Opinion - Wednesday, July 23, 2008 0:20 - 1 Comment

Vimeo’s ban on game videos strikes a nerve

Video hosting site Vimeo notified its users about a new upload policy that bans video game videos, unless they are of the genre ‘machinima’ which is filmmaking using video games engines (Red vs. Blue as an example, is a web sitcom that uses the Halo game engine). (To find a great alternative besides YouTube, read through to the end)

The reasons cited seem to be a little contradictory and subjective: First, is the reason of ‘creativity’, which is held up to the issue of ‘direct capture of game play’– a valid point, and yet, that puts Vimeo in the position of being editors to the game content that’s posted– since they DO allow machinima.

The Vimeo staff does not feel that videos which are direct captures of video game play truly constitute “creative expression”

A number of game video creators (and others) came to protest, as what may appear to be a direct gameplay video, may actually be a work of a greater nature. The blog has over 700 comments at the time of this writing.

“Creative Expression” is not something I’d personally want to touch, because it gets into a social subjectivity issue. A game video for one person may not be ‘creative’ and a ‘lip-dub’ video may not be to another. Nor cat videos, amateur acting– a whole range of content types that can appear on a video hosting service.

The second reason cited is the ‘processing time’:

Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo. Over these last few months they have been the single biggest reasons for our transcoder wait times.

While I do believe that what they observe is true, I do not believe that the content of a video matters. Fastcompany.tv’s Robert Scoble has often posted long videos to the various services he uses– some upwards to 40 minutes. Those take the same processing power as I suppose, a 40 minute lip dub or 40 minute game video.

This part of Vimeo’s argument is rather weak– and as someone always looking for reliable video hosting– doesn’t give me much faith in the ability of their transcoders or stability of their bandwidth. The phrase ‘by nature’ in their post seems to be a strawman argument. Game videos can be one second or one hour, the same as traditional video.

Why I chose Vimeo over Blip.tv (who has the same policy): support for high definition, a cleaner site that seemed less ‘network-y’, and truthfully, Vimeo appeared to have a better community culture– something a bit snootier than say, Youtube. (Flickr is accused of this, and I’d tend to agree. Snooty isn’t necessarily bad.) I’d assume that I could put a good game video up, and not have the usual suspects of immature 12 year olds coming to lolfagwtf the thing to death. So in part, it was because of a perceived community, which also included a lot of my friends. Vimeo, like Blip.tv, is a name, a previously trusted name.

What’s a bit disturbing about Vimeo’s decision is that a service is taking the role of editorial. They are still allowing game-generated videos (until the next big uproar), but they (Vimeo) needs to make that call.

While looking to find alternatives, Blip.tv immediately came to mind, however, I was informed that they had a similar issue about a year ago.  Many people will provide a recommendation to this service and that service, yet those that shopped for a product, have to go through the shopping process again. Who can you trust? (Note: according to their blog, videos violating the rule will be deleted September 1st.)

What’s rather ironic about this is how the video game space is thundering into every aspect of our lives. Approximately 1/3 of all the applications on the iPhone/iTouch App Store: are games. The evolution of entertainment, spanning every age, demographic, gender, social class, is pointing to games. The biggest grossing entertainment franchise of all time was a game. User-created content (and not just what comes from virtual worlds) is on the rise, and UGC is showing up in games. The video game industry is over 18 billion dollars and is believed to be one of the few recession-proof industries. There’s not really a ‘game community’ as ‘gaming’ is too broadly defined. Yet those that call themselves gamers, for better and for worse, bring a formidable force to any community.

Games, gamers, game videos– however you view them– will be forced into a box and segregated because of perceived notions about the space. Sometimes, the most important things about games aren’t game-y at all– and those aware of the harsh political and social commentary within Grand Theft Auto 4 might know.

I know I’ve personally exposed people to ideas and concepts, by way of games, that don’t require anyone to play or have an interest in games. That just won’t be happening on Vimeo anymore.

Update: Many have told me (and I did use this site for a while) about WeGame.com, who is certainly welcoming Vimeo exiles. What a fantastic opportunity for their growth and hey, maybe WeGame can throw us a premium service so we can pay their bills?

Good luck, folks, it’s a big ol’ subjectivity jungle out there. Here’s my super-long :31 second video I posted to Vimeo about a month ago, ripped from a live stream I did on ustream.tv from Xbox Live:

Alderney intersection traffic @ night from Eric Rice on Vimeo.