Let's Play
[5] Though others had used the same approach at the time, the forums at the website Something Awful are credited with coming up with the term "Let's Play" in 2007 to describe such playthroughs.
[5][8] The format of Let's Plays is credited to Something Awful forum user Michael Sawyer under his username alias "Slowbeef".
[5][8] Sawyer stated that the format he adopted came from an earlier playthrough by forum user "Vlaphor" for I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
[11] Felix Kjellberg, known by his online pseudonym PewDiePie, has monetized his "Let's Play" videos which reach over 40 million subscribers and over 10 billion views, as of September 2015[update].
[21] Several of these individual Let's Players, as they are called, have transformed this into a full-time career while learning skills such as communications and video editing that can be used for future jobs.
[13] More popular broadcasters often share part of their revenue for charitable efforts, or hold charity drives while they play through games for a live audience.
[29][30] Business Insider reported that eleven of the top twenty most-subscribed, independent YouTube publishers as of November 2014 are those that produce Let's Play videos.
[33] Similarly, Davey Wreden, the developer of The Stanley Parable developed a relationship with various Let's Play channels prior to the release to assure they could play and record his game; his team further created specialized demos for two popular channels (Rev3Games and Steam Train) that jokingly teased the specific players.
[37] Survival horror games, such as Five Nights at Freddy's and its sequels, which focus more on immersion than skill, are considered tailor-made to take advantage of Let's Play videos and other live-streaming play, as the games' design is aimed to shock the streaming users, providing humorous reactions such as jump scares that are a source of entertainment for viewers.
[40] The developers of both Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast stated that Let's Plays of their games helps to make them successful considering that in neither case did they have a large promotional budget.
However, copyright law favors the game developer or publisher; if challenged, the Let's Play creator would have to argue in court for a fair use defense, which can be costly to pursue.
[49] However, in practice, game companies "tacitly permit YouTubers to violate their copyrights, with creators and publishers turning a blind eye out of consideration of the promotional value of being featured on high-audience channels".
[57] In early December 2013, a change in YouTube's Content ID policy caused many existing Let's Play and other video-game related material to be blocked.
This prompted Twitch to alter the method to reduce false positive and provide ways for users to challenge such claims.
According to Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), the issue in relation to gameplay was both because official guidelines restrict gameplay videos of the game to about one hour (including the ending) and because the videos were monetized; violating Japanese law of making money from copyrighted content.
[72][73] In one specific scenario, John Bain, who has previously argued for clear disclosure of paid reviews,[74] has revealed that he and several others were approached by Plaid Social, a marketing outlet for Warner Bros. Entertainment and offered promotional copies of the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor in exchange for meeting very specific tasks in their presentation.
According to Mary Engle, associate director for Advertising Practices at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), "disclosure should basically be unavoidable by the viewer.
[77] A similar situation arose as a result of the skin gambling issues raised in mid-2016, with the FTC further refining its guidelines related to promotional advertising on social media in September 2017.
The action led to Digital Homicide's James Romine filing a $15 million defamation lawsuit against Sterling and 100 Steam users that left negative reviews of the game.
[82] DMCA claims have also been threatened or used to remove Let's Plays of games owned by a company who do not agree with ideals or morals of the person creating the video.
Campo Santo's founder Sean Vanaman was dismayed by this, and issued a DMCA notice to takedown Kjellberg's Let's Play of their game Firewatch, stating that having their game shown on his YouTube channel was the equivalent of endorsing his ideologies; YouTube complied with this request a few days later.
Lawyers and legal experts speaking to Kotaku, The Verge and PC Gamer believed that content owners like Campo Santo have full control to issue DMCA takedowns under the law, but whether these takedowns are valid under fair use defense within copyright law is unclear, since to this point there has been no case law to challenge the legality of Let's Plays and other video game video walkthroughs or challenges to DMCA takedowns for this type of content.
