Today youtube rejected my partnership application for the second time. The reason given the first time around was that i didn’t have enough video views or subscribers, even though i included links to dozens of my videos totaling hundreds of thousands of views, uploaded by other people without my knowledge or permission. This time, they stated that my account “does not contain sufficient original new content that represents the uniqueness of [their] community.” How ironic is it that they can’t even say “original” without being redundant?
First of all, let’s get their thinly veiled insult out of the way. How many people out there (who actually play fighting games) think my videos aren’t sufficiently original? Be honest – you’re not going to hurt my feelings. Believe me, i can take the criticism. Plus i don’t even like compliments anyway. Well?
Look, i understand youtube’s primary concern is protecting themselves from lawsuits because they’re bleeding money by the millions from copyright infringements. But we’re talking about the world’s (self-proclaimed) leading search engine. Have you looked at the quality of their search results lately? When was the last time you typed in the name of a video game and found anything worth watching on the first page? It’s nothing but reposted trailers and scrubs playing the first level for the first time!
Meanwhile i’m sinking 40+ hours into a 92-second Ken video and i’ve got youtube telling me it’s not original enough?
The highest viewed CvS2 video on youtube is quite possibly the least original combo video ever recorded for Capcom vs SNK 2. For SF4 we have insane numbers like 941,825 views for terrible, terrible opening day match videos. The combo side is an absolute embarrassment, with a day-one Ryu & Ken combovid consistently coming up on the first page of search results with 352,348 views while a much better Ryu & Ken vid made by the same people barely shows up on the third page and has only 66,115 views. That’s pathetic. And it’s the norm. I could go on citing examples for weeks because we all know good results are far less common than the garbage youtube usually turns up.
Do they not care about their video game audience? Is that why the “Most Popular” videos listed on their front page rarely includes the “Gaming” category? Do the people reviewing applications in their Gaming department even play video games, or did they happen to draw the short straw that week?
Between the 15 videos uploaded on my account so far, i’ve collected 168,594 views total. And i haven’t made a dime from any of it. Based on their competitors’ published rates, i’ve missed out on $500-$800, conservatively. That’s no joke. If i can scrape together that much per month, that’d be enough for me to keep making combo videos indefinitely. Otherwise there’s simply no way to maintain this pace.
And they’re not doing me any favors either. All of those views came from the graciousness of the fighting game community, linking to my videos and saying a few kind words about them. Those clicks sure as hell didn’t come from youtube’s clueless search engine.
The most frustrating aspect of this whole ordeal is how impossible it is to get ahold of anyone human at youtube. Every last bit of communication is automated responses and form letters. How much easier would it be to make the necessary changes if we knew what they wanted us to change? They keep linking us to vague community guidelines, but consistency is an illusion at best. That website has so many exceptions, it’s hard to tell what the rules are.
The bottom line is, i’m never going to make enough money from this for Capcom or anyone else to bat an eye. If youtube is concerned about copyright infringement, i can make a pretty decent argument defending myself if given the chance. But that’s proving impossible to arrange because google is well on their way to replacing all their employees with software.
Does youtube think that video games don’t matter? That’s a pretty foolish stance to take, if you ask me. Video games are the future of entertainment.
Youtube didn’t create its own audience. It simply stabbed traditional television in the back and stole MTV’s viewer base. Maybe MTV saw it coming. Maybe that’s why they stopped playing music videos in the 90’s? Anyway the point is that youtube is going to have to fight hard to maintain its audience share to avoid becoming a blip in media history. It’s only a matter of time before the majority of their content comes by way of video games. They’re making some serious rookie mistakes right now.
Anyone got any brighter alternatives? If there’s a comparable website run by people who know what they’re doing, i think i’d rather give them a shot than stick around for youtube’s amateur hour.
The stupidity of crowds…
Ultimately, the internet searches, like Google, are really only useful for finding things you already know you want to see, or stuff that other people wanted to see first, or something.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Pieter_Bruegel_d._Ä._025.jpg
I’m off to eat bread, and watch the circus.
As far as I know, all those video sites look down on videogame videos and dissmiss them equally. Of course, they’d have to sift through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff, but if that’s what you’re paying someone for, than why not do exactly that?
Marcel DuChamp could take any premade object and turn it into art, just by saying that it was and people have accepted that now. I guess videogame videos have to go through the same process.
There’s already the new machinima category that’s been introduced in animation festivals(might wanna check into that, I don’t know if they’ll accept combovideos, but as an animator I thought your Evo Ryu vid was pretty damn impressive with the transitions.
I don’t think a machinima necessarily needs narrative, like the Nimuro vid, but that’s up to the selection commitee. If a 15 minute piece of shit with horrible sound and just flashing lights/shapes, or slow transitions can make it into the animation category, than a combo vid should definitely be accepted in machinimas.)
To someone who doesn’t know how to play a certain game and what makes the video interesting or amazing, it just looks like another dude playing a game, that’s most likely what’s holding the good vids back. Hopefully someone over there will come to their senses and do the right thing.
Good luck Maj.
Maybe you could just upload some “original new content”? Just film some shit with a video camera? XD Maybe you could rant? You write some good stuff on your site, just record it and put it on YT XD
Rufus: Chicken or the egg, though? It’s kind of a vicious feedback loop. If u2b had better search results, all those people would be watching better videos which would bring them up higher in search results. I think it has to start with improved search filtering. The main problem is youtube fails to replace obsolete videos with improved ones, even if they’re provided by the same people. If i remade my SF4 Ryu TACV today, the first version would still get more views and higher search rankings. Forever.
Bob Sagat: Thanks dude. If it happens, cool. If not, well, i had to try, right?
Doopliss: Haha yeah i know that’s what they want me to do but they’re dumb for wanting it. Who the hell wants to watch people talking about video games? Everyone just wants to see clips of some cool shit happening that they hadn’t thought of trying or didn’t know was possible. That’s what i happen to be good at. What does my face or my voice have anything to do with it? It’s like, i can make quality combo videos or i can make mediocre rants into a camcorder. Does u2b really need more webcam footage? No disrespect for the people who’re holding that down, but i’m good at other stuff. Let/Help me do other stuff.
I feel your frustration, but how can you expect a search engine algorithm to detect which combo videos have better content and rank them appropriately? You also can’t realistically expect somebody to manually watch every video and rank them in terms of quality.
MrChiCity3 has another, more detailed rant on the YouTube partner program, though it’s still more focused on being a YT personality-type channel.
Do you think if you had insane amounts of traffic they’d shut the fuck up? I was thinking, if there was some way to get interviews with combo makers/players (maybe along with that university study) into a technology magazine or website like Wired (i already have a great cover idea), then maybe YT will shut up as long as money is being put in their pockets – that’s the general rule for businesses anyway, right?
I’m sure once the dogface show is on g4 maj can force an interview
i like to think of dfs as “inside the fighters’ studio”…let’s call up bravo.
Protocol Snow: Thanks for your support, but why make excuses for the second most used search engine in the world? Yes, u2b is the internet’s second most popular search engine after google. If they can’t come up with a good enough algorithm to provide solid search results, then have someone manually watch every video which gets over 2,000 views (or 5,000 or whatever) and rank it into the existing hierarchy. That’s not so unrealistic. I’m sure they can even find unpaid volunteers if they try.
onreload: The problem with getting insane amounts of traffic to get their attention is that i’d be doing it for free, on faith. Worse still, we’re talking about faith in a company that has shown absolutely zero faith in us and never even bothers answering our emails or phone calls.
So check this out. Fuckin’ youtube, man …
A couple of weeks ago u2b sent me an invitation to “enable revenue sharing” on my CvS2 Nimuro’s Wrath (Abridged) video. I couldn’t figure out why because that video barely had 1,500 views and obviously wasn’t ever going to reach 10k. Meanwhile i have several SF4 videos on my channel with well over 20k views each, none of which have the option to enable revenue sharing. Kinda mysterious, right?
Yesterday i changed the category of my SF4 Ken TACV from “Gaming” to “Entertainment.” Within 12 hours, i got an email invitation to enable revenue sharing on that video. So i went back to check my Nimuro video and surprise, surprise – i had it under the “Film & Animation” category (because it’s based on a longer machinima containing tons of custom edited narrative).
Incredibly disappointing. Incredibly. Disappointing.
Why not just tell us that we’re not wanted instead of making us jump through all these hoops to figure it out ourselves?
Dude I’m not sure but I heard from someone that you need all your videos over 1,000 views… idk if it is true or not but w/e. Youtube is stupid at times, they probably send back automated responses… who knows.
That makes sense; i wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the requirements. But all of my videos do have over 1,000 views. (Some of ’em only barely but still.) Sadly i don’t think anyone knows the exact requirements, or if they do they’re keeping very hush-hush about it.
Also i want to clear something up. Wherever i mention this, a few people always ask me why i feel entitled to money or why i seem angry or why i don’t just spend less time making videos.
For the record, i don’t feel entitled to anything. It’s a lot simpler than that:
If this is possible, then i want to participate. If it’s not possible, then i want either an explanation that makes sense or a cease & desist notice. Otherwise i’d be putting my fate in the hands of an automated youtube message. Does that seem like a reasonable thing to do? I’m not getting angry either – it only seems that way because this subject has an unavoidably serious tone compared to everything else on this site.
Like i said earlier, there are thousands of monetized gaming videos on youtube but generally speaking youtube seems very resistant to gaming. I’m pretty sure we all agree that youtube is clueless about video games in general, so the question is what sets the ones they accept apart from the majority that they reject?
Unfortunately i can’t “not spend so much time making those videos” because that’s just how long my videos take to make. I mean i’m sorry but i only want to make good videos and i’m only human so they take time. I want to keep making them and the only way i can see that happening is if i start treating it like a part-time job or something.
Keep in mind that i wouldn’t be taking money away from anyone. If i make money, youtube makes money. (Otherwise youtube loses money paying for bandwidth.) It doesn’t cost you guys anything regardless. And Capcom isn’t selling combo videos so i’m not taking away their business. On the contrary, i’ve been helping market their games for free for almost a whole decade, without even considering the possibility of making money until like 3 months ago. Hell, i bet i’ve generated more exposure for CvS2 in America than Capcom themselves ever did.
If Capcom sends me a notice saying that i’m hurting them, then i’ll just stop. But again, i don’t think i am. And before anyone comes up with crazy hypothetical situations in which my combo videos could hurt them, please keep in mind that there are people on youtube making money from gaming videos right now. Tomorrow or next year, you might come up with an amazing video yourself and run into the same damn problem.
Well, i’ve done everything i can think of to try to get their attention and so far nothing has worked. I’ve sent them emails, i’ve tried asking partnered channel owners, i’ve even created a thread on their support forum entitled: When is youtube going to figure out what it wants to do with Gaming videos?
No luck whatsoever. Nothing but a bunch of speculative answers from people in the same boat, guessing at possible explanations. Short of physically visiting their management offices, i have no idea how to get ahold of anyone human at u2b.
The only reason why those crappy matches got all those views is because they are one of first SF4 matches that showed up on youtube. People just wanted to see gameplay, at that time they didn’t even wanted to watch pro matches, just simple gameplay match.
I think there’s only one way to get YouTube’s attention, get more subscribers! You’re doing good job with that, just be more patient.
Yes it’s clear why they got those views, but that doesn’t change the fact that their system is dumb. It’s one year later. Those matches are no longer new, or good, or important.
The problem is, u2b doesn’t understand that video game content needs to have a quicker turnaround rate than regular pop culture junk. Having the same video show up as the first search result for two years is perfectly fine if it’s a video of cats falling off a chair. But not for fighting game tournament matches or combo videos or even glitch videos.
They need to have some kind of weighed system where if ratings go down gradually over time compared to similar newer content, then the newer stuff goes up higher. And since i’m betting this system already exists, they need to adjust it sharper for video game content.
Whatever the case may be, there’s no excuse for their search results being filled with garbage. I don’t care how easy it is to come up explanations. Bottom line is, they’re doing it wrong. Bad content is front and center; good content is buried.