Every day, when logging into YouTube, I always seek out gaming content, whether its livestreams, playthroughs or gaming reviews of some of my favourite games or games in their beta version.
Up until now, violent content has garnered a massive amount of stream time, whether it’s GTA V or Call of Duty or Battlegrounds. Sadly, we could see little of it on YouTube after Google outlined which content could face advertisers block on the streaming service.
Montages that featured mostly violent gameplays, best kills videos and wrestling clips could be slapped with an advertsing block on the streaming service while minimal violent clips, playthroughs and livestreams won’t suffer from this ban.
Many YouTubers have voiced their concerns regarding this ban. Hank Green of Vlogbrothers, Crash Course and SciShow fame had written an editorial for Medium where he voiced his concerns over YouTube’s content restrictions as he stated that the company’s main problem was finding advertisers for its top channels.
“Gaming content is exactly what YouTube wants (the videos are long, the audiences are engaged, and thus people stay on the site.) So YouTube does their best to build the gaming community, but monetizing it is a different story.”
He further added, “There is so much popular gaming content on YouTube that for much of the year, the inventory far outstrips advertiser demands.”
Violence isn’t the only theme that will be flagged. According to the company, other content that will be flagged include “content that promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization”.
Surely, there will definitely be tough times ahead for YouTube vloggers and even a much tougher one for the gaming community.
