Alex Hutchinson, the Creative Director at Stadia Games and Entertainment, had posted a controversial statement on the “streamers should be paying developers and publishers of the games they stream” discussion. Currently, even though publishers allow the streaming of games, it is not entirely legal for a streamer to stream a game to an audience without a license explicitly issued by the publisher or a publicly listed policy (Devolver Digital, 505 Games, Ubisoft).
Just like you cannot stream movies, music, or any media protected by copyright, you can’t do the same for a video game – but this is allowed by companies since it is seen as mutually beneficial and a way to boost sales. Viewers watching a game streamed by an influencer or streamer, often end up buying the game – we can see that phenomenon with games like Among Us that experienced a surge in players almost two years after launch, thanks to streamers who started playing the game.
The real truth is the streamers should be paying the developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a license like any real business and paying for the content they use.
— Alex Hutchinson (@BangBangClick) October 22, 2020
This controversial opinion by Alex Hutchinson hasn’t gone down well with the streamers and viewers of Youtube and Twitch. Celebrity streamers like Jacksepticeye, MrBeast, and Boogie2988 replied to the tweet and made their opinions public.
I find this thinking extremely ironic considering you have fanart of me, a streamer, as your banner from when I played Savage Planet https://t.co/vr4M8WjBAS
— Jacksepticeye (@Jacksepticeye) October 23, 2020
Can I jump in and also ratio?
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) October 22, 2020
Sir I respect you and we have spoken before.
But this is a terrible take for many reasons. Educate yourself.
— Boogie2988 (@Boogie2988) October 22, 2020
Since this tweet took the gaming community by storm, it has been retweeted more than 16k times, and has overtaken the conversation of “three days of good stuff” by the official Stadia Twitter handle. Google has since backed away slowly from this issue and issued a statement to 9to5Google to inform the public that this is not their official standpoint, but only the opinion of an individual.
The recent tweets by Alex Hutchinson, creative director at the Montreal Studio of Stadia Games and Entertainment, do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google.
https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1319378835125628928
Youtube Gaming’s Ryan Wyatt also echoed a similar sentiment.
Alex Hutchinson is not a stranger to the foot-in-the-mouth syndrome. Back in 2014 when he was the game director at Ubisoft for Far Cry 4, he had said that female playable characters were not included because of an animation workload issue, and in 2012 had suggested that game journalists exhibit subtle racism by being biased in favour of Japanese developers. Time to talk with a PR rep, maybe?
