Since the advent of the internet, the barrier between free and paid has become so blurred that we could practically say that it has completely disappeared. But the market evolves, and today there are thousands of absolutely essential payment services that many users gladly pay, but a few years ago it was unthinkable to imagine. So would you find yourself paying to stream games?
The right to stream
That is the idea raised by Alex Hutchinson, the creative director of SG&E Montreal Studio (one of the Google Stadia studios), who through a tweet showed his astonishment to discover that many streamers were really offended when their uploaded videos are canceled for musical copyright rights.
Hutchinson assured that streamers should open their eyes, since, according to him, these contents generate income using materials for which they have not paid for them. In short, they protest when they use music without rights, but they still make money making video games for what they have not paid for it. Do you agree?
The controversy
As expected, the gaming community was quick to jump on top of the creative, ensuring they would have all the right in the world to do whatever they wanted with a game that they had previously paid for, so it would not make any sense to have to pay for this strange rate proposed by Hutchinson.
As if that were not enough, some important figures in the industry, such as journalist Jason Schreier, responded with a simple approach, and it is that if that rate were applied, precisely the developers that Hutchinson defends would not see any penny, so that everything would fall back where it always was: those who earn the most.
Not good publicity for Stadia
The launch of Stadia ended up being pretty decaf. Google’s proposal has not finished convincing the public, and not because of its performance, but rather because of the approach. Paying for each game that we want to play remotely in addition to having to pay a monthly fee to access the service is not a particularly tempting offer having such comprehensive proposals as Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now, so these types of statements do a disservice service.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Google has wanted to step aside and separate from these statements, since through a statement sent to 9to5Google, the company ensures that the opinions of the creative director do not represent the ideals of the company or its affiliates YouTube or Google Stadia.
Obligatory payment goes wrong
This idea of paying to stream is not inevitably reminiscent of the tax applied in Spain for linking news from the information media to Google News. This caused the closure of the service in Spain, since it was a completely harmful measure, not only for the service, but also for the user.
Taking this fact into account, applying a rate to streams would be a measure of the same type, and would affect the freedom of published content, which is basically the success of the freshness and originality that characterize this type of content.