Fez creator Phil Fish to YouTubers: ‘If you generate money from my content, you owe me money’

Well, we now know where Fez creator Phil Fish stands on the whole topic of YouTube Let's Plays. In a series of now-hidden tweets, Fish expressed his belief that YouTubers who post videos comprised of video game content should pay the game developer a "huge portion" of their revenue. Otherwise, it should be considered piracy.

"YouTubers should have to pay out a huge portion of their revenue to the developers from which they steal all their content," Fish said. "[Ad] revenue should be shared with developers. This should be built into YouTube. Anything else is basically piracy."

Fish continued, "If you generate money from putting my content on your channel, you owe me money. Simple as that. If you buy a movie, are you then allowed to stream the entirety of it publicly for people to watch for free? No, because that's illegal.

"Systems are in place to prevent that. But buy Fez, put ALL of it on YouTube, turn on ads, make money from it and that's TOTALLY FINE. And the developer should in NO WAY be compensated for their work being freely distributed to the world. Right. Makes sense."

After his little rant, Fish wrote "Nevermind" and protected his account, meaning only authorized followers can view his tweets.

Fish, an indie developer most notable for creating Fez and his open candidness on controversial subjects, made headlines earlier this year when he abruptly canceled Fez II and renounced the gaming industry. Save for a few tweets here and there, he's sort hid in the shadows since then. It's unclear what caused this latest tirade, but it could have something to do with the reveal that PewDiePie — one of the most popular gaming personalities on YouTube — earns an estimated $4 million per year. A lot of his videos are Let's Plays, which feature him talking shouting over gameplay footage.

[Gamespot]