Ubisoft Once Again Crowdsourcing Content For Video Game, Once Again Gets Unwarranted Backlash

from the cwf+rtb dept

Between crowdsourcing and the explosion of indie video game developers, many of which are far more permissive in IP realms and far better at actually connecting with their fans, we are perhaps entering a golden age for fan involvement in the video games they love. And it's not just the indie developers getting into this game either; the AAA publishers are, too. One example of this came up last year, when Ubisoft worked with HitRECord to allow fans of the Beyond Good and Evil franchise to submit potential in-game music creations. On HitRECord, other fans would be able to vote and even remix those works. At the end of it all, any music Ubisoft used for Beyond Good and Evil 2 would be paid for out of a pool of money the company had set aside. Cool, right?

Not for some in the gaming industry itself. Many who work in the industry decried Ubisoft's program as denying those who make music professionally income for the creation of the game music. Others called Ubisoft's potential payment to fans for their creations "on-spec" solicitations, in which companies only pay for work that actually makes it into the game, a practice that is seen as generally unethical in the industry. Except neither of those criticisms were accurate. Ubisoft specifically carved out a few places for fans to put music into the game, not the entire game. And the "on-spec" accusation would only make sense if these fans were in the gaming music industry, which they weren't. Instead, Ubisoft was actually just trying to connect with its own fans and create a cool program in which those fans could contribute artistically to the game they love, and even make a little money doing so.

Fortunately, Ubisoft has apparently not let the criticism keep it from continuing with these experiments, as the company has put out the call for the same sort of program for its next Watchdogs game.

Last week, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt ‏announced on Twitter that his music production company, HitRecord, would once again partner with Ubisoft, this time to help the publisher create 10 songs for its upcoming open world hacker game, Watch Dogs: Legion. This immediately re-ignited an old debate about the ethics of soliciting work for big budget games from fans.

“10 original songs. Collaboratively made for #WatchDogsLegion. By YOU. Come play w/ us,” Gordon-Levitt tweeted on July 11. According to the FAQ on Ubisoft’s website, the publisher will be paying $20,000 for the original music which will be played during the game, like, as one example offered, while you’re driving around the game’s version of London. At $2,000 per song, the proceeds will end up being paid out through HitRecord to whichever of the platform’s users helped create the music.

Once again, you have to really, really work hard to find something unethical in any of that. And, yet, all of the same criticisms are arising. On the one hand, sure, it's mildly understandable that creatives don't like being routed around by gaming companies. On the other hand, it's hard to come off as more anti-fan than complaining about a $20k payout for 10 fan-made songs within a professional game. And yet again, here come the complaints about this being some flavor of on-spec work.

“This sucks,” tweeted Mike Bithell, developer of Thomas Was Alone and the upcoming John Wick Hex game, under the “nospec” hashtag. “Pay people for their labour. Stop exploiting fans and hobbyists, while devaluing the work of those with the gall to actually expect consistent payment for work done. Do better Ubi, we’re counting on you.”

“I am still not a fan of what read[s] as ‘spec work under a proprietary open non-exclusive license’ model, & prefer the ‘pay someone to browse SoundCloud to find cool music for which you then talk to the creator & pay them too,’” tweeted Vambleer’s Rami Ismail.

And yet the fans appear to love this, having contributed to the previous game enough that Ubisoft wanted to do it all over again. Here's the thing: if professional video game music composers are confident in their work, they really shouldn't see this as some kind of a huge threat. And I say that as someone that loves video game music. A game company trying to get fans involved in certain parts of the game creation isn't some great evil. It's CwF+RtB, which is something we like around these parts.

Filed Under: competition, connect with fans, fans, music, video games, watchdogs
Companies: hitrecord, ubisoft

Ed Sheeran Vs. The CopyBots: Artist Goes To Bat For Musician That Covered His Song On Facebook

from the good-guy dept

In our recent conversation about Ed Sheeran's rise to fame, we chiefly focused on his claim that music piracy helped him be discovered by the public and his generally lax views on filesharing of his music. While that modern view on how music is consumed is refreshing, we focused less on another chief part of the equation: Ed Sheeran is really good to his fans. Between engaging with them directly via social media, having a generally congenial attitude towards them, and producing music his fans love, he's built up quite a connection with his listeners.

But he appears to want to go above and beyond simply connecting with his fans, as well. He's even willing to go to bat for them with his label, Atlantic/Warner. He demonstrated this when a musician in the UK had a short video of herself covering a Sheeran song not only taken down from her Facebook account over a copyright claim, but had her account briefly suspended.

With two crowd-sourced albums under her belt, UK-based full-time busker Charlotte Campbell is regularly in touch with the public through performances on the London Underground. She also uses Facebook to keep up with fans, but a few days ago her entire experience came to an abrupt halt after she was banned from the platform. Charlotte’s crime was to post a 15-second snippet of her cover of Ed Sheeran’s song Castle On The Hill, together with a link to the full track on her YouTube channel.

“I love Ed Sheeran’s music and always cover his songs for my busking repertoire,” Charlotte informs TorrentFreak. “I find them easy to learn because I play them on repeat at home so I know all the lyrics by heart.”

Atlantic/Warner flagged the video for copyright infringement, leading to it being taken down and Campbell's account suspended for three days. She was additionally warned that if she did it again, she could be perma-banned. This all came without prior warning or communication, for reasons that she would discover once Ed Sheeran himself got wind of all of this and got involved.

After Charlotte was banned from Facebook, some of her fans took to Ed Sheeran fansites to complain that after paying tribute to the star, Charlotte’s reward was to lose her voice online. Amazingly, word reached Sheeran himself, who dropped in on Charlotte’s Facebook page to give his support.

“Just seen your video, [the ban] definitely has nothing to do with me. I bloody love seeing people cover my songs. One of the best things I get out of this job is seeing other people find enjoyment too,” Sheeran wrote. “I asked what’s gone on and apparently it’s a bot that Warner have that works on some weird algorithm (I have no idea what that means) but it’s just bad luck that it was your video,” he explained.

Sheeran went on to say that he was going to have a word with the label to get everything sorted out. This sort of thing works on so many levels. First, Sheeran is doing all of this at least in part at the behest of his dedicated fans, who discussed this on a fanboard. That's the kind of direct connection and interaction that can only serve to ingratiate Sheeran to the very people that love his music enough to support him. On top of that, being willing to go to bat with his own label in defense of a fellow musician that is covering his music is perfect in convincing the public that Sheeran is far more interested in the wider music ecosystem than he is in either being a copyright bully or milking every last dollar for his work.

The reaction from his fans and Campbell herself shows how well this works.

“I’m not sure I’ve really processed it, to be honest, I still feel like I’m dreaming!” she tells TF. “I felt so relieved that it wasn’t Ed Sheeran who had personally rejected my cover! And it really restored my faith in humanity and in Ed himself.”

And now a fellow musician that could have been miffed at the actions of his label is instead a firm ally for Sheeran, while the fans that complained about all of this have all the more reason to be supportive of his work. It's hard to imagine how a musician could connect with his fans better than this.

Filed Under: charlotte campbell, connect with fans, copyright, cover songs, ed sheeran
Companies: facebook

New Study Essentially Suggests That Publishers Should Do CwF + RtB Instead Of Going Legal To Combat Piracy

from the yup dept

We have talked about the power of connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy, along with using public shaming, as tools for combating piracy in its various forms. Tools far better, in fact, than twisting in litigious winds hoping that the construct of law will be sufficient to curb natural human behavior... and finding out that it isn't. What these routes offer content producers is a way to ingratiate themselves with their fans, building a community that not only wants to buy content themselves, but also will decry any attempt to pirate that content by others. Morality is shaped by the herd, in other words, so having the herd on your side finds content producers a powerful ally.

But philosophy like that doesn't penetrate industry in and of itself. Perhaps, then, data and academic studies may. The International Journal of Business Environment recently released just such a study suggesting that content providers are far better off reaching out and connecting with fans, including those pirating their works, rather than trying to fight piracy legally.

According to Eva Hofmann of the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK and Elfriede Penz of the Institute for International Marketing Management, at Vienna University of Economics and Business, in Austria, the unauthorised sharing of digital content is well-entrenched in popular culture. However, they have discerned a difference in the way those downloading pirated content and the legal downloaders decide on how to obtain the content they desire from the Internet.

The researchers note that inherent in the problem for copyright holders is that digital goods can be duplicated endlessly without loss of fidelity, making piracy easy but also suggesting that the value of such goods as being less than traditional, physical items in the realm of content, such as CDs and DVDs.

This nicely outlines why piracy exists at the levels it does: there is something natural in deciding that something that can be reproduced infinitely in a digital manner at no cost differs from a physical good that cannot. It's the reason why piracy and theft simply aren't the same thing. This doesn't make copyright infringement or piracy morally acceptable, of course, but it explains why the moral equation for those doing the piracy is inherently different. Everyone knows this intrinsically, even if some major content industry players want to pretend otherwise.

The study's abstract itself suggests that the best method for combating this is to engage with the public to change that moral equation.

Respondent groups differ in the effect of social consensus on the decision-making process. Additionally, the entire issue-contingent model is important in internet piracy research. From a practical view and based on social consensus results, it is essential for companies to establish sentiments that unauthorised downloading is an unacceptable behaviour within a specific social group that is highly relevant to downloaders.

In other words, creating a real connection with fans that are also given a real reason to buy content alters the moral equation for those that seek out that content. If enough minds are changed in that manner, it will have an exponential moral effect as those fans of the producer both promote the buying of the content and speak out or subvert attempts to pirate it. It works on both levels: convincing more people to buy the product and creating a fan-base hungry for the content provider to succeed so as to get more content.

CwF + RtB, in other words, along with a fan-based army willing to publicly shame pirates.

Filed Under: artists, community, connect with fans, copyright, fans, piracy, reason to buy

Game Developer Chooses To Connect With Pirates, Reaps Rewards As A Result

from the good-guys dept

While the industries that dominate digital products generally aren't great at recognizing the true nature of the threat of piracy to their businesses, it seems to me the video game industry is better at this game than most. Whereas the movie and music industries are dominated by a great deal of fists pounding tables, some game developers have for some time recognized that piracy might actually be an opportunity in wolf's clothing, if they would only try connecting with these potential customers and ingratitate themselves to this wider potential audience. Still, because this idea that should be easily portable to other industries is so rarely entertained by those other industries, it's worth pointing out the ongoing examples of how gaming companies combat piracy by being awesome and human.

One such recent example is the story of how PM Studios, makers of Playstation Vita game SUPERBEAT: XONiC, reacted to a discussion on Reddit's r/VitaPiracy/ thread detailing how to pirate the game. The game developer decided to jump into the comments themselves with the following:

Hello everybody!

We feel honoured that you enjoy our game SUPERBEAT XONiC so much, we would like to invite you to take this opportunity to purchase it on sale at the Playstation Store.

You can enjoy the original game and show support to the team for just $15.99 (60% off), no Playstation Plus required!

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/superbeat-xonic/cid=UP2011-PCSE00717_00-SUPERBEATXONIC02

Have a nice day!

This, quite simply, is how it's done. Rather than flying into a rage, which would be somewhat understandable on a thread designed specifically to show how to play the game without paying for it, PM Studios decided to treat those on the thread with respect, even thanking them for trying out the game. This acknowledgement that some percentage of piracy is comprised of those wanting to see if they'll like a game before buying it, combined with simply ignoring those that pirate without any intention of ever buying the game, and wrapped up at the end with a link to where the game can be bought while on sale, was met with enthusiastic responses in the comments.

And not only that. PM Studios stayed in the thread and had a relatively lively but respectful debate about how it views piracy, the harm of piracy, and describing its status as a small team just looking to make great games. In other words, rather than simply screaming about piracy, it connected with its potential customers in a respectful way. In the end, several comments came to the defense of PM Studios.

[–]DidntEvenReddit 5 points 3 days ago*

For a small team making Xonic it really is a way to keep the developers on the payroll post-release and keep in mind this is a third party exclusive game on the fucking vita to begin with so the margins are already against them. I have no idea why you would equate the practices of AAA publishers to PMStudios or why you wouldn't want to support them. You're not sticking it to the big corporate man by fucking over a small studio like this

One imagines that this kind of thing builds up goodwill amongst potential buyers of PM Studio games. Some of the comments on the thread state as much. It won't do anything with the pure-pirate folks out there, but, then again, nothing will. Worrying about those that were never going to buy the game would have been wasted time and energy. Instead, the developer chose to try to win over those that might indeed want to support its efforts.

Here's hoping PM Games gets the positive reinforcement needed to confirm that this kind of thing is the right way to deal with piracy. And that other studios are paying attention, as well.

Filed Under: connect with fans, games, piracy, superbeat xonic
Companies: pm studios

Kickstarter Still Setting Records Despite Everyone Wanting Everything For Free

from the cha-ching dept

When it comes to old notions that are used to stave off the need to embrace new business models in the digital age, nothing is more annoying than the whole "the masses just want everything for free" myth. That belief is snappy, punchy, and as simple to understand as it is completely and demonstrably wrong. But for a certain segment of the population, typically older generations of the kind that pine for the good old days when America was all apple pie and tasteful cartoons, the myth persists. Now, however, the myth is old. Old enough that it's begun to lose its flavor, like a piece of gum that you've been chewing on since Metallica shut down Napster. The new flavor is every digital success story that proves the myth wrong. Kickstarter happens to be my favorite example of this. What's remarkable about Kickstarter is that it's over half a decade old and, despite some still embracing the old myths, it's somehow still setting records in raising money for content producers.

Shenmue 3 isn’t only the fastest game to raise a million dollars on Kickstarter, it’s also the fastest game to raise two million dollars. The project was announced last night at Sony’s E3 press conference. It’s the follow-up the Shenmue 2, which was released fourteen years ago.

Were you to believe the legacy content producers, who insist the public are free-loading internet anarchists hell-bent on ruining everything and everyone, this shouldn't even be possible. The fact that records for raising money are being broken now is perfect in debunking every part of the myth. The money rolls in over a decade after the myth's creation, despite the expectation that every day would see an increase in younger generations just wanting "everything for free." The money rolls in six years into Kickstarter's existence, meaning nobody can claim that all this money is currently pouring in due to the embrace of some new platform, the popularity of which will quickly die away. The money rolls in for a video game, the exact kind of product that those who believe the myth would expect to be the most pirated.

What does this all mean? Kickstarter is on the verge of becoming the establishment now, if it isn't already. It's no longer the upstart experiment. It's firmly entrenched as a success story in the modern digital economy, taking its place alongside iTunes, Steam, and Netflix as snap-rebuttals to the old mythos. The truth is that there are conversations to be had about how to best operate within the digital economy, but those proselytizing the old gods against a greed that doesn't exist are no more useful in that discussion than flat-worlders might be in a conversation about astronomy. The myth is dead, gone the way of Zeus and relegated to a time before the counterexamples had borne fruit. The new question isn't whether content producers can get the public to pay for their goods; it's whether the now-established platforms can scale to keep up with the wider adoption of the platform.

Site performance is back up to speed. We're still monitoring everything. We've never seen anything like this. Thanks for your patience! #E3

— Kickstarter (@kickstarter) June 16, 2015

This was in response to the insane amount of interest and traffic generated by Shenmue 3. People flocking to Kickstarter so fast that the site couldn't keep up. People who others will tell you just want everything for free. The myth is dead. Long live the new business models.

Filed Under: business models, connect with fans, crowdfunding, free
Companies: kickstarter

Supernatural Celebrates 200th Episode With An Homage To Fan Fiction

from the cwf dept

We were just talking about fan fiction, that most sweet expression of fandom, and why the subjects of that expression shouldn't bother freaking out over it. After all, all fan fiction really is is a love letter to the original creators. Besides, if it's good enough for our founding fathers, it should be good enough for us. More importantly, allowing a fandom to grow and flourish through that kind of expression can literally keep a show going when it otherwise wouldn't. Case in point: Supernatural.

If you're not familiar with the show, Supernatural is the ridiculous story of two brothers who kill supernatural things, befriend angels and demons, and generally exhibit the acting chops of a two-day-old potato salad. It's a fun little distraction, but it ain't Breaking Bad as far as the critics are concerned. Oh, and by the way, it's lasted ten seasons, twice as long as originally planned, in part because of a dedicated group of fans that have made the show the 2nd leading television subject on FanFiction.net, behind only Glee (shudder). And it seems the creators of the show know how much they owe to these fans, because they celebrated their 200th (!) episode by making it entirely an homage to fan fiction writers.

There are many things that Supernatural does well, one of which being the very idea of using meta episodes to take a trip down memory lane and even make fun of itself occasionally. And no episode was more focused on "The Road So Far" than the show's 200th. Taking a break from the drama of the Mark of Cain and Cas' fading grace, the hour was all about the fans, and more specifically, the fan fiction that has come after 10 years of saving people and hunting things.

Yes, the setting for the episode is on the set of an "all-girls production of Supernatural The Musical." Yes, the cast made up of mostly men is represented by female actors, a not-so-subtle nod to the show's demographic. The production is built around a caricature of fan fiction tropes, including everything from sexual tension between the brothers (slash-fic) and the kind of angsty dialogue that is common in fan fiction of this kind.

It's over the top and ridiculous...and it's exactly the kind of thing fans of the show will eat up. This is connecting with fans in a wonderful way: not only not hating on the fiction they write, but actually acknowledging it in the show. That's how a campy little show that was planned to last five seasons is on its tenth and counting.

Filed Under: connect with fans, fan fiction, supernatural

Taylor Swift's View Of The Future Of Music Is Actually Not That Far Off

from the not-that-crazy,-actually dept

It seems like a bunch of folks collectively rolled their eyes at the news that superstar singer Taylor Swift (or the people she hires to do these kinds of things) had penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the "future of music." Of course, there are few artists out there that inspire rolling eyes like Swift does these days -- and there are some nutty claims in her opinion piece (and the writing is... stilted, at best). The main problem with the article is highlighted nicely by Nilay Patel over at Vox, who points out that she doesn't understand basic economics. And that's clear from this bit:

In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.

In recent years, you've probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal. My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet…is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is. I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

This is, as Patel notes (and I've been discussing for over a decade), a very, very naive view of economics. Based on this, the more you spend putting into the album, the higher you should price it, and the world should reward you for that. That, of course, is not even close to how the world works. You don't get rewarded based on effort. You get rewarded by providing a product that people want at a price they're willing to pay. Sometimes, perhaps, pouring more "heart an soul" into the product may help, but plenty of artists put their heart and soul into lots of works and get basically nothing for it. Sometimes it's because that heart and soul isn't enough and the product sucks. Sometimes it's because no one hears the music. Swift is lucky that she has the core of the traditional recording industry and all its marketing muscle behind her. I would imagine that the singer sitting at home in his or her garage pouring their heart and soul into a new recording and hoping to have it heard might find that they'd actually do much better giving the work away for free to get some attention for it.

That said, most of the rest of Swift's piece is actually a pretty good look into where the music world is these days, in which the focus needs to be on connecting with fans and giving them a unique experience that isn't easily copied. On connecting with fans, she notes:

There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people's lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.

However, some artists will be like finding "the one." We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon.

This is like Kevin Kelly's concept of "true fans." Of course, it's weird that Swift would mock the idea of giving away works for free -- when it's possible that giving away such works might actually help artists build those bonds, enabling those true fans to look for ways to support them later.

From there, Swift discusses how giving unique experiences is key to the future of music:

I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say "shock"; I said "surprise." I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can't this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?

In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online. To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we got bored, and we read the last page of the book when we got impatient. We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe. I hope the next generation's artists will continue to think of inventive ways of keeping their audiences on their toes, as challenging as that might be.

Exactly. There, she's recognizing the value of a unique experience that can't be copied or "pirated," and which people have to pay to experience. And, once again, it seems odd that she'd knock the concept of free music, when that very same free music can help drive a lot more fans to want to go to these unique and special shows in which she "surprises" her fans.

The op-ed comes off a little silly in places, but the overall view of where the future of music is actually is pretty much spot on. Connecting with fans and giving them a unique and valuable experience. It's almost like something some of us have been saying for many years now. Yeah, the part about free music is a bit off, but the overall vision seems very much in line with reality.

Filed Under: connect with fans, economics, fans, free, music, reason to buy, support, taylor swift, unique experiences

Vlambeer Makes YouTubers Monetizing That S@&% Easy As S@&%

from the show-me-the-money dept

I've argued in the past that YouTube videos, far from the bane of gaming companies' existence, actually serve to drive sales by informing the public of gameplay, graphics, and the overall quality of the product being offered. Yet, for reasons that escape me, some companies view "let's play" style YouTube videos as a threat and choose to restrict their fans' sharing their experiences. I happen to think that this is an indication of insecurity in the product, but it turns out not every gaming company is so myopic.

Meet Vlambeer, makers of the wildly popular Ridiculous Fishing game, which we've talked about before. The company found it was getting requests from its fans for permission to put some gameplay videos up on YouTube. Their reaction? Create a simple uber-permission tool granting each user forever-access.

Vlambeer has launched an express consent generator, aptly named "monetizethat$hit", which allows users to simply enter their username and come away with a document that grants them permission to make videos of the developer's games.The form, which has an entertaining tone, reads "This permission is (retro-actively) valid from the moment your service has been launched until the end of time / apocalypse / the events in Nuclear Throne become a reality. This permission shall not be limited to any territory, planet, solar system, universe or hypothetical alternate realities." It goes on to emphasize that Vlambeer loves to watch people enjoying its games, as it's creatively energizing.

This is what scientists refer to as being awesome. It's the trifecta of permissive use, a sense of humor, and engaging with fans. Perfect. And, while the company states its goal is to energize their own creativity, the end result of these fan videos is most likely the spread of information about the games themselves, driving future sales. It shows what relinquishing a bit of control can do for the business. On top of that, it doesn't hurt to build up some good will with your fans.

However, the Techdirt playbook doesn't end with permission and being awesome. Shaming cloners is in there as well.

Vlambeer also couldn't resist the opportunity to provide a bit of commentary. The end of the form states "Either way, if somebody can earn a penny or get filthy rich doing that, we're totally cool with that. That's not upsetting. It'd be upsetting if someone got filthy rich by, say, stealing our game idea and mostly replacing the main character with a ninja or something silly like that."

This is an obvious dig at Ninja Fishing, a not-so-subtle clone of Ridiculous Fishing that Vlambeer managed to beat out simply by being a better game and with a little similar social-shaming. Way to stick the landing, Vlambeer.

Filed Under: business models, connect with fans, let's play, monetizing, ridiculous fishing
Companies: vlambeer