Indie FPS developer targets content creators who take undisclosed payments from rival developers and then dunk on his game: 'You and I will have legal problems'

The developer of independent military shooter Operation: Harsh Doorstop has waded into the thorny topic of streamers and YouTubers getting paid for positive coverage of video games, taking specific issue with content creators who accept large payments for producing positive reviews of one game, then disparage other, similar games that they haven't been paid directly to review.

Connor Drake, Operation: Harsh Doorstop's lead developer, who goes by the online monicker BlueDrake42, posted a "warning" on X last week (via GamesRadar) to "every content creator", in light of an imminent update to his game. "If you have taken over $10,000 USD in payments from studios we compete with in the last 12 months and you don't disclose that in any 'review', you create about our game, then you and I will have legal problems."

Drake says he's "tired" of watching such content creators "get paid off to do hit pieces on games that don't fork out cash for you", and says they aren't "independent journalists" but "a paid contractor for our competitor".

The post caused a stir among other content creators, and Drake has since issued several follow-ups and clarifications. In response to a query from another X user, Drake explains he doesn't have a problem with negative reviews that are transparent about whether or not they have received payments from competitors. "If you do a review, just say something like 'and for full transparency, I am a paid contractor for X game, so that might bias my review, but here are my impressions of OHD", adding that it's "insane that there are people who are against this."

A few days later, Drake posted a video that further elaborated on his position and explained the origins of the whole issue, citing a tweet from several months ago in which he claimed content creators were being paid large sums of money by the developers of Delta Force for positive coverage and not disclosing it, saying "They were signing a lot of people to big money and not following the FTC guidelines".

This, he says, resulted in a lot of angry responses from other content creators. However, in the wake of it, "one of the largest" content creators for Delta Force "came forward and confessed" that he had "taken a paid deal, he had done a paid review of Delta Force, praising it because they paid him and he did not disclose it according to FTC regulations." Drake then cuts to a segment from a different video posted by YouTuber Actman called "Making things right" in which he apologised for failing to disclose sponsorship of some Delta Force coverage, stating, "I should have made that clear. I didn't. I don't know what I was thinking. There's really no excuse." After the segment, Drake claims Actman was paid "$40,000 for that single video".

Following this, Drake also outlines more specific scenarios in which he believes he may be able to take legal action against content creators. One example is if a creator has a clause in their contract to "maintain a positive perception" of a particular game or brand, then makes a video about a different game where they negatively compare it to the game they're being paid to promote without disclosing the payment. "That's a gotcha."

Drake's game, Operation: Harsh Doorstop, launched into Steam early access in 2023 and has a 'Mostly Positive' rating on Steam from more than 17,000 reviews. But it's landed in a genre with stiff competition from games like Squad, Battlefield, ArmA, and most recently, Delta Force, all of which Drake cites in a follow-up to his original post.

Drake obviously has a vested interest in ensuring his game receives the best attention possible, and threatening legal action against content creators is rarely going to look good. Moreover, in his original post, he offers a Steam key for Operation: Hard Doorstop to "every single person who retweets this", which could be considered him using his point to market his game, though he claims he wants "to figure out which of you all are the good ones".

Nonetheless, Drake's position on this is not unreasonable. Disclosing payments from developers or publishers for positive coverage is the minimum that should be expected from content creators. It also highlights the problems inherent in individual sponsorships in general, and how they can incentivise creators to act toward other games, not just the one they're covering.