
Vimeo bans game videos - dendory
http://tideart.com/?id=4ea99385
======
theDoug
Vimeo's guidelines on commercial and gaming videos are clear. The rules have
always been enforced, regardless of impressions people may be trying to give
that this is a recent decision. Every user who has uploaded a video has seen
the guidelines and agreed to them.

The focus at Vimeo on creator-contributed content and community are what has
likely kept it from becoming the YouTube comment and content cesspool that is
mocked the world over.

~~~
matthew-wegner
Take this just-posted PBS segment on video games: <http://vimeo.com/31155800>
. PBS didn't make the games shown in the clip; should Vimeo block it?

And the recent trigger here was the 586 games submitted to the Independent
Games Festival (<http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries2012.php>). Many entrants
used Vimeo to host their trailers. Every single game trailer was created and
uploaded _by the game creators_ , yet many accounts were removed.

I understand Vimeo's position on people posting footage of their WoW raids,
Counter-Strike matches, and so on, but blocking indie game devs from posting
their own trailers and videos? This behavior is incongruent with their stated
desire to support creators. And for what? Because they work in games and not
films (or indeed, even films about games: <http://vimeo.com/indiegame>)?

~~~
baddox
Perhaps they realize that game content poses a legal threat, so they ban all
game content rather than individually try to verify the ownership of each
video.

~~~
wnight
Videos of game content pose as much of a (real) legal threat as wearing Nike
shoes while having your picture taken.

If you don't intend people be able to screenshot the work, don't sell it on a
computer. Perhaps in the days of Quake 1 this wasn't expected, but it is now.

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stephth
In case you missed it, the original report is largely better informed and
prosed than the bite size, watered-down, borderline misleading, linked
article:

<http://kotaku.com/5853665/vimeo-vs-indie-game-developers>

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brackin
It's true they've always been strict on this topic, especially with game
videos.

~~~
icefox
Is it copyright issues? Is this video game trailers or runthroughs or
commentators on play?

~~~
fredoliveira
I read a loooong discussion between then community manager Dallas Verdugo and
random people about 2 years ago about this and it boils down to "if you didn't
make it, it doesn't belong on vimeo". People argued that they were the ones
playing the game, but the argument back was that it wasn't interesting for
Vimeo and its community.

I do understand their take on it. Vimeo has always aimed for quality user
generated content, and it is easy to make an argument that game videos don't
necessarily fit that vision.

~~~
chipsy
This has resurfaced because indie game developers have sometimes used Vimeo to
host trailers or development videos. Vimeo has enforced the policy(which is
against _playthroughs_) haphazardly on these corner cases, which has caused
takedowns at critical moments for the game's promotion. One of these takedowns
happened again a few days ago.

Vimeo should probably change their policy to "no videos primarily consisting
of video game content" if they want to make themselves clear. Enforcement of
the existing language is obviously beyond their abilities.

~~~
fredoliveira
Oh I see. Apologies, didn't notice the different context. Yup, the discussion
2 years ago was indeed about playthroughs. Its a shame that they're changing
to anything videogame related. A lot of indie devs I follow do use Vimeo for
their content.

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troymc
It seems strange that Vimeo has this policy when they're way behind YouTube in
market share and mind share. Are they really so desperate for money that this
is necessary? If so, they should surrender to YouTube, give up, and go do
something else.

~~~
chrishenn
Vimeo is going for a different market. It's like YouTube except for artists
and creative people (not that YouTube can't be used for this.) And they seem
to be doing just fine with that.

~~~
sp332
It's like Flickr for videos :)

~~~
tomkarlo
Is that meant to be a compliment or a jab? I love Flickr, but it's clearly
dying on the vine at this point.

~~~
sp332
Yeah, it used to be a compliment. Too bad about Flickr. I don't know about
Vimeo either, I haven't seen much movement from them lately.

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jeffool
Looks like a big opportunity for Twitch.tv/Justin.tv just opened up. I hope
they get in on it.

I know they're focused on live gaming, but there's a community here that will
gladly gather around a welcoming site.

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petercooper
As Paul Boag noted at <http://boagworld.com/reviews/vimeo/> .. _Don’t host
with Vimeo whatever your content. You cannot guarantee how it will be
perceived by Vimeo and if they do take exception to it, there is no upgrade
path._ It seems, from his experience, that even alluding to commercial
products or services behind the scenes can get you canned.

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lukeholder
this has been the case for a long time. they also banned business videos until
the recently added business plans.

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JEVLON
I love games, and they can often be the most creative form of media. However,
there are a lot of ugly, tasteless, boring, & unoriginal games in existence.
Vimeo tries to focus on high quality videos with artistic qualities, or good
levels of production.

~~~
5hoom
It's their site & all, but criticisms like "ugly, tasteless, boring, &
unoriginal" could just as easily be levelled at about the same ratio of films
as games.

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jacobbijani
They started enforcing this 3 years ago. Now they offer an option other than
deleting your account, it seems. <http://vimeo.com/blog:140>

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robofhood
vimeo sucks...i can't tell you how many embedded videos have forced me back to
vimeo.com to watch an hd version. oh yeah, i usually turn the sound off and
wait for the video to fully load before trying to watch it.

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gosub
What about machinima style videos?

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ibrahimcesar
Daniel in the post say all: "Its in the TOS and they want paid for a service
theyre providing. No point complaining - pay up or shut up."

~~~
wnight
It's arbitrary, not legally required, and just stupid. They can enforce
whatever they want but when they're this bad at it they're only alienating
their users.

