The Wil Wheaton Effect Is Why Video Game Makers Should Embrace Let's Play Videos

from the game-theory dept

We haven't made a secret of our appreciation for Wil Wheaton here at Techdirt, in particular for his forward-thinking approach to digital content and intellectual property. More specifically, I've mentioned in the past that I am hopelessly addicted to Wheaton's YouTube show, Table Top, on which he features a series of table top board games being played by himself and a rotating panel of guests. As I was poking around trying to figure out when the series would resume for its fourth season, after amassing tons of crowdfunded money for the previous season, I came across an interesting thread discussing what had been dubbed "The Wheaton Effect."

This thing is big. This could do a lot for our hobby. It's easy to think that these are existing gamers being introduced to new games, but I had at least two people who were not really gamers start conversations like "So hey, aren't you into board games? Well I just saw this thing on the internet..." after the first episode. All of this being said, I'm getting Tsuro.

Now, we happen to know a thing or two around here about terms that get dubbed an "effect", especially when the revolve around exposure through internet channels. The Wheaton Effect is essentially a noticeable jump in sales for games that are featured on Table Top. As the original Reddit poster implies, the exposure generated by the game being featured on the show is a boon for sales. I would think this is an intuitive idea, in which an otherwise unaware public becomes aware of the fun to be had through these games and then goes out and buys them.

So, if this is a thing, as it appears to be, why in the world do some video game makers take a different approach with "Let's Play" videos, whether it's attempting to claim the monetization of them, control the content within them, or outright take them down via DMCA notice or by using YouTube's ContentID? It doesn't make sense if these types of videos result in exposure that leads to sales.

And, to be fair, much of the gaming industry has come around to this idea. You can see the evolution not only in the stance of the publishers, who often times go so far as to work with sites to unblock Let's Play videos that were automatically nabbed by ContentID, but also in video game hardware itself. The latest generation of consoles, specifically the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, are both designed specifically with ways for gamers to record gameplay and share those recordings. But Nintendo and some other lagging studios are more restrictive and I can't imagine why. Sales are what's important and exposure brings with it sales. The Wheaton Effect is an example of this, but this concept isn't in any way limited to the realm of table top games. Give up just a little bit of control, it seems, and you spur on sales.

Filed Under: attention, board games, buyers, let's play, promotion, video games, wil wheaton, wil wheaton effect

Wil Wheaton Discusses TV, Cord-Cutting, Piracy... And Trying Desperately To Make Sure Fans Can Watch His Show

from the still-being-awesome dept

Look, we already know that Wil Wheaton is awesome (and I don't just say that because he's admitted to being a big Techdirt fan). He has consistently been awesome to fans, building up true connections with those fans by being more open, human and awesome, as can be seen in just about every story we've had about him. As you hopefully already know, Wheaton has a new TV show, the Wil Wheaton Project on Syfy. Ever since he announced the program, he made it clear that while it was out of his control, he would do his damnedest to make sure the show was available online.

The show is now two weeks in, and Wheaton has put up a fascinating blog post about "ratings, cord-cutters, and torrents" in which he notes that the ratings of the second episode were down a bit, and he's trying not to let it get him down. However, he then realizes that the first episode was available (in an authorized fashion) online, while the second episode is not. So he checks out the Pirate Bay, and sees much greater interest in the second episode. Because duh.

Now, here's something interesting that I'm probably going to get yelled at by the network goons for sharing, but it's important and relevant. A lot of people have told me that I haven't been able to watch our second episode online. I understand that if they try to watch it at Syfy.com, and they don't have a cable or satellite provider, they can't see it. I understand that it isn't even on Hulu like our first episode was, and the show isn't on Hulu+ at all.

With that in mind, look at this, from about an hour ago, from The Pirate Bay: Last week, our first episode had a total of about 800 seeders and about half as many leechers. Math is hard, but I'm going to estimate over 2300 seeders and almost as many leechers, for our second episode alone. That's pretty huge growth and interest from people who probably want to watch our show, but can't, because they're cord cutters, or they're in a country that doesn't carry the show. Yes, I know there are people who want everything for free and won't pay for anything, but I don't count them as "lost" viewers, because they were never going to be scored by advertisers or the network, anyway.

Rather than do what many less awesome folks might do (which is freak out or even scold people about it), he pulled a Louis CK, and basically just addressed people honestly.

Our show costs a lot of money to make. It's possible to make our show because Syfy licenses it from us, and then sells advertising on the show to cover their investment. If everything goes according to plan, it's profitable. If it's profitable, we get to keep making more episodes. The best way to help us be profitable, then, is to watch the show on Syfy when it airs during the week. I don't fully understand the realities and nuances of licensing and all that, but I do know that the world is rapidly changing, and a lot of people don't want to watch TV live. I know that lots of people don't want cable because they can't afford it, or because they hate cable companies. I know that a lot of those people would gladly pay for Amazon on demand, an iTunes subscription, whatever Google Play does, or watch some ads on Hulu or Hulu+. I'm doing everything I can to let the people who make those deals know this, but I'm a very small voice in a very loud room. If you want to help make that voice louder, you can write a polite email to Syfy and let them know that you want to watch the show in a way that supports us.

[....]

Before I go, I just want to reiterate that I want you to watch our show, and I want you to like our show so much that you keep watching it. I'm trying my best to make it easy for you to watch our show in a way that helps us pay for it, so we can keep making more of it. I know for some of you it's easier to just fire up a torrent client and go to down, and I'm sympathetic to that. But I'll ask all of you, please, if you can watch the show in a way that counts for our network and our advertisers, please do.

And, as we've seen time and time again, people want to support the artists they love and the artists that respect them back. This is Wheaton being perfectly respectful, and totally open about the situation. Hopefully the folks at Syfy get that -- and figure out a way to get the show online in an authorized and convenient manner soon.

Filed Under: access, cord cutting, file sharing, piracy, the wil wheaton project, tv, wil wheaton
Companies: syfy

Wil Wheaton Reminds Us That Torrents Are Awesome, And Not Just For Pirated Movies

from the targeting-the-tool dept

The conflation of tools and technologies with the ways people use them is a big problem in the copyright debate. One of the many, many examples is the way the anti-piracy crowd treats "torrent" as a dirty word. Google endorsed this last year when they started dropping it from their search autocomplete results, and as Mike pointed out at the time, just imagine they had done the same with "mp3" a few years ago when that was supposedly synonymous with piracy. Defenders of this kind of filtering don't take such a forward-thinking stance, and their typical response in the torrent debate is to assert that the majority of BitTorrent traffic is likely infringing. Of course, that's not really the point: you don't look at the ratio of infringing use to legal use, but rather at the legal use by itself—if it's substantial and meaningful, then you have to go after the infringing users, not the technology as a whole.

Torrents have many legitimate uses. BitTorrent is simply a good protocol for sharing large files with large groups—they are perfect for films, video games, music and of course software. Linux distros are a commonly cited example, since they are always available by (perfectly legal) torrent, but this is often brushed off as if it's an excuse and torrents are not really necessary for this. Geek icon Wil Wheaton puts a bullet in this notion with a recent post on his blog, clearly demonstrating why he turned to BitTorrent for a copy of Ubuntu:

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things. Efforts to explain that this is not necessarily true are often met with hands clamped tightly over ears, accompanied by "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA."

As an example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes, I present the following comparitive images:

In case you can't see, the torrent is going about six times faster than a direct download, needing less than 10 minutes as compared to nearly 45. It's a simple example, but an effective one: P2P sharing is simply better sometimes. Google prides itself of directing people to the best possible information, but when their users start searching for the latest version of Ubuntu or the new Counting Crows album, they won't see autocomplete suggestions for this perfectly legal (and potentially superior) means of obtaining what they want. Seems like that runs directly counter to Google's mission. It may only be a minor annoyance, but it's also pointless, and it will only get worse as more and more people embrace torrents for legitimate distribution.

Filed Under: bittorrent, linux, wil wheaton

Dear Google: People Like You Because You're Not A Walled Garden; Please Don't Put Up Garden Walls

from the thanks dept

Wil Wheaton is getting some attention for highlighting what appears to be a pretty ridiculous trial balloon on the user interface design of YouTube: requiring users to be signed in to a Google+ account to up or down vote a YouTube video.
Now, it appears that this is just a test, but just the fact that Google is thinking about it seems like a bad idea. Wheaton makes the point pretty clearly: even though he's a regular Google Plus user, he knows that this will decrease overall engagement:

Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”

Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to “upgrade” to G+, you dickheads.

The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another fucking social network they don’t want or need.

At this point, it's well known that Google is betting heavily on Google+, but it may be overplaying its hand. A key reason why people like Google is that it didn't seem heavy-handed on such things in the past, and focused on having as open and permissive a solution as it could. Yet, in this case, it appears to be doing the opposite just to drive more (unwanted) usage toward Google Plus. Of course, the reality is that people who don't want to sign up for it won't sign up for it... and that will just lead to less engagement. And that's probably exactly the opposite of what Google really wants.

If you feel the need to force your users into using your own social network, perhaps you're doing it wrong.

Filed Under: google+, walled garden, wil wheaton
Companies: google, youtube

Wilco Continues To Get The Internet

from the always-nice-to-hear dept

We talk about all sorts of artists who really seem to "get" the internet, and how it can be used for good, rather than something to freak out about. It's worth noting that the band Wilco really was one of the earlier ones to embrace the internet in all sorts of ways, going all the way back to 2002, when the band's label (a Warner Music subsidiary) "rejected" its album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and dropped the band. It gave the band the rights to the rejected album... and the band responded by streaming the entire thing live on its website. Today that's nothing special. A decade ago that was a pretty big deal. Eventually the album was released and became the band's best seller. We also wrote about them back in 2004, when the band had a cool reaction to an album leaking online before its release date. Rather than freaking out, the band said that it's something inevitable and not a problem. Later that same year, frontman and founder Jeff Tweedy explained a philosophy that will sound quite familiar to folks reading this site:

A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator. People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property. I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic.

Anyway, I was just catching up on some podcasts, and listened to an episode of The Nerdist Podcast in which they interview Jeff Tweedy (bonus geek points: Wil Wheaton joins the Nerdist crew for this one) and they have a good discussion on some of his thinking on these subjects. Wheaton actually brings up the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot story, and how the band's decision to put it online like that made him, as a fan, feel invested in the band's success because it was so kind to its fans. That lets Tweedy again make some key points that we've talked about here for a while, but it's always great to hear a successful musician saying similar things:

I'm happy with the amount of goodwill that seems to exist between us and our audience. I can only guess as to why that exists, and I've never been in a band where that didn't exist.... We have our collaborators and our patrons, who come to see us play, and I feel like we treated them as patrons of the arts and collaborators.

And as for the decision to release YHF online for streaming, he first notes that there was no one around to tell them it was a bad idea. It was just a "practical" decision:

We needed to get out on the road, because that's how we make money -- we don't make money off of records. So our business model, if you want to call it that... we support ourselves on the road. And having our new record done and wanting to play those songs just meant, well, let's let people hear them so they'll know what's up. And it'll be more fun to play those songs for everybody....

We just can't look at it as any individual thing is how we're going to be supported by anybody. If they get one record free, they might buy another record. If they get one record free, they might come see the show or they might buy a t-shirt at the show... For us, we've managed to keep our heads above water by not focusing on "the lost sales" but by focusing on the people who are there and are supporting us.

It's an attitude that has worked well for the band for at least a decade, and seems to work for many others as well. It still amazes me that so many others in that business tend to see their fans as criminals and don't make any effort to treat them right at all.

Filed Under: art, the nerdist, wil wheaton, wilco
Companies: warner music

Wil Wheaton Says Chris Dodd Is Lying About Lost Jobs; Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy

from the indeed dept

We've discussed a few times in the past about how actor Wil Wheaton seems to understand that piracy isn't an enforcement issue, but a business model/service issue. He's also been somewhat vocal (since before many others caught on) concerning his opinion that SOPA/PIPA are a bad idea. And now he's responded to our story about Chris Dodd threatening politicians that the MPAA has financially backed if they don't pass PIPA/SOPA, by not only calling Dodd completely tone-deaf, but also noting that Dodd is lying about lost jobs:

I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy. Chris Dodd is lying about piracy costing us jobs. Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios money. That’s it.

Indeed, we've explained how highly questionable Hollywood accounting is used to keep actors from getting paid, even on some of the most successful movies ever. And, Wheaton is absolutely right. As we've been saying for the better part of a decade, the best way to deal with "piracy" is to properly compete with it. But Dodd and the MPAA still just don't get that. Actually innovating and competing in the market just isn't how things are done in Washington DC, I guess.

Filed Under: chris dodd, compete, entertainment industry, hollywood accounting, piracy, wil wheaton
Companies: mpaa

Wil Wheaton Explains Why Hollywood Needs To Compete With 'Piracy'

from the nicely-done dept

An anonymous user pointed us to this nice quick video of actor/geek Wil Wheaton discussing how the entertainment industry needs to catch up with the 21st century when it comes to dealing with "piracy." It starts out with Wil saying: "As soon as the entertainment industry provides an alternative to Bittorrent or an alternative to piracy, that makes it just as easy for honest people to get access to the programming, then the piracy dries up." Of course, plenty of us have said this for years, but it's nice to see another actor speaking up about this, even if it's one as "in touch" with the tech world as Wheaton. Wheaton goes on to quote Gabe Newell, to explain how the industry is too often focused on pirates who will never pay, and to talk about the ridiculousness of him not being able to watch videos he had legally purchased while travelling in Canada because he was outside the proper territory. The whole (short) video is completely worth watching. He notes that it's difficult to pull the entertainment industry into the modern era and suggests that they're just about reaching 1997 right now.

Filed Under: compete, entertainment industry, piracy, wil wheaton

Stop Wallowing And Start Doing Cool Stuff With Business Models, The Wil Wheaton Edition

from the excellent dept

We gently knocked Wil Wheaton recently for saying some things that we thought were a bit wrongheaded in terms of dealing with people copying his work -- while noting that for the most part he absolutely seemed to "get" where things were heading and had a long history of embracing that. Whatever you think of that minor blip, it looks like he's definitely got the right idea when it comes to new business models. Reader Avengingwatcher alerts us to a recent blog post by Wheaton where he's inspired by the fact that people can just "get excited and make things" if they have an idea, rather than having to go through the old gatekeeper model that so many were stuck in for so long. Specifically, he talks about print-on-demand solutions that take much of the upfront risk out of creating just about anything -- since you no longer need to pay for massive production at the beginning, and can just see what people want and order:

This is incredibly inspiring to me, and I hope that it's just as inspiring to indie artists everywhere. Why not take a creative risk and see if it works out? Unlike the old days, when we had to purchase a lot of stock ahead of time and hope we could sell it, we can just Get Excited and Make Things, knowing that the very worst that can happen is that nobody likes that thing we made as much as we thought they would.

Much of this is inspired by some experiments some friends are doing and discussing -- and one of the links he puts forth tries to tackle the "but this only works if you're big and famous" fallacy that we've debunked in the past.

I have to admit that 2009 has really become the year of creators embracing cool, working business models. These days, we get probably five to ten submissions per day of more artists embracing these sorts of business models that we talk about. We used to write about many of these, but it's reached the stage where we really only pick and choose to write about really interesting or unique ones, even as we see that many of these are working wonders. But the key point is the one that Wheaton hinges his post on, which is that more and more people aren't worrying any more, but they've decided to
Get Excited and Make Things
Is there any better motto for what's happening these days?

Filed Under: business models, experimenting, wil wheaton

What To Do When Artists Who Otherwise 'Get It' Freak Out Over 'Piracy'

from the wait-it-out dept

A few weeks ago, reader cofiem sent over a blog post from musician Darren Hayes complaining about recording studios shutting down and blaming "piracy" for it. This morning, our submissions engine is getting overwhelmed with submissions about Wil Wheaton's rant against someone who posted a copy of Wheaton's audiobook, saying the guy is "stealing" from him.

Of course, we see content creators complaining about "piracy" or falsely claiming that it's "stealing" all the time -- but these two cases are slightly different. They're both cases where the content creators seem to be folks who otherwise actually do seem to "get it." They both do an amazing job connecting with fans, and setting up smart "reasons to buy." Hayes, for example, created a DVD "collectors' item" to go with his latest album. And he has a fan club setup, that encourages fans to pay a small fee to get all sorts of valuable (scarce) extras, beyond just the music. Wil Wheaton, of course, has been online for ages, and really interacts with lots of fans, and when he released his audiobook he made it cheap and didn't put DRM on it at all.

In other words, these are both the sort of content creators who are doing all the kinds of "right moves" that we talk about all the time, and seem to be getting rewarded for it. So, of course, it's disappointing to see them overreact and go a bit on the ballistic side when they see people sharing their works in some format -- but it's not that surprising. It's a perfectly natural reaction if you're not immersed that deeply in thinking through the long term implications of these things to simply not like it when people treat your works in a way other than you intended. There's nothing really wrong with that.

However, the question then comes up about what should be done about it. How do you respond to such people? It seems the smartest thing to do is to openly explain the other side of the coin: how these efforts can be embraced to further all of the really smart things that these content creators have already done. It's about getting them to realize that as scary as "the new world" is, one of the things they have to come to accept is that they can't necessarily control what others end up doing with their works. They can't dictate the terms by which fans will be fans. But, what they can do is try to put in place systems and models that benefit them when such things happen. Use that free sharing to encourage people to become stronger, more committed fans, and open up new places and opportunities to potentially offer them a reason to buy -- on their terms -- down the road.

It's never a huge surprise when someone who hasn't thought through this stuff carefully starts ranting about pirates and "stealing." But when it's someone who otherwise seems to get it, the situation is more one of disappointment. However, in most cases, those folks are at least open to listening to reason, and listening to their community, who can explain back to them ways in which they can benefit, rather than complain or blame. And, in fact, with Hayes, it looks like he took some of his community's words to heart and noted that there can be future models where "piracy" isn't necessarily a huge problem (though he's still unsure of how it works). Hopefully Wil Wheaton will listen to his community as well -- and let them point out how many other authors who have put their works online for free have seen that it tends to increase their fan community and increase sales over time.

Filed Under: business models, darren hayes, piracy, wil wheaton