YouTube Cracks Down On Violent Video Game Content

Oh boy, it seems the corporate advertising boycott has really shaken YouTube. In a recent development, the platform announced that it would no longer monetize content that features montages of violent video game scenes. These include compilations of all those times content creators managed to do headshots on Call of Duty as well as streams with an explicit focus on blood and gore.

The new set of rules was actually unveiled to YouTubers last week when the platform told its content creators that video game montages with heavy violent themes will no longer be monetized, Polygon reports. These changes won’t really affect those who do live stream sessions of their games nor will it impact those who do Let’s Plays and Walkthroughs.

For the most part, these restrictions will only affect those creators who cater to the more bloodthirsty side of the YouTube community. As a representative of the platform also told Polygon, these new rules are meant to eliminate vagueness in what the company was trying to enforce.

“There is understandable concern from creators about what they can and can’t do,” the representative said. “The biggest complaint from creators is that these five guidelines don’t give [them] enough context for producing videos. The new guidelines were designed to help with that.”

Then again, it’s worth noting that YouTube has been a little wonky for a few weeks now, with some video game channels suddenly getting flagged with the mature category. This affected the monetizing of many of the videos that these channels create, Gamasutra reports and the company hasn’t really made much of an effort to address the issue.

In terms of who needs to be concerned about these developments, the content creators might take the brunt of the impact, but the viewers will experience some of the effects as well. YouTubers will be forced to either change their way of creating videos or depend on other sources of income other than ad revenue.