YogDiscovery

The gaming and Youtube community is suddenly abuzz about news regarding a decision made by the Yogscast (one of the largest networks of Youtube game commentators who’s video views measure in the millions). They have announced a new program known as YogDiscovery. I will post the details of this program at the end so the reader can come to their own informed decision regarding this program as is described directly from the Yogscast hosting this change. Before that, though I will give you my feelings on the situation and where MstSage Entertainment stands on the issue.

Essentially, YogsDiscovery is a program gaming companies can pay into specifically those of Independent development who wish higher sales for their product once released to the general public. As someone who developed his own games independently and still likely will in the future just for the fun of it I understand this, if you want to be successful you need to reach the largest market possible with a favorable outlook. YogsDiscovery offers a strong ability for them to do this quite easily…for the right price. You see to opt into this program you have a buy-in with the agreement that Yogscast will promote the game by recording a video of it and releasing it to YouTube. This is nothing new to the world of advertisement after all sponsorship exists everywhere. However, the nature of this buy-in and that of the Youtube game commentary/review community is where we come into a serious issue I think everyone should be aware of. The buy-in is actually a percentage of the sales paid to the Yogscast for the promotion of producing said video. Some of you at this point may have noticed a problem, but I will continue to clarify for those of you who have not.

YouTube is a community of people placing homespun videos for various reasons, the gaming commentary/review sub-community is primarily doing this for the goal of fun and is a hobby to them. Some do this for a living or have aspirations of doing so in the future, but the majority of these are simply combining a hobby to a career, not unlike many a small business owner. I myself fall in the latter category along with Rane. We stand little chance of achieving this goal but we’re doing it for fun anyway so may as well aim high we can’t disappoint ourselves if we do. So here’s why I lead in like this, the Yogscast has essentially said with YogsDiscovery that despite the contributions even though so low by comparison in ratio, towards game sales for a product they feature in this program, THEY are solely responsible for all sales and not the community. Moreover, they are going to collect a payout for the whole sum of sales as the sole response to this success. They have no metrics to substantiate any of this reasoning other than their own popularity on YouTube. This sickens me because I made an early video on Space Engineers that was 100% for fun and as a result, I confirm in conversation individuals who purchased the game after seeing my video, not because of my content but because it showed a game that existed they had interest in. Under this new gimmick, they are claiming they were responsible for those sales and not me. I would argue this is even illegal but that’s for the courts to decide as I would suspect individuals of similar mind will likely be pending lawsuits their way on the grounds of this programs nature.

Some of you are probably thinking that Rane and I founded our YouTube channels and started MstSage on the coattails chasing the fandom circulating the Yogscast right now and would like to claim I have no right to complain in light of their success, but in fact, this is not the case and I have every right. Go look up the YouTube channels youtube.com/Lanttyrantis and youtube.com/Tyrantis go ahead and check. These are channels I made long before the Yogscast were playing WoW, spinning Minecraft beta videos, and Shadow of Israphel. Whoops, I was doing this review/commentary thing long before they had the idea guess I’m chasing no one’s coattails but my own. So you can guess that I’m a little irked that someone who was successful on something I was doing long before the were is claiming they are the reason for a game’s success and failure all by themselves. I’ll stir the pot a little more, I originally on one of my channels subscribed to the Yogscast before they were even viral and applauded them for contributing to the community and helped promote them to achieve their current success. Then I find this is how they address the rest of the community?

Well, I did what anyone in my position would do and unsubscribed from every one of their channels today. I will no longer comment on, view, or acknowledge their videos or their existence until they rescind or transform this program. I am openly encouraging anyone who reads to do the same, but again please make the decision after reading the Yogscast views on this first and coming to your own decision.

An open letter about YogDiscovery!

submitted 6 days ago by Turpster

Hi all,

In light of the new Space Engineers episode going out we wanted to take the opportunity to speak openly about something new we’re doing,

YogDiscovery.

What is YogDiscovery?

YogDiscovery is our way of encouraging our creators to showcase fantastic indie games that they love so that everyone benefits.
How does it work?

Much like an affiliate link, our creators receive a small share of the revenue generated by the measurable increase in sales generated by their coverage. This will often run for a brief period of time after the video has gone live.

So for example if a game had an extra 10,000 sales in the week after their video, they would see a small percentage of those extra sales.
Ideally viewers will be encouraged to purchase through the Humble Store rather than Steam, as developers receive a better margin and 10% of revenue goes to charity.

Why?

Our entertainers earn a livelihood from advertising directly based on how many views they get. This motivates them to create content around games that are popular – e.g. Minecraft or Garry’s Mod.

YogDiscovery allows them to partially negate the financial risk from playing games that aren’t guaranteed views and be more genuine about playing the games they want to play.

This also allows smaller companies – who lack the big marketing budgets that the larger publishers have – to reach larger audiences without any risk or loss of earnings..

Why can’t you play these games anyway?

It’s entirely up to our creators what games they play – and they do play games they love that aren’t part of YogDiscovery and will continue to do so. YogDiscovery is a great way for us to support developers and for developers to support us.

Having additional budget also allows us to make better videos in every sense. We wouldn’t normally be able to ride around on tanks or fly quadcopters. We can spend more time and energy at every stage – from custom builds, artwork and special effects to using better quality cameras and microphones.

Does this mean the Yogscast is for sale?

The golden rule is that we only play games that we enjoy. At the end of the day, we can’t feign enthusiasm around a product or event that we don’t ourselves possess excitement for. People watch our videos because we’re having fun, and if a game isn’t fun, it’s immediately obvious to our audience, which defeats the point of everything we’re doing.

We are not journalists and we do not provide reviews or opinions on games. However we feel it’s worth clarifying that we wouldn’t ever give ‘positive opinions’ on a game in return for any form of remuneration.
Why can’t you just use a referral code?

People watch our videos through many devices and locations – from XBox to Android or on our website for example. Many people cannot click a link or choose to go directly to their platform or retailer of choice.
How will this change Yogscast content?

We hope that YogDiscovery brings more variety on our channels while also providing a way for our viewers to discover great games. We’re still committed to providing informative and funny Minecraft content and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

We love our audience and have always tried to be as transparent as possible in regards to paid placement in our videos. This obviously isn’t always the case across the rest of YouTube but we hope that YogDiscovery will go some way towards convincing others that there are better ways to act.

Why is YogsDiscovery great for everyone?

Developers get eyes on their game and the attention that could help it snowball into a big hit – allowing them to be able to fund development of more great games.

Audiences win by discovering new games to play and being able to enjoy great entertainers making them laugh. If they purchase through Humble rather than Steam, they are also contributing to charity.

Our entertainers get to create the videos they want to make, have the opportunity to go above and beyond and be rewarded for their efforts, and form strong and lasting relationships with their audience and developers.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and we hope you will help us spread the word around these great games!