Yesterday I saw a tweet from Danny Baranowsky which lead to this story from the creators of That Dragon, Cancer. The short story is the creators of TDC where contacted by youtube streamers who had been hit by content ID claims for the music in the game. The youtubers (who I can't mention because their names have been blocked and I don't want to dig) complained to the developers that "it sucks other people want to make money off my videos." and the explanation from the developers that their game still hasn't made them any money and one primary reason is because of people uploading it to youtube. You should go read the story for yourself, it's not long.

While reading through it, the story reminded me of this comic from The Oatmeal.

While "exposure" works for some games being streamed, which Danny Baranowsky admitted, it really only helps games that have a high replay value. Sandbox games, rogue likes, creation tools. It doesn't help games like Firewatch, Gone Home, The Dragon Cancer. Games that are short experiences with tied heavily to a narrative.

Its interesting to see a developer comment on this. They've also sort of "backed down" and took away the content ID claims. Maybe they just wanted to get their message out?

Personally I think if you're making money off streaming someone else's game, a portion of your money earned should go to that. Licensing would work for this. And not a big percentage either. A token percentage. Something that will allow the developers to continue to make games. Perhaps Twitch and Youtube could do a better job. Twitch for example track what games people are playing to some degree, so as long as you're streaming say Factorio, Factorio's developers get a single digit percentage of your earnings. Because in all this, the only people potentially not earning anything and even potentially losing out are the devs.

I'm not an artistic or creative person but I've many friends who are. And lots of them can relate to the comic from The Oatmeal, when they do work for someone and they get stiffed or have to argue that what they did has a value. Exposure, in every case, does not put food on the table.