ETS, ATS and derivative works.

ETS and ATS are two titles created and maintained by SCS Soft, a studio some of us might predominantly remember from their 2D sidescrolling iteration of Duke Nukem, one of the best received entries in the franchise ever. ETS stands for Euro Truck Simulator. The title isn't a cynical cash in on the german simulator market. It's a very true simulator of overcab trucking as it is done in Europe, minus the tedious paperwork.

It's seemingly a weird thing to simulate, appearing to be at home in the niche created by streetsweeper simulator (Yes, it's a thing.), but it magically works. ETS and in particular ETS2 is one of the more enjoyable simulators out there. It supports all the major steeringwheels out of the box, allowing even to fully set up a G27 steeringwheel on the fly in game. Kind of makes me wonder why established triple A studios fail at providing airtight G27 support.

The truck driving aspect of ETS2 is because of the above a joy. Force-feedback is topnotch, sounds are real world. If you select a lumbering MANDiesel truck, you'll actually drive a MANDiesel truck. The attention to detail in ETS2 is stunning. And all that driving fun gets even better when you expand the map with Promods, Rusmap, Russian Open Spaces and Poland Rebuilding. Miles and miles of road for you to truck on. If you're serious about virtual driving, you simply must have ETS2 in your library.

That brings me to ATS, what stands for American Truck Simulator. This simulator is the more advanced brother to ETS, set in the US (Obviously.). It has all the major players on board, Peterbilt, Mack, Western Star and rumoredly Volvo. The main attraction to this simulator will be the fact that in time, all the states will be combined to make out one big map of the united states to drive around in performing big rig hauling. ATS will start with California out of the box and over time, SCS is planning to release the other states as DLC.

As I know exactly what I'm going to get with ATS, and knowing how concistent and supporting SCS-software is, I'm actually very stoked for ATS, which is now rumored to be released this christmas season. Goosebumps, seriously.

On the derivative works front and how that pertains to youtubers it seems that Koei/Tecmo has decided to up their requirements. Let's plays of their latest title Dragon Quest Heroes can only be done by non-profit hobbyist channels. Any form of monetizing professionalism is barred from taking the title, creating a gameplay video and puting it up with an eye to making a pretty penny.

As expected, the youtubers that stand to gain by titles like DQH are crying faul but thinking upon it, I can do no less but come to the conclusion that Koei/Tecmo is doing the right thing. There's something compelling about bringing the let's play culture back to the people that started it, the people who have rickety gear, screeching voices and a passion to share their gameplay experience for the mere heck of it all.

Over the last year I have seen three of my favorite amateur youtubers going professional, without me having the slightest idea why they would want to do that. All three of them held steady and gainful employment, giving it up to make videos in a business that has absolutely no barrier to entry (which should be a red flag if anyhing.) and has an audience that is as fickle as the light from a very old matchstick.

All three of them have lost something with the transition of making videos in their sparetime, rendering it at home while working their dayjob, uploading them upon returning home. There's something very honest about those videos. These are people who're doing it for the love of it. Now that they're professional, their videos are riddled with adverts, begging for likes and invitations to shower them with money on their Patreon. Honest commentary and biased fanboyism has made place for dull professional observations that are geared towards stroking the studios and publishers the right way.

And all three of them indepently of eachother are finding out that going from hobbyist to be a professional leech on somebody else's intellectual property is harder than it looks. They also found out that trading your one boss for a lot of bosses in the name of working from the home and getting ad-revenue is very stressful.

One of them, a guy naming himself Squirrel even went as far, less than five months after going professional, to beg people to stop using adblocker in an hour long video complaining about how projected revenue wasn't in any way projecting reality. Well, of course it doesn't. We're talking about people who create content that they can't even claim ownership to other than their voice being everywhere. Going professional is not simply becoming a youtube partner, quitting your dayjob and carrying on as if nothing has changed.

They found that they needed to diversivy, branching out into games and genres they don't like because people are asking them to play titles that don't even fit their playstyle. They can't any longer ignore their viewers, because viewers are their resource and on top of that, their only resource. Basically, they went from creating videos to managing viewership and producing to maintain that viewership. That's no fun. And it is even less fun if you're not an established youtuber and losing viewers means less money at the end of the month.

Koei/Tecmo I feel are rightfully barring professionals from monetizing their property. Koei/Tecmo are more or less saying as much as 'the only people who can earn money from our titles are Koei/Tecmo.' and I can find no fault with that. A studio or publisher has no obligation to people other than making sure that their products are fit for purpose, regardless of who those people are.

The other, unspoken, reality is that each professional let's player out there constitutes loss of sales to a publisher. The let's play aspect of games is actually self-destructive as people can decide through second hand play that a game isn't for them. So while a youtuber might actually help a publisher by getting the word out about a title, that same youtuber also means a potential risk to optimal sales. Especially professional channels that have a following that regards a youtuber's opinion as law are very destructive. You need only look at the '60FPS police' initiative to realise why this is so.

I believe that studios and publishers have no duty to professional let's players and that Koei/Tecmo are right in barring professional youtubers from monetizing their content. The only people who can let's play their games are non-monetizing channels and that's how it should be. Give it back to hobbyists and angsty high-schoolers. It's preferable over angsty professional youtubers guilting their viewership by talking about their wives and children.