YogDiscovery: The Money and Ethics of Youtubers

[Kazooie]

title courtesy of nerdcubed

 

If you don't know what this is, [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/Yogscast/comments/2afpqz/an_open_letter_about_yogdiscovery/]this[/url] will take you to the Yogscast's open letter about their new program.

 

And I think it's an awful idea. I'm leaving YCM, but after seeing this mess of an idea, I wanted to see what some of you all thought about it. Nerdcubed sums it up pretty well in his video on it.

 

http://youtu.be/qi5KsJDTiV4

 

Personally, I'm a little unhappy about this, just because it really seems like a slippery slope to screwing over indie developers. I'm hoping this doesn't get worse, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

Curious about what you all think of it, and hoping that maybe I misunderstood what was going on and nerdcubed was wrong. x-x

[Tentacruel]

I'm definitely against it, it has too many problems and complications.  

 

Paying a flat fee to get them to play it would be fine.  (With proper disclosure of course.)

[Lonk]

 

In all seriousness though, the Indie Development field is still growing, and if something stuns or hurts the growth, everyone will feel it.  It really should have just been a flat fee.

[.Rai]

I'm definitely against it, it has too many problems and complications.  
 
Paying a flat fee to get them to play it would be fine.  (With proper disclosure of course.)

A flat fee would be far simpler, but it goes against why this model exists. It allows devs to get exposure without having to pay an upfront fee (which is often the problem).

It's definitely a really complex issue because it's a totally alien model to what Youtubers usually function to, but its benefits are obvious.

[Tentacruel]

A flat fee would be far simpler, but it goes against why this model exists. It allows devs to get exposure without having to pay an upfront fee (which is often the problem).

It's definitely a really complex issue because it's a totally alien model to what Youtubers usually function to, but its benefits are obvious.

A fair point.

 

In all honesty though, while I certainly still think it has some kinks, I would totally do it with my game. 

 

Maybe I'm a hypocrite, but as they say, 

 

 

[Kazooie]

I guess in the end, it really comes down to how many people jump on the train with this system. If too many get on it, I'm worried that it'll just screw everything over.

 

One big youtube can have a huge effect, if too many are doing it, who knows what can happen. x-x

[Shradow]

I've read the open letter about the program and haven't watched the video, but right now I like the idea. We'll simply have to see whether or not it's a good one.

[Cin]

I did read the statement that Lewis Brindley (Xephos) shared on twitter from Mark Turpin (Turps)

 

I'm sure Yogscast Ltd. spent alot of time before deciding to go with decision (as they've done with Gametee and Spreadshirt in terms of Merch). I suppose it's the developers getting a chance to really get their game out there to a network with more than 2 million subs just on the main channel, I doubt the developers pay for this extra advertising so taking a cut is a reverse way of getting paid so as long as the period they take a cut isn't a long time, I don't see it being that bad.

 

I doubt they'd force their employees to play games they don't want to play. Esp given how much freedom they recently given Chris Lovasz (Sips). I believe they will just play what genuinely takes their fancy.

[Tentacruel]

The main issue Yin, is that they take a cut of all games sold for a week after the video.  Nothing so bad about it alone, but if they do a video the same day as, for example, Totalbiscuit does a video, they're taking a cut of every sold copy, regardless of the reason that person bought it.  Their reason for not using referral codes is valid, but it does present a bit of a problem. 

[Shradow]

That was actually brought up in the reddit thread:

 

Let's say that you publish video of some game and that week the sales of the game spike. BUT! The video came out the same week as Totalbiscuit's wtf is and Eurogamer review... so how are you going to measure that it was your coverage that helped to sell 100k more units and you are thus entitled to such and such amount of money?

 

 

The likelihood is that YogDiscovery will only take place where game developers feel their games sales have normalised, I would expect after release/early access etc. we want this to be sustainable so are unlikely to make agreements with developers where they feel worse off from the partnership. We certainly wouldn't look to plan for videos to come out when other activity is expected.

[.Rai]

It's definitely a model reliant on an integrity policy. It works, provided the Yogscast don't falsify positive opinions, or play games that are bad within the program, and release videos during times of non-spike activity. They have mentioned all these things as policies they intend to keep to, so it might just be fine. Maybe.

The one game already out on the YogDiscovery program is Space Engineers on the Yogscast main channel. No-one else seems to be playing it outside of <10,000 view videos from smaller channels such as some Mindcrackers. The Yogscast are trendsetters in the gaming hierarchy, so exposure from small and medium-sized channels directly after can be attributed to the trendsetter as well.

[Night]

I've been subscribed to the Yogscast for about 3 years now so I generally know how they operate when it comes to content and how they handle it.

 

If this came up 2 years ago I'd side with them and advocate that they're genuine in their approach, however over the years I've seen the Yogscast stray far away from what they were originally. 

 

For those who were involved in the Minecraft community 2 years ago you'd know how prominent the Yogscast was in the community during their early stages, it's thanks to them that the community is what is now.

One of the major things the Yogscast pioneered was the modding scene with a thing called the Yogbox which was essentially a culmination of all of the best mods for Minecraft at the time all painstakingly coded to work together. Mod packs are a dime a dozen these days but back then it was groundbreaking stuff and that's the kind of shit that put the Yogscast on the map, legitimately doing things for the community and not for profit.

 

It got them the recognition they deserved but shortly after when they realized they'd milked it of all it was worth they stopped developing it, completely ignoring the pleas from the community to keep it in development.

 

About 6 months after that they unveiled their kickstarter project which was at it's core a "Minecraft rip-off" but ended up being successful nevertheless. 

 

Fast-forward 2 whole years and that game that they promised to be the best thing since sliced bread is still under development and the Yogscast has completely forgotten about it.

 

Why? Because they already made their money through the kickstarter.

 

----

 

So yeah if it already wasn't blatantly obvious that it was just a one-sided money making scheme, there's some insight for you.

 

tl;dr Yogscast was once respectable and genuinely admirable, now they're just money-whoring fucks. 

[.Rai]

It got them the recognition they deserved but shortly after when they realized they'd milked it of all it was worth they stopped developing it, completely ignoring the pleas from the community to keep it in development.
 
About 6 months after that they unveiled their kickstarter project which was at it's core a "Minecraft rip-off" but ended up being successful nevertheless. 
 
Fast-forward 2 whole years and that game that they promised to be the best thing since sliced bread is still under development and the Yogscast has completely forgotten about it.
 
Why? Because they already made their money through the kickstarter.

There's been new info on this in the past week.

[spoiler=Yogsventures Developer Statement]Hi everyone,
I can't make any official statements about Yogventures or what is going to happen in the future, but I may be able to shed a little light on what happened to myself and Winterkewl Games.
For all official information please contact The Yogscast at
[email protected]
The Yogscast have been given full ownership of all things Yogventures including all work that's been done up to this point, code, art, project files etc.
For now, I will dispel what I can of the rumor mill though some details are unfortunately going to have to wait for official word from The Yogscast themselves.
So, no one in my family died. I didn't die. My company Winterkewl Games will unfortunately, probably need to go out of business and possibly file for bankruptcy if things get much worse though.
Working on Yogventures was an amazing experience and everyone at Winterkewl Games really wanted to achieve the very lofty goals the game set out to do, but lack of experience in planning and managing a project of this scope proved too much for our little team. As you know we had a total of 6 people working on the project, Winterkewl Games was started to make Yogventures and while every member of the team worked tirelessly to make that a reality, in the end there was simply too much work to do on our own. After the Yogscast have made an official announcement regarding their future plans for the game we will put out a detailed spreadsheet showing where all the funds from the Kickstarter were spent as well as the amounts that I personally invested once those funds ran out.
We always knew that we were going to need to partially fund development ourselves so the lost money is not in any way regretable, however without pre-orders to help offset those costs, eventually, after I had invested innumerable hours and over $25,000.00 of my own money in the game, we had to admit that without more funding we couldn't afford to keep the game going on our own.
I can't speak for the Yogscast and I make no claims that I do, for their own reasons they decided the game wasn't up to the quality they needed it to be to make videos supporting our pre-order business model. That was and is their prerogative and we had no way of influencing that decision other than making the game as best we could with what we had to work with. As I said, we missed milestone after milestone and continued to come up short of the quality expectations and thus the Yogscast didn't want to advertise the pre-orders until it did meet those expectations.
I tried to cut all costs and continue the development even after the heavy losses of 2013 but the stress of trying to work full time and be full time on the game ultimately caused me to ruin my relationship with my wife, and she filed for divorce because I was so obsessed with finishing this game that she couldn't take not seeing me anymore. When the divorce began I suffered a bit of a crisis personally and had to take a medical leave of absence from work. I almost lost my job too.
I'm deeply sorry that despite our best efforts we never reached a level of play-ability that inspired enough confidence from not only the community but even the Yogscast themselves. This is my fault, I agreed to every feature request we got because I didn't want to lose the opportunity. I wanted so badly to make this project a reality I ignored the real-world risks to the point that I almost lost everything and worst of all I let you all down.
I wish more than anything I would have had this fore-knowledge before we ever began this project. If we would have limited the scope and made a solid plan for working more closely with the Yogscast I have every faith this project would have been a real stand-out achievement in the Indie Game world. However, if you promise the world and don't take into account the amount of time and resources you really need to make good on those promises you find yourself in a position where you can't move forward without more funds but you can't generate more funds without moving forward. That's what happened and I had to make the call that it's for the good of the project that we at Winterkewl step aside and allow the game to be taken over by a larger team. That's why we have turned everything over to the Yogscast. With their resources and connections in the gaming world, I still believe this game could be really great.
As I say though, I no longer speak either for the Yogscast or Yogventures, you'll need to contact them and wait for them to be able to sort out what their own plan going forward will be. They trusted us to be able to handle this development and we let them down just as much as we let you down. That fault is totally my own. I honestly believed everything would go to plan, and to be honest, almost nothing actually did.
I'm very sorry to have disappointed, working for you the backers was the most rewarding thing I've ever attempted, and it's also the only project I've ever attempted that we were un-able to finish. I sincerely hope that the project will live on and that Yogventures will one day be a reality as the Yogscast and this great community have a real opportunity that could be something really great.
Thank you all very much for the support, community, and resources to have attempted such a great project. I'm deeply sorry to have let you all down.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Lewis' Reply to the Backers]Hello backers!
Lewis from the Yogscast here - as you may have heard, Winterkewl Games have stopped work on Yogventures - but this is actually a good thing as the project was proving too ambitious and difficult for them to complete with their six-man team.
While this was Winterkewl’s project, we put a lot of time, energy and effort into trying to help them realise their dream. Since we heard the news, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that you still get awesome stuff and cool experiences.
We appreciate that Yogventures backers are our most dedicated fans and we want to ensure you get some really cool and special stuff that is just for you. We really want to treat you like members of an exclusive club with rewards coming to you for years to come. Although we’re under no obligation to do anything, instead we’re going to do our best to make this right, and make you really glad that you backed the project!
So to begin with we’re very lucky to have met a team of really smart guys at Nerd Kingdom who ran their own Kickstarter for a very similar game called TUG (http://yogscast.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=af2e9ed0e811e359a999a355a&id=a14f5980a2&e=2f237acb80). They have a larger team of engineers and programmers who are creating a game that is much further along in development.
In many ways TUG is the game we were hoping Winterkewl would create - and it has huge potential for the future. We’ve been playing the Early Access version on Steam and you’ll soon be able to see us playing the game on Yogscast channels.
So - as a backer or early-access purchaser of Yogventures, we are delighted to be able to deliver a steam key to redeem a full copy of TUG as soon as we can.
The folks at Nerd Kingdom are big Yogscast fans and are committed to making sure that all the Yogventures backers feel comfortable in the world of TUG. To that end, we’re working with Nerd Kingdom to offer similar in-game rewards for each Kickstarter tier where possible and will be able to give you the specifics on that over the next few weeks.
Because Yogventures was never completed it’s going to be impossible to deliver the rewards relating the the finished game. However we’ll do everything we can to find cool things to take their place.
All physical Kickstarter rewards that could be shipped out should have been delivered to you by the merchandise partner, Rodeo Arcade (Now called Maker Shop). If you have any outstanding issues related to these items then please contact: [email protected].
And this is just the beginning - I want to stress that we are talking to a whole bunch of potential partners about other cool games and exclusive content that we can provide for you guys. I’m really confident that this will turn out far better than anyone expected!
Thanks
Lewis[/spoiler]

tl;dr 6-person dev team got too ambitious making a huge sandbox game. Way too ambitious.
second tl;dr Backers get a game which is basically the same game sans yogscast flavour.

Edit: Refunds are being offered via the Yogventures Kickstarter, so that's something.

[Shradow]

Even if they stopped development of the Yogbox, they've been working on plenty of modpacks since then, such as Moonquest or the Yogscast Complete Mod Pack.

 

And Rai already covered what I was going to say about Yogventures.

 

Also, for the sake of fairness I can only hope you're this critical of all money-making companies, and aren't just being harsh on the Yogscast because you like to think you know how they work.

[Tentacruel]

The Yogventures situation is just due to poor decision making.  Winterkewl is simply inexperienced and in no way fit to make a game of that size and scope. 

 

As the Extra Credits folks said, for your first game, think small, for your second game, think small again.

They though big and it exploded in their faces.  It's the nature of Kickstarter.  Not all projects are guaranteed to actually go through. 

[Cin]

Projects fail all time for a whole host of reasons, in this case both sides were just a little naive. Yogscast Ltd. for aiming maybe a little too high and Winterkewl for failing to grasp that huge project being too big for them. So you cannot be hyper critical of both companies.

 

At the end of the day I wonder if Lewis and Simon ever thought this was how big it wasn't going to get when they first started the group (Turps already admitted during Sjin's Building Challenge interview with him, when they offered him a job, he wonder if it was possible to have a job working on youtube content) and they will make mistakes every company does. It just we seem to hold them in higher regard than others.

 

They use a massive amount of mods in their large list of current series. I believe just Hat Pack (on Hatfilms Channel) alone has 100+ and that's not even the size of the Yogscast completes mod pack.

 

Dan has continued to post on twitter about the Yogventures saga.

(R.I.P Little And Cubed at this pace).