Free video hosting service Vimeo has announced that it’s banning gaming videos, becuase they’re space hogs that don’t meet the goals of the site:

The Vimeo staff has decided that we are no longer going to allow gaming videos on Vimeo. Specifically, we are no longer going to allow game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs player battles, raids, fraps, or any other video gaming videos that simply depict individuals playing a video game. Videos falling into this category will be subject to deletion as of September 1st; new videos of this type will be removed.

There are many reasons for the decision, two of which we would like to elaborate on.

1) Vimeo was created with the intent of inspiring creativity and providing a place to share video with friends and family. The Vimeo staff does not feel that videos which are direct captures of video game play truly constitute “creative expression”. Further, such videos may expose Vimeo to liability from the game creator(s), as we have already seen action from popular video game companies against videos such as these.

2) Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo. Over these last few months they have been the single biggest reasons for our transcoder wait times.

The decision doesn’t apply to machinima videos.

Are The Wild West Days Of Internet Video Coming To An End?

Vimeo’s decision will seem trivial to some, while it may be huge to others.

The decision is understandable, though. Gaming videos are trivial to produce, can take up huge amounts of space and have limited monetization potential.

At some point, Vimeo and other sites have to figure out ways to make money. One approach will be minimizing their expenses on videos they can’t make money on.

Where will this stop, though?

Some are estimating that 97% of the videos at user-generated video site YouTube are deadweight. If Vimeo, YouTube and other user-generated video sites are going to survive, they’re going to have to make some hard decisions about what content they will let people upload.

The “Wild West” days of Internet video may be numbered.