Over the past several years YouTube celebrities have been popping up all over the place. One of the biggest niches for ‘YouTubers’ is people who record themselves playing video games while talking about what they are doing. They then publish the videos to YouTube and often get many millions of views. People playing games ranging from Mine Craft to Call of Duty are getting very popular, which allows them to make a lot of money from the advertisements, not to mention the ability to brand themselves and make money in other ways.
According to one report, however, the FTC is concerned that some of these YouTubers are violating disclosure regulations. One specific situation involves the recently released horror game Dead Realm.
This game was made with YouTubers in mind. The developers intentionally wanted to make the game as fun to play as possible while also making it fun to watch. To do this they worked with YouTube ‘celebrities’ including Adam Montoya (SeaNanners), Tom Cassell (TheSyndicateProject) and Evan Fong (VanossGaming).
These three celebrities have then gone on to publish gameplay videos in which they play the game in question and talk about how much fun it is. The YouTubers, however, did not mention the fact that they had been working with the game’s developer and are getting compensated for their relationship with the game.
While nobody is suspecting the YouTubers (or the game developers) of intentionally hiding the relationship between the two, that is not necessarily relevant. If the FTC chooses to take action against them, they would undoubtedly have a strong case. This is the point made recently by PC Gamer, which also looked at this issue.
While these are three well-known YouTubers, the issue could apply to MANY others who have played games or used products which they received some type of compensation for. In the vast majority of cases, they do not make any type of disclosure.
This is just one of many examples where those making their living in the digital world need to make sure they are doing the legal legwork needed to stay in compliance with regulations from the FTC and other agencies. Whether you like it or not, that is the world we live in and if you want to continue to do business, you need to make sure you’re doing it in compliance with the law.