Vimeo's snobbish policy against footage of video games has long upset indie developers. Recently, however, it began pitching a $200 account upsell directly with ban notifications, and the dam of rage has broken. Brandon Boyer sums it up for Kotaku: "it's a deliberate and prejudicial exclusion of an entire mode of creative and artistic expression that apparently doesn't fit their very, very outmoded approach to culture."

  • http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

    The answer to the question on some of your minds is “Because YouTube embeds look like shit.”

    • Tom Pappalardo

      but why don—? OH

  • mwiik

    Maybe it’s just me, but I always hit the ‘show on youtube’ link when encountering a youtube embed.

    • http://twitter.com/who_dat_tweeter Dave P

      I always fullscreen embedded video, then it doesn’t even matter whether it’s embedded or not

  • bobdinkel

    Is this a case of Vimeo being snobs or has there been a history of abuse? I’m asking because I don’t know. All too often when someone does something that someone else doesn’t like, it’s assumed they did it because they’re a dick.

    But maybe they did it because they’re dicks. Maybe they’re trying to maintain a brand and they see gameplay videos as not in line with that brand. It’s a free service and if they don’t want to allow certain types of content that’s totally their right. It may make them seem out-of-touch or like dicks or like out-of-touch dicks, but that’s their call.

    • beemoh

      They made a big announcement when they made the decision to ban game videos, IIRC the crux of it was that they didn’t want to host Let’s Play videos, which isn’t entirely unreasonable considering Vimeo is for creating your own works, rather than showcasing somebody else’s, and that for even the shorter AAA games you’re looking at a good few hours of video.

      (I also heard a whisper that LPs had more to do with YouTube’s limiting videos to ten minutes than Hollywood/Big TV did, but that was probably just rumour)

       The thing is, you can still do that and allow game videos- indie developers, who are the main dissenting voices regarding this issue, seem to prefer Vimeo over gaming-orientated services like Gametrailers or Gamevideos, probably owing to its artist- rather than player-centric userbase.

      There’s no reason to penalise one group simply due to the innocent actions of another, only tangentially connected one.

      (It doesn’t help that they’re seemingly shaking down indie devs for money, though)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O73GS2LP4ARSDL3DDRC4OZXMQI Keith

    Yeah, it’s a company, they can choose to do whatever.  Don’t like it?  Don’t buy whatever they’re selling.

    • dculberson

      What part of complaining about it isn’t reasonable, though?  Just as the company can choose to do whatever, the users can choose to say whatever.  In point of fact, the users have a constitutionally protected right to complain.  I don’t get what your reasoning is behind  your sit down, shut up, and consume attitude.

    • kairos

      Right, thanks, you’ve stated the utterly, trivially obvious. Of course, you have to wonder how one could acquire the information needed to not like it/them, and stop buying their products, if we all took your attitude and stuck our fingers in our ears whenever anyone had the temerity to criticize a private commercial entity.

      Normally, I’d figure astroturfer, but the everything-is-a-threat American libertarian brigade has been extra-paranoid lately.

      • nexusheli

        RTFM; it’s right in the terms of service, commercial use is for PRO users only, and in the uploading guidelines “no gameplay videos”.

  • bob d

    From what I’ve read, even game developers who went with the upgrade still saw their videos taken down.  Their terms and conditions are rather specific (no “gameplay” videos, but development videos are OK, or at least that’s the message they’ve been giving), and it seems Vimeo employees sometimes can’t tell the difference, so even videos that adhere to the terms and conditions are taken down, regardless of upgrade status.

  • EH

    Not to be too clueless, but there seems to be a glaring missing piece in this story. What’s the real deal with this, are game companies claiming IP infringements against hosting sites?

    • evanplus

      The problem as I understand it was that people were hosting “Let’s Play” videos, literally 40+ hours of just a guy playing a video game, and since Vimeo doesn’t have Google money, storing that much HD video that might optimistically be viewed a couple dozen times is of questionable value.

      In other words- it’s not a copyright thing at all, it’s a “We don’t want useless videos on our site” thing. If people start uploading videogame footage claiming it’s art, and they grant an exception for that case, then everyone’s just going to start claiming their gameplay video is art, and how is Vimeo supposed to deal with that?

      • RobDobbs

        Then they should say that.

  • http://twitter.com/GunsnGardens Guns & Gardens

    Please read this essay about VIMEO in the Journal of Visual Culture regarding video games and fair use:
    http://mediasapien.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/mediasapien-censored-at-vimeocom-over-fair-use-what-do-you-think/

  • RobDobbs

    Vimeo never seems to work for me on the Mac. It often just sits there with a black screen. Sometimes if I nudge it ahead a few frames it seems to catch. Youtube is at least reliable.

  • nexusheli

    “Man, I hate it when someone else creates a thing for profit and doesn’t let me do what I want to do with it… it’s like they want to control it or something.”

  • NarbYehoot

    Good thing there’s blip.tv, right guys? As long as you don’t treat the account as a video dump, you can post damn near whatever you want.

  • http://twitter.com/Gnomon_School Gnomon School

    Like nexusheli said – if your indie game is a commercial product that you plan to make money off of, then you need a Pro account to use Vimeo to advertise it. Vimeo’s TOS has never allowed the hosting of videos for commercial use. They want the arty stuff.

    As far as Vimeo not allowing 40+ hour “Let’s Play…” videos? Yes please! Policies like that are why the signal to noise ratio on Vimeo is so much better than YouTube, and they have every right to block them.

    But now if Vimeo is also blocking videos of artists displaying some creative, interactive code for a piece of software they aren’t asking money for, then there IS a problem. I’d just chalk it up to Vimeo not being quite savvy enough to understand the difference between that and a “Let’s Play…”. And they should try to figure that out.

  • http://DonWhitaker.com Don Whitaker

    Here is a link to the 2008 Vimeo blog post where they announced (and clarified) their decision to stop hosting gameplay videos.  http://vimeo.com/blog:140

    There’s plenty of info there that makes it obvious that Vimeo never intended to ban videos containing original, creative work. This rant on Kotaku seems to making a big deal out of some simple human error plus the (tacky) up-sell advert.And a direct quote from a Vimeo staff member:
    “Yes, if you are demonstrating software that you built, it will be allowed. This does not extend to maps or mods for existing video games.”

  • Phil Gorman

    Most of the posters here have obviously not read the community guidelines.
    section 1 “You must own or have the right to upload the video.”
    section 2-You must have created or closely participated in its creation
    section 3 -”You may not upload commercials, infomercials, demos, walkthroughs, or any videos that sell or promote a product or service.
    section 4-You may NOT upload videos that:Are gameplay videos. However, game developers may post videos showing development. Machinima videos are acceptable so long as there is a story.”
    So if you are uploading an advertisement, game demo or your gameplay of a commercial game you are either violating the terms prohibiting professional advertising or you are uploading content you do now own copyright to.

    Pretty simple actually.