Google Stadia developer faces backlash after throwing streamers under bus with controversial tweet

10/23/2020 Business, Entertainment, World

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Poor Google Stadia. After enduring a tough launch in 2019, the game streaming service is still struggling to stay afloat nearly a year later. But the last thing you need right now is a damning quote from one of your front men.

Recently, Alex Hutchinson, the creative director of Stadia Games and Entertainment, generated controversy on the internet with a curious series of tweets (via 9to5Google) who seemed to paint game streamers on Twitch and YouTube Gaming as free riders. In his view, streamers “should pay the developers and publishers of the games they broadcast” to balance the gains this demographic makes from their lifetime.

The truth is, streamers should pay the developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should buy a license like any real business and pay for the content they use.

– Alex Hutchinson (@BangBangClick) October 22, 2020

But instead of inviting a proper discussion as he had hoped, Hutchinson enraged a large section of the gaming and streaming community on Twitter, many of whom launched their own rebuttals against him (many of which directly undermine his arguments, curiously enough. ).

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That’s why PR companies sponsor us for new launches, and data consistently shows that we drive sales. Please talk more about your butt.

– BikeMan (@BikeMan) October 22, 2020

Many people quote this post on Twitter as to how streamers should need a publisher license to stream their games.

I think we should be more concerned that anyone who works on Google Stadia is giving business advice.

– Gothalion (@Gothalion) October 22, 2020

Even ex Kotaku Reporter Jason Schreier couldn’t help but fan the flames, albeit on a practical level:

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I think maybe you are getting criticism because you are choosing this particular battle in a world where top management executives make $ 30 million a year and developers are not paid royalties, so they would never see any of that streaming money in the first place. place.

– Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 22, 2020

In case you don’t understand why Hutchinson’s argument is getting so much controversy, there are a couple of factors. First of all, even though all of his opinions are his (a phrase that is literally etched into his Twitter bio), he is still under the Google banner as he says this. And even though Stadia isn’t doing well commercially, it’s still Google, a multi-billion dollar company that still racks in piles of cash every year. If you were an independent developer and your game wasn’t doing so well on the market, maybe you’d be more sympathetic to your plight.

And, of course, the fact that game developers and streamers enjoy a “symbiotic” relationship in which the former get exposure for their creations while the latter earn a living experiencing said creations, as cited by Ryan wyatt from YouTube Gaming (thanks, Kotaku) – always meant that this was a hornet’s nest that one should be careful to prick even if they wanted to shake the proverbial ship a bit. Unfortunately for Mr. Hutchinson, he should probably be the last person to try, in this case, simply because of his position.

How exactly this could affect Google Stadia’s market performance in near and distant futures remains to be seen.

READ ALSO: Google’s new Chromecast comes with the updated Google TV experience, but doesn’t support Stadia

But hey, right?

Marion has a serious addiction to role-playing games. Sometimes he bleeds out in real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witcher biological clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms like “Mind Flayer” and “Magic Missile,” because not once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.