Hbomberguy put out a new video about YouTube plagiarism. I generally enjoyed his Tommy Tallerico video, so I opted to start it. It’s good, though I fell off at some point since it seemed like a lot of examples that didn’t feel connected by any point beyond “This happened.” I assume, at some point, he closes the loop. But if you know me, I can’t stick around for long essay-format videos. It’s tough for me to stay tuned in unless I’m *REALLY* interested in the topic. And if that’s the case, I usually would rather explore it myself and come to my own conclusion.
Either way, it did get me thinking about my Chibi-Robo video situation a few years back. To get some traction on that video, I shared it with some news outlets with mixed results. Many reported not on my video, but another website who shared details about my video. That site got some information wrong, meaning wrong information started spreading around.
A while after that, I did a follow-up video and took a similar approach. A bigger YouTube channel took then took the sources I had and reported on, I made a video about that but without doing any real research on their own.
At least, that’s how I remember it.
I’m not going to go back and dig all this stuff back up; I ultimately don’t think anyone individually did anything wrong and I wouldn’t even call it plagiarism. My feeling is that’s just how the gaming news machine is. There are a lot of demands on writers and creators who are paid very little. There’s no time to do good work unless you have a larger organization backing you, and even for smaller and more timely stories, it’s better to sacrifice quality than be late on the discussion. I think that often leads to low-quality writing and reporting, but that’s how the space is. I can’t blame any absorbed into the machine, especially those at the bottom of it. I’ve been there.
The point of bringing this up is how it made me feel afterward, especially with the second video. The traction on my video died almost immediately after the other channel posted theirs. Ultimately, that video aimed to distribute information on my findings. So, someone taking that and reblasting it to their audience means that the video’s goal was ultimately achieved, even if it was outside my boundaries.
I still felt disappointed, though. I think my mistake was making a scripted and edited video around this. A news and research video is not the topic I usually focus on. While I’m happy to try something new, applying the old technique of scripting and editing a video meant I had a lot more investment in the story I told. So, to have that work basically thrown out for another video that summarized my findings in a hastily thrown-together video where someone captured themselves navigating a web browser in real-time while talking over it, it felt like all that work was for nothing.
I think that’s a big part of why I took so long to do the 3rd video talking about Baby Robo. I felt disappointed in all the time and effort I put into it being thrown away. And it’s one of those things where if anyone looked just a little deeper, they would have found Baby Robo on their own.
I think that oversight by other outlets is probably a good sign my own research was the only basis for their posts. It was a significant oversight on my part, and they followed through by never looking beyond my words.
I think I only did the Baby Robo video basically out of obligation to wrap up that story, not necessarily because I wanted to. That whole situation changed a lot of how I chose to make videos. In my eyes, many “discoveries” and “lost” things are just things nobody is curious to look into. Spend 5 minutes googling something in Japanese, and you’ll find a lot of stuff unreported on the English internet.
Ultimately, I think it made me want to make videos I felt only I could write. Not literally, but I think for the more significant videos I do, talking about things that take a lot more experience, self-reflection, and analysis helps set those videos apart for me. Because if someone tried to tell that same story, they likely would came to different conclusions based on their own experiences, or at least tell it in a different way.
I think that’s part of why, despite liking telling people about games like Kururin Squash, HaKox, or the overly mentioned Happy Dance Collection, I often feel those videos are a bit underwhelming personally since I don’t know how much of Me is actually in them. Someone could quickly turn around, bust out a Kururin Squash video and says the exact same things I did.
I think that experience is also a big part of why I stopped relying so much on giving viewers “Did You Know” kind of facts. If the trivia isn’t relevant to my point, why bring it up?
So when I mention Next Level Games working on both Transformers Cybertron Adventures and Ghost Recon the Wii, I want that to be more about the fact that they are similar games with very different implementations. Not “check out a cool developer you know who made a game that has nothing to do with the game I’m mentioning.”
That being said, I also included the Luigi’s Mansion mention in my podcast this week when I talked about them, so I failed that test there lol. But the podcast is very off the cuff, so whatever comes out of my mouth is what comes out. I might edit that part out later if I make a video review.
Anyway, here’s my regular apology to all Chibi-Robo fans that I never made any other Skip content for, lol. I like their games but wouldn’t say I’m their biggest fan. When I get to games like Captain Rainbow, it will be whenever it’s convenient.
I’m a true Snowpack Park fan, though. Penguins line up.
Together, we Juju.
