 reviews.  Share this post  Link to post  Share on other sites  I finally signed up to comment on the Idle Forums (have been meaning to for a while) because of this episode, because the actions of the people behind That Dragon, Cancer got me upset. They seem to think that they deserve to have anyone interested in their game buy it, which is crazy. Not all art is commercially viable, and obviously lots of people are going to shy away from a game about a real child dying for real from cancer. There are lots of topics people tend to be gunshy about, because they're intense. There are people making games about them: They tend to release them for "pay what you want" on itch.io and run a Patreon.  Also I definitely would prefer experiencing That Dragon, Cancer via a video than a game, because I can pause a video and walk away and come back later. It's a vastly preferable experience because it's got that distance to protect my emotional state. Most of the people in the audience they are targeting with this game need that emotional protection! But they're punishing people, giving them copyright strikes on their account, because they think they deserve direct purchases, sight unseen, from people who would feel harmed by the experience of playing their game first-hand. It grosses me out, to be honest.  I don't know any of the background here, only what was mentioned on the 'cast, but I really don't think it's that cut and dry. A Let's Play is, necessarily, a derivative work (and arguably a public performance) and a Let's Play with no commentary or other transformative qualities really doesn't have a leg to stand on in a legal copyright sense, or even in an "that's an OK thing to do" sense (In my opinion, YMMV).  If That Dragon, Cancer had been a film I think we'd all agree that sticking a recording of it up on YouTube is a pretty not cool thing to do, so I'm not sure why it's different for what seems to be a linear, narrative driven game. We go and see movies at the theatre "sight unseen" all the time, or we choose to wait until it's available for steaming or on DVD or whatever because we'd prefer to experience it that way, or maybe we decide not to watch the movie at all because it might upset us.  If I understand you're arguments correctly, you seem to be implying that because somebody would prefer to experience the game in this format then they have the right to, and that anybody has the right to cater for this audience. That doesn't make sense to me at all. If I write a book and somebody wants to adapt it into a movie because most people prefer watching a movie to reading a book I think we can all agree that I have the right to say if it can go ahead or not. Actually, a better example would be if somebody scanned each page of my book and made a video showing each page in sequence for people who don't like turning the page. That would be a pretty shitty thing to do, right? And what if this style of video became really popular? It would be hard to quantify, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that at least some people who would have bought my book didn't because of the video, right? Then if I don't make very much money from the book I think I'd be pretty upset about the videos and the fact that people felt they had the right to read my book in this way just because they could. I don't think that's an unreasonable response, and doing what I can to prevent this seems pretty reasonable to me too.  I guess what I'm trying to say is it's complicated and I think it all comes down to context. In this case it sounds like the videos don't add to the game or recontextualise it, they replace it. This isn't the case for all games, or all videos of games, and the lines can get a bit blurred, but I think it's a far cry from the developers just being arseholes.  Oh, and welcome to the forums!  Share this post  Link to post  Share on other sites  S