Only two years? He’s lucky it wasn’t a Nintendo game.
Well Nintendo does make visual novel games.
And that's the key thing here, the fact that it's a visual novel that he uploaded and posted the ending to:
'As Japan Today explains, non-monetized gameplay videos from Japanese YouTube accounts are commonplace and so far have yet to be subject to legal action, but Steins;Gate rights holder Kadokawa felt this case warranted charges because it's related to a visual novel, designed to be watched without interaction from the player. In theory, that would make any YouTube upload, particularly one containing the ending to the story, a "far more viable substitute" to actually buying the game. '
And people keep forgetting......
'Yoshida has since said that he "knew it was illegal, even as I was doing it," and Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Promotion Organization (CODA) said in a separate statement that, "in principle,"
any use of gameplay videos should require permission from the rights holder.'
It's fucked and I'd say we need the courts around various countries to sort out the somewhat grey area we're in, but knowing courts and corporations, players/content makers would get fucked even more if that were to happen.
But yea, I always figured posting VN's, full gameplay walkthroughs of those 'cinematic experience'/walking simulator games with paper thin gameplay would be eating into those title's sales. I just didn't think anyone would be taken to court over it because of potential backlash.
animecorner.me
