Hotcakes: Alex Hutchinson Is So Right, He’s Wrong


Never before has a person been so wrong while being correct.

The world is reeling from the shocking ineptitude of one Alex Hutchinson, creative director for a studio at Stadia. I’d like to start out this article by noting the not so surprising and somewhat depressing implication that this shows on Stadia’s public image. Specifically I’ll point out that a lot of people looked at Hutchinson’s position as a creative director at Stadia and their response wasn’t “oh how do you get to this position with such bad takes” but with a lack of surprise that someone in a higher position at a Stadia studio would have no clue what he’s talking about and have such an uneducated opinion on the sphere of gaming culture. That’s akin to when you preemptively phone your friend after they’ve eaten at Denny’s and start the call with “so how’s the food poisoning coming?”

Alex Hutchinson is one of the few people in the world who can qualitatively say that they have said something that is 100% correct and simultaneously 100% wrong, and we need to talk about why that’s the case. If you haven’t been paying attention to the news cycles, I’m referring to Hutchinson’s statement that streamers should be paying developers of the games they stream.

I am talking about nothing else, you “yea but Alex also said” people.

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The thing about this statement is that Hutchinson isn’t wrong. In theory. If you were to make a direct comparison to the world of music where artists are paid royalties then sure you can make a claim that developers kinda deserve some kind of license. Now that I’m done telling you why Alex is right, let me get into why he is wrong. To great length. And he is 100% wrong.

The concept of a video game streaming license is total crap, it is a nonstarter that will get you absolutely nowhere and accomplish nothing but creating scorn and contempt for your company. Why won’t it work? Well for starters (and enders) the public is against the idea. The gaming industry is already battling a constant PR image of being disgustingly greedy due to the simple fact that there are some companies that are disgustingly greedy. Such a license would provide little benefit but a lot of harm.

To require a streaming license would accomplish three things. First you would receive a negligible amount of income from said license. Second you would lose somewhere in the realm of 99% of your potential streaming audience, and the value lost from that audience is worth far more than you would gain from licensing. Third you would be plastered all over the internet as contemptibly greedy and ultimately all you would get are a lot more people boycotting your company as anti-consumer, anti-gamer, and needlessly aggressive toward the very people showing an interest in your product.

I don’t know how to put it other than “it doesn’t work that way.” In theory the idea of a streaming license makes sense. In reality there is so little to gain and so much to lose that it can’t possibly be worth it. And if there was an inkling that such a program was worth it, people would be doing it. Nintendo tried it, it was a public relations disaster, and they ended it.

That’s the reality of a consumer-based industry. If streaming licenses were a requirement back when Phil Fish was demanding them, there is no doubt in my mind that Fez wouldn’t have been the success it was and Phil wouldn’t have had the luxury of retiring as the incredibly bitter yet comfortably wealthy man that he is.

There are too many games on the market, there are too many developers eager to get their games some free exposure by having popular streamers play them, and too many success stories of games like Five Nights at Freddy’s or Among Us where games became insanely successful after streamers played them, for the industry or streamers to bear the weight of a forced streaming license. There is too much support for open streaming policies, too many developers jumping on board with those policies, and far too heavy opinion against the idea of licenses for the system to work, period.

But what do I know, I once emptied a can of Coke into a cup and, carrying both objects in my hand, accidentally threw the cup in the trash instead of the can.