YouTube still wants gamers to ‘earn money’ — and provide content

YouTube is going through some growing pains as it tries to balance its history as one of the most important platforms to the democratization of content creation and its current status as a highly valued partner for brands and advertisers. The latter wants some insulation from the behaviors of the former — especially after some brands found they were ending up next to videos featuring people making sympathetic jokes about Nazis. In response to those concerns, YouTube has created a new monetization status that indicates a certain video is eligible for advertising but it is also “not suitable for all advertisers.” This has started to appear next to almost any video featuring a modern shooter game (like Call of Duty or Battlefield 1), and sometimes it appears for no obvious reason at all. This has the vast community of gaming YouTube creators anxious and confused, and that prompted the video site to speak up with a forum post addressing user fears.

In the post, YouTube Gaming boss Ryan “Fwiz” Wyatt wrote that the company understands the problems, and it has already made some steps to improve the process.