Give this man 'Person of the Year' Time Magazine, you cowards!
I have been freaking out for the last few hours as I write this, and when you read this in a week's time I will still be freaking out. I cannot get over this, I will not get over this. In the year 2020; this is the single most beautiful thing that I've seen in the history of mankind, I simply must share this with someone, anyone! You know those times when everything seems to just be the worst? When everything from the rain practically drowning you one day to timezones messing with a hotly anticipated release on the other, all of which just conspires to truly ruin your good day? And then, like an avenging angel, you see that one thing that just makes you smile despite it all; or giggle uncontrollably like your the victim of Joker's laughing gas, as you try to wrap your head around the absolute pure smooth-brain idiocy you've just read and try to make it work on any remote level? You're there racking your brain, turning over every scenario in your head, and all the while you keep coming back to the same few thoughts. "This can't be real", "This isn't real", "There's no way we live on an world with comedic timing this good!", well I'm here to tell you that it is and you do. May every celestial being have mercy on our pitiful existences.
Ever heard of my new personal lord and saviour, Alex Hutchinson? Me neither, in fact it seems like one of those aggressively generic names that tries just hard enough to seem unique but hasn't quite got there to the point where I feel like I might have heard his name, though in reality I've probably just seen a hundred similar ones. (Either that or this is an elaborate hoax! Oh please, let it be real!) So Alex here just happens to the Creative Director over at Google's struggling attempt to break into the hugely profitable gaming market, Google Stadia. (Oh yeah, you know you're in for an absolute treat whenever we mention their name!) This is the type of of fellow who takes the time out of his way to have in the bio of his Twitter, in all caps, "All opinions are my own!" (I didn't replicate that here because it's sad and obnoxious) So you know this is the sort of fellow who has his hot takes at 9:00 pm whilst sitting on the toilet. This man, to borrow the parlance of a favoured creator of mine, is the hero of this story.
Now I can't say exactly what it was that set off this godly-fuelled rant into celestial bliss, although given the topic I suspect it was a reaction to the general distress that Twitch users have been expressing over a recent second wave of DMCA claims they've been receiving. Essentially a lot of these streamers use incidental music in the background of their streams, or simply just view content that may have some copyrighted content in it, and then the current copyright laws allow these big companies to aggressively pursue these folk as though hearing a brief snippet of a song in the background of a stream is capable of any remote financial harm to the song itself. Yeah, I'm about to go "Huh, is that The Beatles? Well I heard them in a Stream so I guess that means I never have to buy any of their albums or listen to Spotify ever again." (I could literally write an entire blog about how modern copyright laws are skewered into gross corporate-friendly perversions of what they were meant to protect, but that's beside the point.) So how does Alex fit into all this? Just wait...
Whilst squatting over his porcelain throne, Alex decided to shoot his first hot take right out into the Internet over the marketplace of all the worst discourse in the world, Twitter; and our hero hath proclaimed; "Streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they used music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well. It's all gone as soon as publisher's decide to enforce it." What? My man, what? It was then that I knew we were in for something truly divine. (Oh, and I think he's referring to licencing agreements here, and not trying to imply that every Streamer in the world pirates their games. Although with the level of intelligent discourse displayed by Alex here, maybe he believes that too.) There's literally a mountain of things to get into here, but let me implore that you don't explode with questions just yet as we try to address things one at a time.
Alex isn't trying to be Nostradamus and warm folk about a potential (if dumb) threat to their way of life, like I foolishly gave him the doubt about, he replied to his own Tweet on the matter. "The real truth is the Streamers should be paying developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a licence like any real business and paying for the content they use." (Gotta love some of that "real truth"; can't stand all that 'fake truth') So the basic thing seems to be this; Alex is somewhat of an old soul who can't reconcile how markets of today differs from markets he thinks he's familiar with. He looks at one thing and notices that it doesn't function like the other thing does, and instead of taking the time to think why that is, he stumbles into a hair-brained solution that everything should function exactly the same because context is stupid and it hurts his brain. (As I live in England, it might help to throw an 'Allegedly' over this entire blog; just to be safe)
So where do we start? Yes, our man is legally right; buying games does not give the purchaser the right to stream said game, only the right to access the software which can be revoked at any time. (Really needs to be an update to that policy but that's a case for another time.) And yet inexplicably games companies most commonly decide not to enforce their rights superiorities over people's streams of their games, (Unless they are some crappy studio who received bad coverage of this terrible game or Nintendo. Although even Nintendo learnt their lesson eventually.) let's explore why that is. Well for one there is this little nagging issue called 'Fair use' which would imply that footage in which streamers react to the content would be transformative and thus protected. In fact, under that provision it would be practically impossible for any online streaming content to break copyright law. However these little tidbits are often overlooked and I'd imagine that if they really wanted to the studios would have the edge in court. So maybe there's something more going on here.
How about, oh I dunno, the fact that going after Streamers for playing your game to an audience of thousands would literally be attacking free marketing? In the modern world where people are inundated and attacked by marketing so much that we're literally taught in school how to ignore it; in such situations it's invaluable to have a source of grass routes marketing where apparent-trusted sources spread the news of your product to those who will listen to them. The popular streamers of Youtube and Twitch perfectly form that sort of ecosystem and thus create an environment wherein game marketing can spread to people who will appreciate it, no matter how niche the game itself. Ever since Pewdiepie this has been the relationship between streamers and publishers, so no-one seeks to make a few bucks out of licences because it's far more profitable not to. Gaming has become the most profitable entertainment medium in the world right now, and their unique stance towards marketing has been a huge contributing factor to that. It's part of the reason why even with all the corrupt and greedy moves that some of these bigger studios pull, they've never gone after streaming; that would literally be shooting oneself in the foot with a freakin' Sawn-off levels of stupid.
And trust me when I say, this a universal rule. Even games which are typically not effected by backlash and dissent would be breaking their own legs to go after their streaming audience. Call of Duty culture was built on the back of 'skillshot compilation' videos back in the day, and the personalities who shared this content would go on to become unofficial, or even official in some cases, spokepeople for these games. Even Football games and the like are supported by fans who love streamers that specialise in that content. And as I mentioned earlier, even Nintendo had to wake up and realise they were being stupid by enforcing their licenses; so Alex is even behind Nintendo mentally. (Think about how much of a relic that makes this poor man.) Whatsmore, Alex seems to think that this move would allow the developers to make more money, (Because any injustice is good as long as it funds artists, right?) when he seems to have completely overlooked the fact that copyright rulings never funnel back to the artists but the studio who owns the licence. Developers wouldn't make bank off of this, Publishers would. (Though not much money, because people would simply just stop covering their games and move onto another game company who isn't run by idiots, same as what they did with Nintendo.)
Now all of this would be embarrassing, but understandable, to have to explain to a nobody who's never played a game before; but Alex boy here is a creative director! And creative director for Stadia, no less! So when you find yourself wondering how it is that everything Stadia does seems stupid and ill conceived, just remember that this is the intellectual calibre of those in charge, then wonder no more. What makes this especially funny, is that Stadia itself touted a feature that would take advantage of game streamers by allowing audience members to watch their content and then launch directly into the game (Something which I believe still hasn't come to the system yet) meaning Mr Creative Director doesn't even understand the creative decisions of the system he's working with! I just- fail to grasp how insane all this is with every layer. How can you work in the game's industry and be this freakin' clueless? My only thought is that this must be a joke, but he seems to have dug his heels in so far that he's become a joke online. I've already seen Streamers mocking him in their titles, so his reputation has been jettisoned in order to make this gaffe, if that's what it is.
As if to put that little perfect cherry on top of the cake, Alex-the-numbskull decided to sign off from the backlash he was receiving with a meme gif (ever the tool of the intellectual) and the message that he was going to play Fall Guys for a while. Oh, 'Fall Guys' is it, Alex? You mean that game that owes it's runaway success due to it's release strategy that took advantage of streamers in order to create demand before the game was out? That's right, 'Fall Guys' was released in a beta format to streamers so that they could play it and create an aura of exclusivity around the game which got people excited for the wider release. This is the game Alex is playing. And he doesn't seem to know it's history. (And don't even get me started on how 'Amnesia' was made popular by Streaming, or 'Doom 2016', or 'Among Us', 'Fortnite', 'Minecraft', 'Mario Maker', the list is unending) It's just too perfect, isn't it? This must be a joke. Never have I seen such a stupid take from someone who really should know better. I could write until my fingers disintegrate into bloody pulps about how wrong every online breath this man took was, but I'll relent. It is his opinion afterall, and some people think that alone makes anything you say right. I guess it just goes to show that Stadia is that platform of mediocrity that keeps on giving; so ride on, you doomed venture, on your inevitable journey to join Quibi in the graveyard of dumb ideas that were destined for damnation. (Congrats on outliving them, though.)
You may be wondering, given the extraordinary nature of this all, whether or not this story was real. Well in the words of 'Johnathon Frakes' in Beyond Belief: Yes it is. You're right. It's fact. Yes. Yes, a similar event did take place. You're right. You were right. Our research found a published report of a similar story. Yes, it was. A similar story happened to a young man in the pacific northwest about twenty years ago. It happened. A similar event took place. You're right again. You're right. A similar event happened to a teacher in the Florida area. It happened. You were correct, it's fact. It happened. This one took place. A similar event occurred in the state of New Jersey about twenty years ago.
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