Update 12/21/2021: Amazon Games issued the following statement to Inven Global:
"The team has been investigating this incident and working directly with the Content Creator involved to resolve this issue. The intended target for the strike was an advertisement on YouTube for a gold selling website. By mistake, the video was reported instead, we have since removed the strike and the video is live again. We will revise our internal processes to ensure this issue does not impact other folks in the future. We apologize for this poor experience and any concerns it created."
Original Article: New World YouTuber Video Game DataBank reported on Sunday that Amazon Games slapped his channel with a permanent copyright strike over his video reporting a bug, attempting to deplatform the creator instead of addressing the issue.
According to the YouTuber, he found a bug where if you gain 3 full aptitude levels all at once while crafting, it won't give you XP beyond that. As a result, this bug could cost players a large sum of money when they attempt to gain crafting levels. Video Game DataBank ended up making and sending a video of the bug to Amazon Games support to help them identify the problem, after which he reports they manually copyright struck his video, going out of their way to punish him for reporting the issue in their game.
"I contacted New World support because of the aptitude trade skill bug costing players thousands, even tens of thousands of coins," explained the YouTuber in the description of his video about the matter. "Instead of helping, they claimed copyright on the video, gave me a copyright strike, and they may potentially come after my YouTube to get me de-platformed forever."
He continued, "Honestly I am afraid they will come after my whole YouTube channel, and get my YouTube banned. Even though I follow the content creator usage policy to the tee, it's information that is helpful to the community, a guide, all these things they say you can make with their content. But they say in the thing that they can revoke it at any time, for any reason. So any Youtubers you watch for New World. . . just know that at anytime Amazon could say "hey, we don't like what you are doing. . . we are not just gonna take your videos out, we are not going to send you a cease and desist, we are not going to warn you, we are just going to ban your YouTube, we are just going to de-platform you because we can."
On YouTube, if a creator receives three copyright strikes, their channel is permanently deleted.
Amazon's decision to try to deplatform this YouTuber follows their colossal failures over the past several months to ensure that their game works as intended. New world players discovered a bug in October that allowed servers to read inputs from player chat boxes, which led to all sorts of game-breaking shenanigans and concerning security flaws in the game. New World has also experienced multiple gold duping exploits, and as a result, the game was forced to shut down its economy on multiple occasions. And based on reports from Video Game DataBank, it appears that rather than acknowledge and fix bugs that are reported to them, AGS would rather bury their heads in the sand and deplatform creators who criticize them instead.
"All those horror stories with Amazon Game support, are 100% accurate, is my assumption at this point," Video Game Databank concluded. "People said they contacted Amazon Game support and the next day they got banned, and things like that, I 100% believe it now. . . I was unsure before, but I absolutely believe the majority of those players now. Because that is my experience as well, that Amazon Games support does not have your best interest in mind in the majority of cases."
The YouTuber also said that after his experience getting a permanent copyright strike over trying to be of service to New World developers, that if there is a serious game-breaking bug in the future, he won't report on it for fear of reprisal.
"[New World players] are screwed, I am not gonna warn you, hell no I am not gonna warn you," he exclaimed. "I have so much on the line, as much as I want to help you guys with these issues. . . it is not worth helping you guys, because it is not worth getting de-platformed. . . as far as I can tell, if there is a bug in the game, [Amazon Games] want you to experience it."
Video Game DataBank expressed how important his YouTube channel is to him financially in his video on Sunday, saying he relied on the income to afford the doctors he needs. He also reiterated his fear that they are coming after him, saying: "If my YouTube disappears. . . know it's because Amazon Game came after me."
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Aaron is an esports reporter with a background in media, technology, and communication education.
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