Streaming site Vimeo makes space for lots of different kinds of content. Theyâve made a name for themselves as a cooler alternative to YouTube and youâll find cool mini-documentaries, visionary music videos and intensely personal narratives.
However, one thing that has become increasingly difficult to find has been anything related to video games. Specifically, indie video games. Vimeoâs long been the go-to space for heralded indie titles like Sword and Sworcery to tease viewers with glimpses of in-development games. Yet, indie devlopers are finding themselves running afoul of an edict that forbids video of gameplays for users at the Basic and Plus levels of membership. To have gameplay videos hosted, users must purchase the Pro level at a cost of $199/year. That may not seem like a lot, but considering how many indie games get made by one- or two-person teams with no other source of income, it can be a big difference.
After seeing a flurry of tweets about the Vimeo policy earlier today, Kotaku reached out to Independent Games Festival chairman Brandon Boyer for his take on the situation. His editorial follows:
So, thereâs a number of very maddening things about Vimeoâs policy. At a very basic, basic level, itâs a deliberate and prejudicial exclusion of an entire mode of creative and artistic expression that apparently doesnât fit their very, very outmoded approach to culture. (B-butâthey all look so young & hip & âpositive & encouragingâ!) This policy denies that branch of culture access to the supportive community of users who donât at all share their prejudices.
Beyond that, though, itâs just the simple capriciousness and inconsistency of how they deign whatâs acceptable and whatâs not, either by ignorance or by choice. I obviously donât want to list out by name the number of indie game developers that theyâve apparently overlooked or chosen to ignore because it doesnât, what, feel as videogame-y as the rest? But, by taking a quick stroll through their staff picks, you can spot just how ridiculous their singling-out is.
If your content wants to take your aesthetic cues from game culture? Totally ok, so long as itâs not interactive or is cut to music, even if itâs a blatant IP violation. However, using the service to showcase the interactive work in games that you yourself have done will never be as valuable an asset to their creative community as taking a bunch of photos of yourself in PhotoBooth and putting them together in iMovie, set to someone elseâs music or training a camera on a lip-syncing child becauseâ well, apparently, just because video games.
Except, where do you draw that line? Dig through all of the interactive, generative digital art thatâs being done by people like Flight404, even with specific console-related technology
and you wonât find any complaints of people getting singled out for deletion. What exactly is the difference? That one has a goal? If 404âs Kinect work set up an AR basketball hoop that let you real-time track a virtual ball and kept a running scoreboard, well, thatâs video games, right? That should surely be deleted?
But also: they have been known to reverse their policies when you complain loudly enough. You can have your account flagged so that your gameplay videos will no longer be removed by any new or overzealous admins, but in the meantime, if youâre people like Krystian Majewski or Alec Holowka, the only way you can continue to have access to their community is to pay them $199 a year
So letâs just state that again more clearly. If you are an artist of any stripe: if you dance, sing, draw, paint, cook, write, film, knit, even create motion graphics, generative art, creative code with the same exact digital tools used to make games â audiovisual representation of your work is welcome on vimeo.com at absolutely no charge. If, and only if, you extend that art a step further into something goal-oriented, digital art, or play, or however they shallowly and narrowly define âvideo gamesâ, you are the only artists stopped at the gates and instead get shaken down for two hundred dollars a year to join their club, and even then that community still has no access to your content without their case-by-case approval.
That should not be OK with anyone involved in creative culture on any level.
Brandon Boyer is the chairman of the Independent Games Festival. Heâs also preparing to launch Venus Patrol, a web destination dedicated to the search for beauty in the video game medium.
You can contact Evan Narcisse, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
