It was back in 2012 that we boycotted coverage of all SEGA published titles. Yup, it's been that long. Almost 5 years now, over half of my career on Youtube I've been avoiding covering SEGA games, all because SEGA of Japan went temporarily mad one day and issued copyright strikes against anything and everything Shining Force 3 related, including webcam videos merely talking about the game. At least 17 very small Youtube channels were nuked out of existence and I was one strike away from following them before my network stepped in to stop it. Understandably, I decided not to cover their games. There was a risk that SEGA of Japan would go mad one day and strike a bunch of SEGA-related things again. There was the anger at the injustice of it all, there was the attempt to stand up for the smaller channels who didn't have a voice.

Well it's 2017. In that time we've missed out on covering a bunch of games that our viewers wanted us to. SEGA has expanded its publishing role on the PC platform and pretty much nobody remembers I even still had a boycott going or why. I imagine it would be easy just to quietly start covering those titles again, there wouldn't be much kefuffle, but if I'm going to give up on that boycott I want to take full responsibility for doing it and make sure people know that yes, I'm tapping out. The reality is that Sega of Japan will never apologize or try to make right the damage they did. The reality also is that Sega of Japan was alone in taking that action, it doesn't reflect the attitude of Sega of America or Sega of Europe who have both been very accomodating to Twitch streamers and Youtubers. I've spoken to people at both of those arms of the company and they were shocked to hear of the incident in 2012, apologized privately but said it was very unlikely that regardless of what they did, they'd be able to get Sega of Japan to change their attitude towards Youtube or apologize. It's simply the Japanese publisher culture right now to view Youtube and Twitch in a dim-light and making that cultural shift is going to have to come from within, not without. The recent incident with Atlus and Persona 5 is proof that this anti-stream attitude is alive and well in 2017 and while media pushback can affect the attitudes of the western arms of these companies, getting a message through to the Japanese side of things is like headbutting a brickwall.

In the meantime, we're ignoring games our viewers want us to cover. With more ports of classic SEGA-published games on the way, people want to know if those ports are any good. With SEGAs publishing arm expanding to cover a ton of PC-focussed or exclusive developers such as Relic, Creative Assembly and Amplitude Studios not to mention Platinum Games, there are a ton of great PC games that we're not covering and I have to ask myself, is all of this worth it? We're doing a poor job of keeping PC gamers informed by ignoring all of these titles and for what? Let's be honest, to satisfy a grudge, a personal and professional slight that has long since disappeared from the memories of everybody but myself. Standing on principle is important, but if it means doing a worse job for you the viewer, not covering the games you want covered, being a less useful channel for you overall, then its about time to swallow my pride and admit its long past due to lift this boycott.

You always hope doing something like this can make a difference. I've been told over and over, "why are you doing this, it won't change anything". Maybe changing something isn't the point, maybe standing on principle is enough. Lately though it's become obvious that yes, you can change things by making a stand. Speak with enough conviction, apply pressure to the right people, things can get done. We spoke with conviction for many years on Valve and were invited to help make Steam better in return. We spoke with conviction against legitimizing the shady business practices of G2A and we prevented a deal from happening that would have and raised awareness once again of their inexcusable behavior. You can make a difference, but it's not always going to work and on this one it's about time to admit defeat.

If you think less of me for giving up I don't hold it against you. In this case though when faced with the choice of doing a poor job for our viewers, ignoring a whole bunch of titles they want coverage of, vs keeping my personal principles intact, I think we need to choose the former over the indulgence of the latter. There's a certain arrogance in assuming that most of my viewers see me as anything more than a guy who does "reviews" for them on Youtube. That's really all it is, that's all it should be honestly, any relationship past that has the potential to be unhealthy. They aren't interested in crusades, taking stands, or boycotts, particularly when it compromises my ability to do my job. It obviously has, so with that, I bring this chapter to a close and lift the SEGA coverage boycott going forward. You win SEGA of Japan, I hope somebody, somewhere, gets through to you and the rest of those companies who have such a backwards view of Youtube and Twitch. Your colleagues in the west sure as hell don't share your opinion.

I wouldn't expect any early videos of SEGA titles for a while, boycotting a company for 5 years doesn't exactly win you any friends over there.

Back to work.