I Will Now Write About Raid: Shadow Legends, Developers & YouTube Content Creators

This piece is sponsored by absolutely no one. Head into this non-existent video game to start your journey as absolutely nobody.

“Google Fit is the greatest MMO of all times.” — Ferdinand de Saussure

Here’s an interesting reactionary situation that could be easily observed on the internet: A YouTube content creator get a sponsorship to advertise about a well-known video game and they are offered a great income opportunity on a landscape that pays very little, because everyone’s a content creator and Google won’t pay enough. They accept this offer and makes a video of their own, as usual, with the inclusion of a small sponsored section dedicated to the product they’ve been offered money for. Surely, it’s a scripted sequence mandated by a very strict agreement enforced by the paying party, however it’s a smooth section with no harm done. A simple advertisement. This gets a reaction. Problem is, parts of the community does not like this sponsorship due to bad reputation of the product and the company behind it. So the branding of a content creator is forever doomed. Fortunately, this isn’t always the case and bigger channels gets away with such sponsorships from absolutely trash products. However smaller creators may struggle during the hard time they encounter on the way to pay for their life expenses.

But what is a Trash Product? You’re probably aware that Raid: Shadow Legends, a video game mainly marketed for mobile has been to many YouTube channels and advertised as something adventurous, some kind of a journey to unknown. It is an Idle video game with collectable heroes and items. Infested with many upgrading systems through varying levels of spending currencies. It certainly isn’t the most complex thing on the market, it’s just the most paying thing on the market. There’s absolutely nothing new, interesting or different about Raid: Shadow Legends in comparison to other mobile games that does exactly the same thing — with one exception: Marketing. While the game itself is identical, if not smoother, than other copies on the market, it has a huge Spending Power behind it.

Raid: Shadow Legends is developed by Plarium Games. Plarium Games is a subsidiary of Aristocrat Leisure, a gambling machine manufacturer, now renamed itself to Aristocrat Gaming. Nothing about this company and the established ideas it brings to the table is original by any means. Japanese companies were making the exact machines and/or software with the exact mechanics since forever. It’s a boring company with a boring management and a boring set of ideas. Ideas that work. You see, the problem with these companies (and their outsourcing policies — Hi, there! I know you’re reading this) is that they understood the psychological methods behind gambling. Which is why Gacha Games exist and there are heavy players who spend huge amounts of their income to these games (plural). Such marketing strategies also rely on Nudity if there’s a bottleneck and this is mainly why you would see struggling games either reboot their games with fresh investment money and/or outsource 3d animators to create fake video game footage with almost nude female characters.

So, let’s establish this thing first. I don’t care for content creators on YouTube. I don’t care about their ethics or morale. That’s their business and I have no idea about the context in which they are trying to make a life out of. Which is the exact reason that I know I have no reason to blame other people for such sponsorships. Here’s a better way to wrap your mind around this: Have you ever stopped using a website, perhaps YouTube itself, because they showed you an advertisement of a product known for its predatory monetisation schemes? Is it better to blame the content creator or the content provider for the faulty or sketchy product they have no control over? I mean, you could totally report any ad you encounter for False Advertisement but can you report or completely remove it from existence because you don’t want to see it — unless you use an ad and sponsor blocker?

Who to blame then — Developers?

Short answer is No. Development parties aren’t responsible for the monetisation strategies of their games over time, unless they are also the investing and publishing party of the said product. A developing party is really a group of people who would whistle at the money their publishing party and its useless management team brings home. Do you remember Randy Pitchford promising Gear Box developers money and never delivering it due to expenses while he still makes figures by doing absolutely nothing? Yeah. That’s the sad case for employment under absolute hacks. You make something you have faith in, you put your time; your endeavor and then your company makes a deal with a very predatory publishing group — you get Energy Systems, Inventory Slots on Sale, Auto Combat and Idling etc. You also don’t get to form a Union, but that’s a different tale entirely.

Seems like there’s no one left to blame and we’re out of culprits. So we have to throw rocks at whoever comes along first and be done with it. But who allows these companies to act as they are? Why countries allow such publishing and investment groups to mandate predatory monetisation policies, create and nurture addicts and milk them to the last drop? Why are these companies are allowed to force content creators to sign ill-intended agreements with seemingly infinite marketing budget? Why can these companies pay less to people who do the actual work and demand them to create malicious game systems?

Developers, developers, developers, developers… — Steven Bills

This is an ethics problem. Yes. But this has nothing to do with content creators on any platform or studios that developed a software. They all abide the rules of publishers, investors and marketers. What’s worse is the countries that exist with the sole purpose of protecting you from other individuals or entities with harmful intentions — they are the ones that allow these individuals, entities and parties to exist and operate in the first place. Do you remember Lootboxes being a huge debate topic? You should know that Electronic Arts still sell cards of sportspeople on their digital markets, allowing people to pay in auctions and various platforms of transcations with real, actual money — allowing them to gamble on card packs, creating black market for their digital goods. It was only too little and too late when some countries mandated these companies to have some informational additions to their monetisation schemes. Too little, too late. Still.

Without legislative power flurrying with banhammer upon these actions, there’s no end to it — and they’re very unwilling. Lobbying perhaps is legal in some countries, but it is bribing and it has power. It especially has the power over employees and consumers; their actions, capabilities, limits. Politics being a powerhouse for those with nothing but time, money and years of experimenting on addicts, those with addictive personalities, those with spending problems…

They know what catches your eye and they certainly know what your local politics likes the most. If you’re so interested in ethics, justice and morale decisions, then don’t fight the content creator, definitely don’t fight the developer. Fight for the education of communities, fight the ignorance and build better countries, elect better people. Know your rights and let other know theirs.

Be responsible.

Stay safe, stay healthy.