Hey guys, this is a frightening moment for MH speedrunners on PC and MH youtubers who have been using mods for their videos. Capcom Japan's legal team is going after Sunbreak videos on YouTube which feature any kind of mod and issue takedown requests and copyright strikes. We also received a copyright strike. With 3 strikes your channel gets deleted. Many videos of fellow MH speedrunners were taken down, some speedrunners even received 3 strikes and their channels were deleted. We are sorry this happened to them and we hope they can reach out to their community managers to reinstate their channels and just private or delete the videos instead. This is very serious news. And yes, also two of our Sunbreak videos have been taken down: "Sunbreak Lagiacrus Showcase" and "After you've killed 1000 Khezu". There might be more of our videos vanishing in the coming days and weeks. We will keep you posted.
One of the two videos that got hit had no visual mod in it (After you've killed 1000 Khezu). This video is a showcase run of 4 players using the Shadowboxing gesture to kill Khezu. It did not even have modded augmentations as we try not to use those for these kind of videos cause maxed out overpowered gear and skills make viewers who play legitimately feel left out. The only exception where maxed out augmentations were used was the Sunbreak Highest Damage video where we transparently disclosed the usage of maxed out augments and why it was necessary in that special case.
Regardless, we received a takedown request for our Khezu Shadowboxing video for the sole reason that we transparently disclosed the "fixed monster spawn" mod in the description of the video. This was the only mod used in this video and it is invisible to the viewer. About a year ago we started to mention every single mod used for videos in the bio as we wanted to be fully transparent with our viewers regarding which mods we use. Most of the mods we used didn't change how the game worked, instead they reduced the amount of resetting for showcase runs which often takes 10 to 20 hours.
Let's give an example:
Rathalos has 3 possible spawns at the beginning of a quest with 3 to 4 different sub spawns. The "fixed monster spawn" mod allows you to make sure Rathalos will always spawn in the area you need for your showcase. Another mod we often used was "fixed monster HP" that made sure we would get the lowest possible HP variant of Rathalos. These are all widely common mods for PC speedrunners and there are thousands of MH speedruns on youtube where these mods are used. The only difference in our case is that we disclosed them in the bio of TDS videos, while 90% of speedrunners just use them and dont talk about them. Since they are invisible to the viewer nobody can know for sure.
In light of recent events we feel that Capcom's new "no mod policy" is threatening our channel's existence so we apologize to you guys when we say this, but we had to remove all mod disclosure in our old videos as those videos pose a threat to our channel. What does this mean regarding new uploads? We are not 100% sure, but one thing is for certain, we will think twice before using mods in the future. That means probably no more size comparisons or damage comparisons from us as we did with MHW. Regarding runs, if a widely common mod is used for a video where it seems a necessity to even be able to make the video possible then we will not be able to disclose that anymore. It would most likely not be a visible mod. In this case we hope you guys can trust us that we won't temper too much with the games and still deliver honest and entertaining content. We will try our best to somehow still be transparent with you guys but all in a way where we don't feel in danger regarding Capcom's legal team in Japan coming after us.
From now on it will probably also take even more time to create speedruns, so there will most likely be fewer speedruns posted in the future. The alternative will be that the quality of speedruns will be lower cause we wont be able to spend 20-30 hours with a 4-man team on every single run. Capcom's community manager is currently trying his best to help out creators and we appreciate that a lot. We will see how that goes and will keep you guys posted.
To be very clear. We absolutely understand that Capcom has a problem with modded content where it damages their brand. In our opinion modding maxed out augments usually does harm to the community. Whoever plays on Switch and is watching said video will never in their life even come close to having a perfect build like that. Also, certain offensive visual mods can damage Capcom's reputation for anyone who doesn't happen to know that this is fan-made modded content. 4 months ago during a major Street Fighter live-stream event somebody accidentally used a NSFW Chun-Li mod. So, it makes sense that Capcom is trying to protect their IPs. We just hope that they don't neglect the positive impact mods can have. Some videos like our MHW size comparison which has almost 9 million views brought millions of people who never played Monster Hunter in connection with their IP and in one of the best ways possible, by showing the true beauty of the monsters of Monster Hunter World. This is a huge financial benefit for Capcom. Some mods also contribute substentially to the longevity of the game. Just look at Skyrim or GTA V. Mods certainly didn't lower these game's sales figures.
This is a very difficult situation for us. If you are transparent, Capcom will strike you and if not, you get called cheater.
