suggestion is: There is plenty of You Tube channels. I'm in Brazil, we have some You Tubers that will mostly take a look on the game, like RandonsPlays and Jovem Nerd. Minecraft is very popular here. So the chances for SE are high.

I think the same goes for other channels, you just have to call them and say... "hey, can you take a look on my awesome game?"

Some words to the community

Shut up and start talking about the game. I do with my friends, I comment about it on videos about similar games, there is no shame on it. This would do more good for the game than a controversial channel doing gameplays.




Well, that's it, sorry for the wall of text.

 

I have no idea what even is going on with them, so...

 

I've had no problem with the partnership, in fact I say more power to them. It is really just good advertising.

 

I've got no issue with KSH buying a promo with some youtubers. That's just advertising. I was only mildly concerned that the may not get much for their money.

You're right though, it's far better that we go out and spread some good publicity for one of our favourite games than let this minor thing get blown out of proportion.

 

I don't have a problem with advertising one's product. Only two points I would make are that full disclosure related to a "paid reviews" are required by the FTC and each review must conspicuously state the review was sponsored (description field for a video does not qualify, it would need to be in the video, and the videos I watched did not do so) and the second point being that the FTC regulations were put in place specifically because of misrepresentation by the reviewer either by request or as a way to keep clients.

I am not against these arrangements, but I would take any content produced with a grain of salt, money taints everything.

 

What's going on?

I don't see the issue. Paid promotions happen all the time. The only forseeable problem is if Yogscast did not tell people that they were doing paid promotions (im pretty sure they are supposed to tell you, but idk?).

Now that people know (which it wasn't a secret in the first place), it's probably a better situation.

 

Lol I thought this was an ad bot advertising a "mature POV" porno

 

FTC covers the US and neither Yogcast nor KSH is bound by FTC regulations. I found the videos funny. I laughed at the silliness of it. Was it a good representation of the game? Not really... I mean they had no idea what they were doing for the most part... but it was funny. I kept wishing I could tell them they were doing it wrong. I wish KSH had perhaps said, "okay, we're paying you to do this, so let's have a little tutorial before you start." But, I found it entertaining.

 

Seeing as the world revolves around money, YouTubers have to make money too. The more money they make, the more likely they are to stay consistent with posting videos. They can maintain hardware and software requirements for making quality videos. Then throw into the mix companies that have staff to pay for doing what it is they do.

It benefits Space Engineers for them to get more people seeing their product. The more people that see it, the more likely there is someone to buy it. I ONLY found out about Space Engineers because of NerdCubed I think it was. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't of found out about this game until much later, as I don't browse Steam games much, if at all.

Some paid promotions actually have a NDA where the person talking about the game can't disclose that they are doing this review for the company and they're getting paid for the review. If anything, the reviewer is more inclined to pick at things that could vastly improve the game, to give constructive criticism on the short comings of a game. At least I would hope they'd be more inclined to do so, as it is a more prominent thing than just a comment on a thread in a subforum on a forum.

Eh, arguing the politics of who should and shouldn't get paid is dangerous territory. I just ask that everyone remember that aside from feeding your family, there are other requirements. Whether it be hardware, software, fuel for you car, internet access, etc. The costs are there, they need to be paid.

 

I'm not going to read all that wall of text, what the heck?
I don't like the yog either, but I dont hate them, I just dont watch them and I dont care. Just get over it, your opinion here is not going to change anything there. Looks like you are just promoting yogcast even more constantly posting this here. ANd thay guy it seems a like hater fake account more than other thing for me, you know Admins can see your IP?

 

Well, you didn't read my "wall" so don't speak like I'm complaining sir. Read it, then understand about what I was talking about.

It's because lazy people don't understand things that the Moderation Hammer has to act.

 

I am not commenting on the quality of the videos, they don't tickle my fancy, nor do they offend me in any way. While Yogscast and KSH are not based in the United States, the platform upon which the sponsored reviews are posted is based in the US, as well as the platform through which Space Engineers is sold (Steam). I am no expert with FTC regulations and how they apply to international arrangements through a US based platform, but I imagine YouTube could be compelled to remove the content that violates FTC regulations, thus invalidating the agreement between KSH and Yogscast.

Either way, paid reviews rarely provide the same sort of objective point of view that would benefit someone while considering purchase, so I generally don't bother with them.

(edit) - I am not suggesting this is probable, or even possible, just a points to ponder or research if you care to.

 

I see absolutely no problem with paid advertising on the 43rd most popular channel on youtube. I may not personally like their content, but there's no denying that that is a massive audience. What I do however have a problem with, is the way the Yogscast brokered the deal: A percentage of measurable increase in sales after the promotion begins goes to the Yogscast. The problem with that is that there is no real way to know that those sales were actually because of the Yogscast, as no "referral code" or such is being used. So any viewer of a lesser known channel who wants to buy Space Engineers could potentially and unwittingly be contributing to the Yogscast deal. As for the other two threads, I also would like to know when the deal ends... I plan on buying 2 or 3 more copies of SE for some of my friends, and I want the money to go to KEEN, not the Yogscast (again to my personal opinion against the channel in particular).

TL;DR Advertising on youtube is great, and the Yogscast was a good channel to use, but a referral code or something to keep them honest should've been used in my humble opinion.

 

Agreed. I don't have anything in particular against Yogscast (never heard of them before this), but I didn't buy an early access title to financially support a third party, and I would much rather all of the money I paid for the game went to the company I thought I was giving it to.

This is where the whole "early access" thing gets tricky. People like me purchase the game expecting the money to fund development or at least help the dev's keep their kids fed while they work on the game. This sort of puts a different spin on things.

 

Uhh... So what?

They "hired" Yogcast to promote their game? I first though it was only a random game discovery made by Yogcast as Space Engineers became quite popular... But if they want to advertise, that's their job, not ours.

I personally don't like at all Yogcast's review of the game as they look like retards 70% of the video. But, eh, I don't mind if it bring more players.

 

Honestly, I don't even care. These deals are done all the time behind the curtains, and this particular one was completely open so... if they wanna use a youtuber to advertise it's perfectly fine with me.
As long as there's no underhanded deals going on, I don't care who KSH partners with.

Well... except for a few giant companies that I despise... like EA and Facebook.

 

I do not like yougscast but I did try to watch the videos, they are playing creative lieke on survival, when after 10 min they stil had 100% power in the space suit I stopped watching.
Either you play survival .. and "die", or you play creative and ignore "roleplay"
The best free advertisemt SE has is Ectosage / Videosage and his 2 friends, LSG and LVG, more then once what these 3 have build has been used on official trailers
As for SE promotion .. Just checked youtube Search Space engineers, sorted by upload date .. 4 pages are last 24 h, for me this means this game is epic, I personally have over 750 h in that game

 

Their money of course but I can't condone a "views for money" model whatsoever - Having to hand a percentage of your profits in exchange of exposure just comes off as incredibly capitalistic, which Youtube shouldn't be about.

It's about the content - Remember when Youtubers sought out unique content to experience and share instead of being shoveled by publishers in exchange of free game copies? Yeah... Remember when Youtubers did this as a hobby and didn't rely on Patreon, Twitch subscribing or a million other ways to make ends meet?

And with the whole Yogscast situation I really don't want to hand those people any more people - They clearly aren't adult enough to be carrying around any amount of money on their own.

 

First things first: Don't blame me.
I closed the one thread because it was full of hate and was quickly out of control.
The second one I closed because he wanted information about the deal, but since all details are under NDA I closed the thread.

And see it like that:
The more threads open, the more I will lock.

And since it's such a controversial topic where opinion get out of hand quickly, I rather close the thread before it happens.

I hope you understand this.


Anyway, moved to offtopic, since it has only little thing to to about Space Engineers.

 

Excuse me, but where I blamed you?

Let's take a look on what I said again:

I think is clear enough that I don't blame you. Neither I blame KSH.

Anyway, you already answered us more than one time without violating the therms of the deal, I don't get why people don't understand.

Well, my other toughs on the matter are on my OP, I love the game, I understand the situation, just left two cents. I will just be happy if KSH read it.

 

LFCavalcanti's avatar is how I feel right now after reading this thread.

Edit: Again. Read this thread, again.

 

Isn't wonderful how I created a thread to simple talk about how stupid people get, them the very thing I speak about goes on and on.

THIS THREAD IS ABOUT THE COMMUNITY, THAT INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DEAL, WE SHOULD START ADVERTISING THE GAME OUR SELVES.

This would bring the kind of player we want around us and give KSH the funding they need.

 

In the world of entertainment, all publicity is good publicity. Simple as that, boys... (and girls too.)

 

That is becoming less and less true though.

 

Did some research... the FTC does, in fact, have guidelines covering this, but they are simply guidelines and not laws. The law would be broken if the video was deceptive in selling the product and the guidelines are there to provide guidance to advertisers and endorsers so that they keep on the right side of the law. Here is a quote from the FTC on the topic:

Not having the disclosure is not against the law or a violation of FTC regulations. If called into question, the worst that could happen would be that the FTC would try to investigate Keen or Yogscast to see if the videos were deceptive or misleading advertisements and violated the law the guidelines are there to help companies from violating. I don't think you could say the videos violate the law regarding false or misleading advertising. The guidelines are, essentially, a "cover your butt" suggestion.

 

well... a large problem is that the internet is *rumblederunblederunble* INTERNATIONAL!

this means nobody can really pass any good laws for it. this has both a bright side (an unregulated world. freedom of speech. lots of fun content) and a dark side (NSA, avoidance of laws). for the record: I don't accuse Keen of anything, I'm just stating a fact.

still... I did feel a bit cheated when I heard about it. then I decided that I shouldn't worry too much and I can't really lose anything. after all, I already bought the game.

and If one million ten year olds buy the game for 15 euro each (price minus about 20%), play it for two months maybe screwing over the steam forums even more (I don't visit them but I heard the tales) and then stop, Keen will have quite a nice budget

 

Ah, thank you. I had planned to look it up myself but... "Oooh! Something shiny!" ...happened.

It's been a few years, but I remember when the guidelines were updated in 2009, there was some sort of thing about bloggers being paid to write about a product misrepresenting their post as "hey look what I found and tried out" rather than a paid endorsement. It wasn't the product itself being misrepresented so much as it was the article itself.

Anyway... thanks for looking that up.

 

The Internet is definitely not an unregulated world. There are all sorts of things that will land you in jail if you get caught doing them online, depending on where you are, and what it is you're doing. And websites are still run by people, governed by the laws of countries they operate in and through, so the Internet is effectively as regulated as the physical world.

I am certainly not running around my living room, waving my arms wildly, screaming about Keen's deal with Yogscast. But I was disappointed that I spent money on an early access title only to find out that a portion of my purchase was going to support some YouTube channel I've never heard of before. Let's face it, Space Engineers is not a finished game, and there is a lot of work to be done. Seems a bit early to start an advertising campaign right now.

It also seems like Keen is sort of getting screwed in the deal (if the description field from the video indicates that 10% of ALL sales during the deal go to Yogscast). I've never heard of Yogscast so why in the flaming hell are they entitled to any of the revenue that was generated through my purchase of the game? They had absolutely nothing to do with my decision making process. I bought the game because I liked the videos I saw on Steam and the reviews seemed to indicate an overall positive experience.

I certainly don't have issue with Keen earning money for development, and this certainly isn't a "deal breaker" for me, but I would much rather have known about the deal ahead of time so I could have waited to buy the game after the deal.

Edit: SenorZorros, after re-reading my post here, I realize it sounds like I am grumping at you specifically. That was not my intent, just been a long day, so my tone came through a little gruff. You have my apologies.

 

there goes the neighborhood.

 

For all those defending it on "but they have to pay wages". We all do, we all need to eat to continue living... does that mean were allowed to do anything?
People only complain if 1) lied to or 2) not told important information about a situation.
An advert is an advert and people like to know it to be so. While Youtube is 99% adverts, they are labeled as such. If Yogcast is not doing so, that's very unwelcome.