YouTube Stars Aren't Happy With Nintendo's Revenue-Sharing 'Creators Program'

As much as I dislike Pewds, he has a valid point. This system sounds pretty awful.

am i the only one who thinks people shouldn't make money from playing video games on youtube ?

As I noted in the other article announcing this program, this is yet more evidence that Nintendo simply does not understand the modern industry they helped to create. This makes them look incredibly out of touch, and is only going to serve to make them more obscure and irrelevant to modern gamers.

Doubt it Spade, I've always found it somewhat baffling that these people can put up videos of them playing a game someone else made, and get paid for doing so.

I dont want pewdiepie anywhere near nintendo games anyway!

@OnionOverlord

It's really no different from someone putting up a TV show on TV and getting paid for it. They are both something viewed by people and supported by ad dollars.

In essence, this is the purest form of the old, dusty "American Dream," if you can do it, be good at it, and get paid for it, then feel free to pursue it (so long as you obviously aren't harming anyone or breaking laws).

@Spade_the_prinny

Agreed. It's similar to me watching a movie and posting it on Youtube. That's piracy, right there.

For Nintendo their games are an interactive and gameplay experience. If people want to profit off someone else's work in the car of games, I should be able to upload full length movies and record my face talking about the movie as a little section of the video and get ad revenue off of it.

I'ts good to see these narcisistic "youtubers" get what they deserve, i mean, they are making money from someone elses work, intresting though that now they come with the sheepskin telling us that nintendo is down on their priority list, truth to be spoken, they only care about publicity and subcribers, so if a nintendo game is amazing (as some of them) they will eventually play them.

He got a point him playing any recent Nintendo game,is like a free commercial especially with Pewdiepie who has so many subscribers and views.

Can someone explain to me how Nintendo's partnership differs from the other Youtube gaming networks that LP channels must be a part of that take money? They all have about the same profit share. Including the one that PewDiePie is a part of....?

What people don't understand is this: if Nintendo (OR ANY OTHER DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER) doesn't value this so-called "free advertising" then they have every right to do this. I really don't get what's so hard to understand about this.

When I see these arguments, all I can think of is this: Say you have a sandwich. Someone offers you $5 for it. Maybe the $ is worth more. Maybe it's not. But it's your sandwich, and you wanna keep it. Maybe the sandwich is worth more to you than the $5.

This "free advertising" whining is an even worse argument because it's not even objective.

@Nassov

That's not piracy. Piracy of a video game would be getting the game itself through illegal or legally ambiguous channels. Watching someone else play it is not piracy. It's not like you're the one playing it. The point of a video game is the interactive nature. It's only piracy of a video game if you are interacting with it without paying for it, and getting it through the aforementioned channels.

@Quorthon

Youtube=TV now? Wasn't aware that was the case, considering it's just a community of user's uploading videos, I really fail to see how it is at all similar to a network airing a television program. And as others have said above, there's really no big deal about Nintendo getting a cut of what they feel they're entitled to. Free advertising or not.

@TruthBeTold

It's actually explained in the article. This is a great way for developers and publishers to, essentially, get free advertising. Hell, EA is doing the exact opposite and giving money back to some YouTubers. No other game developer or publisher is doing what Nintendo is doing--which is taking money from the YouTubers.

@Spade_the_prinny Yeah, it makes no sense, really.

Wait...Pewdiepie play's Nintendo games. I thought he was a PC gamer.
Anyway if Pewdiepie was making less than $39.99 to $59.99 off lets playing each Nintendo game, then he's totally right. If he was making more than that, then maybe he should be giving Nintendo a little money under the counter. After all isn't popularity more important than money in this day and age.

"If I played a Nintendo game on my channel most likely most of the views/ad revenue would come from the fact that my viewers are subscribed to me. Not necessarily because they want to watch a Nintendo game in particular."

Wow, that's pretty arrogant.

It's either clever strategy from nintendo or silly backwards old school mentality. None of us have enough insight to make a clear assessment, at least nintendo is doing something else than the rest of them.

@OnionOverlord

I didn't say it "equaled" TV, only that this is really no different in how it works. Some of these YouTube folks have actually made lives out of their personalities on there, and good for them that they can capitalize on it. If they want to make money on it, they would make it from ad revenue, and that is where it is like TV.

YouTube has evolved a lot from your gross over-simplification. There are paid channels and services, TV shows and the like. YouTube is a massive element with endless uses, from exercise programs, to word pronunciation, to educational elements.

It is only the "loose collection of random people's silly videos" if you haven't used the site since 2005. Such an assumption is probably why Nintendo looks so out of the loop right now.

And by the way, major media outlets like National Geographic have their own huge YouTube channels. https://www.youtube.com/user/NationalGeographic

It is more like TV than I thought, and far more like it than you have blindly assumed.

@97alexk Oh wow, way to miss the issue at hand completely in favor of a cheap stab.

@TruthBeTold There is none!

yeah it's not really a nice thing to do but what people need to understand is that your not actually allowed to make money from broadcasting games, it's in every games terms and conditions no matter what system it's on because we don't actually own the games we buy what we buy is a license to personaly use the software, the game it's self is owned by the publishers and developers it's why selling used games is also technically illegal

yeah publishers have let this slide in the past but every single one of them is legaly allowed to stop you making money from content you don't own

it's better said here www.nahmiaslaw.com/the-eula-what-it-does-how-it-works-and-what-does-eula-even-mean/

I don't know what ticks me off more--the entitlement or the abject lack of understanding of copyright.

Honestly I don't see how this is really that big of a deal. Technically speaking, Nintendo owns the content in their games and has every right to do this, it's not their fault they're the first to take advantage of this. Honestly though, I'd rather be on Nintendo's good side since I plan on doing stuff on Nintendo's platforms.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I never plan on monetizing my videos :V

@erv

Well, actually, you referenced the information we have that we can have reasonable insight on this. That Nintendo is doing something so drastically different than literally every other game developer or publisher, and that the YouTube personalities themselves are against this is quite a bit of information to make a statement on Nintendo: This is silly old-school mentality.

@Quorthon

That's fine but I never classified it as a "loose collection of random people's silly videos", but rather that it's just an uploading service that costs the uploaders very little money to upload on, versus a network which has to pay the creators for the show they intend to air. In this case, it costs Pewdiepie doesn't spend a penny on his videos beyond purchasing the game in question and then putting it up for people to watch for free. How these people feel they are entitled to make so much money off of work they didn't do is baffling to me, and so far you have failed to explain it in a way that is sensible to me. If what fullbringichigo said is true, then even more reason for me to be baffled by this practice. To me, it sounds very similar to people who go into movie theaters with cameras out and record the movie, then upload it to a site for others to watch. While it's not quite piracy nor on that level, it just seems strange to to me that people can make money for something as trivial as uploading a video, and in my experience most of them are not particularly good at the games either. In the case of people who demonstrate gaming skills far above the norm, it's somewhat understandable, but just a video of someone playing Mario 3D World (and dying on half the stages)? It makes no sense to me. Feel free to enlighten me on why the uploaders are entitled to any money for something this simple and with minimum cost to the uploader.

I'm completely against the whole "Let's Play" and video game playing channels on YouTube in general. I don't enjoy watching other people play video games and listen to their stupid reactions. That is not a job, and people should not be able to make a living off of that. Making money off of another company's work is stealing money. I don't care about how much "free exposure" the game gets. It's stealing. It's no different than me uploading a "Let's Watch" video of me watching a full-length movie and making money off of my views. Movies and TV shows are taken off of YouTube everyday due to copyright claims. We don't see them getting protested.

Nintendo is turning their Youtube content into a state sponsored news channel essentially. They have a short(relatively) approved list of games you can talk about and if they don't like what you have to say they can take all the profits. The old dog can't seem to learn new tricks.

Problem with Zack Scott's comment: "Evolve and Dying Light" are receiving a lot of exposure on YouTube... Ok. Big deal. There's not a commercial break on any wrestling/ufc/dude show that doesn't have those titles. Not to mention the plethora of Internet ads... So essentially, Zack here don't want to try nuthin' new... Just the tried and true. Must be hard parroting what everyone else is saying. He wants to get paid for this? I don't see parrots paid each time they repeat a word. this is sad...

I said awhile back that if Nitnedo wanted to take a cut from people playing their games on Youtube then they should ask for it, not going to go back on that now, though I was saying 10% seemed like enough of an acknowledgement, 30-40 means I wouldn't play their games either, enough games out there without them, just look at all the games Wii U isn't getting.

Not sure where Ninteod got 30%-40% from, but I would guess Apple, which charges 30% (last I checked) from every app sold on a "i" device. I think Nintnedo is looking more at that model than TV and commercials.

Guess we'll see how this plays out. Chuggaconroy has been playing Xenoblade Chronciles for about 6 months now it seems, wonder if he'll stop or pay up? (I don't watch it, my kids do, only I won't let them, so they are impatiently waiting for CHuggaconroy to move onto something else.)

@abbyhitter @TruenoGT

This, basically. I feel the same way, but am willing to differ my point of view if something can be presented to change it.

Youtube makes money out of you. So if your videos are superb, they pay you in return of gaining profit. Youtube itself is a competition that only the most successful ones get to be paid.

But for Nintendo, this can work. Think about it, since many gamers are average and not as critical as Pewds, they still make money when playing games Nintendo gives or tells them. That way, these youtubers will be popular because of what games they are into and will definitely work.

So thank Nintendo for that man! Atleast you get paid even if you're no good or better than the AVGN or Pewdepie!

Does this program not just discourage the free advertising they had already? If these youtube people have bought the game is it not their own right to do what they want with it? Why should they have to register with a corporation? It's just draconian.

This is sort of a grey area. Youtubers should not profit from Nintendo's copyright, but at the same time it is in Nintendo's best interest to get as much free advertising as possible.

@Quorthon

Are you getting paid for each post you make?

@Spade_the_prinny Yes. These videos are basically advertisements that we make. And before you say "Not really":
Flappy Bird
Five Nights At Freddy's
Minceraft

I'm sorry but its bs to think you can not only piggyback off other peoples work then justify it as "free advertising" but to add insult to injury by telling to get with the times. I just find it hard to believe that devs are just okay with this..they spend years working hard and once all the hard work is over these people just come in to collect a easy cosy check. What I'd do with this is raise it to a 50% kick back for anyone that's using our games/images, kick that money to devs/translation and if you are a part of our program you kick back 20% AND you get special content (special betas to show off upcoming games, videos from people like Reggie or Iwata doing funny to add to their videos, and maybe even a chance to appear in your region's Nintendo direct). To cry that Nintendo wants some, a more than fair amount, of the money you're making off them I'd think you were playing games more for the cash than for the hobby.

@rjejr
The comparison with Apple is not uncanny; like Apple fans, Nintendo 'sheeple' are willing to pay large sums of money for Nintendo-branded goods. I'm sure Nintendo are really trying to get the 40% profit margins too: that's desirable for any corporation.

I don't like Pewdiepie for various reasons, but I have to roughly agree with him.
This does not seem like that great of a strategy. I would suggest Nintendo just let videos get posted, (within reason).

Nintendo games now at the bottom? That sounds like "play for pay", doesn't it? If he doesn't play particular games because they pay a little bit less money that seriously undermines his credibility.

It's sad to see how these "youtubers" just is in it for the money. When I upload videos of gameplay, I do it because I enjoy it, and hope others will as well. If you choose to play certain games because they are most profitable, you are doing it for the wrong reason. Nintendo has every right to deny "free" advertisment if they want. I don't see how that monkey would be good advertising anyway, except for a new donkey kong jr charecter

@Albeanz truth.

Kind of what I expect, that they still don't get marketing in the social media era. This is free product placement, front and center, and doesn't cost Nintendo anything. Yet they want a piece of advertising revenue for it. I get that they can claim said video could not be made without their product. I get that. But other companies are savvy enough to see an opportunity that costs them nothing and roll with it. Nintendo doesn't get it, doesn't get the way articulation rather than rhetoric is the way to exchange information through these platforms.

I don't think it's pay-to-play, either. This is someone making some form of living—at least in part—off of putting in all of the work, and Nintendo wants a cut of it. Not pay-to-play at all.

There's also the fact that I suspect many of the people who do these types of videos are using pirated roms to make them. I saw a Fire Emblem let's play video not too long ago and I was fairly certain it was being ran on an emulator. Not sure if that's the case or if it's the same as the type of videos Pewdiepie makes, but again, I can't stress enough how wrong that is to me. Between this practice and scalping, I wonder if gaming has just become something people engage in to fill their own pockets. Call me old fashioned, but I game as a hobby and for fun, not so I can make money off it.

IDK what to think about this nonsense. I strongly dislike PewDiePie though, so I'm not inclined to agree with him.

Why should he be upset about anything? He makes 3,000,000 dollars a year by playing video games and screaming at a camera!

Lets make some shirts of Marvel, Disney, Capcom characters with no permission so this companys can't complain because it is "free advertising" . It's just unbelievable how many people here can't understand this.

@OnionOverlord

Hey, I'm not saying I get the people who watch these. I don't watch Let's Play videos myself because I'd rather, you know, play my games. But I recognize that, for whatever reason, this stuff is pretty huge these days.

There is also the point that while it doesn't cost one of these guys much money to actually upload the video, again, this is really a bit of an over-simplification. Time is the big part of this, as is recording equipment of varying quality, depending on how much money one has. It takes time to record and edit these videos. The more money these people make from ad revenue, the more time they can dedicate to making more or better videos, or buying better recording equipment. Some of these people, no doubt, start blurring the line between a guy in his basement and a professional filmmaker or TV producer. It's not like they're just putting up a video and money falls into their laps. YouTube's monetization is also a bit harder to activate than one might think.

Now, @FullbringIchigo has a good point that all or most game publishers and developers have EULAs of some sort that distinctly prohibit this kind of thing, but this is where Nintendo looks out of touch--those same publishers realize that there is value in letting these people play the games, discuss them, review them, whatever--it's free advertising. So they choose to ignore that part of the EULA, likely, until such time as it becomes a problem.

Nintendo, on the other hand, seems to be taking a "we can do it so we will" attitude, which ignores the reality of YouTube and the free advertising they garner therein. EA seems to understand it so well, they're willing to do the exact opposite in some capacity.

That's always the ones who earn the most who complain the most !

Doesn't he make millions anyway? Why does he care if one company wants to take a cut?

I seem to notice that Youtubers are just as stingy as the companies doing this

@Spade_the_prinny They make money from getting views, what's in the videos doesn't matter.

Sigh

No one is making money from Nintendo's game content. They're making money from playing the game and commentating, similar to sports officials or an analysis group. Also, editing a video takes quite a bit of time, and if you have a strict time span and have to get a video out every day, it can be quite a time consuming job.

@ZenTurtle actually it's not theirs to do with what they want check the End-user license agreement that comes with every game, what you buy is a license to use the content you don't buy it to own it the game is only ever owned by the publishers and/or developers

broadcasting (including things like reviews and let's plays), redistribution (such as trade-in's and reselling), monetizing and reverse engineering are all actually illegal

Call me old fashioned if you like but I find zero enjoyment in watching someone play a game on Youtube. Surely the fun actually comes from playing the games yourself?

That I find most of these Youtube "celeb's" to be self absorbed, over inflated egotistical types really doesn't help.

@Mk_II

You pretty clearly did not read the article, because the "point" you made was explained therein:

As noted from Zack Scott in this very article:

"I cringed when I heard about certain YouTubers demanding a percentage of game sales revenue in exchange for coverage. I feared that developers would adopt the same sentiment and demand a percentage of video ad revenue. With Nintendo's latest move, that time has come."

It's attempting to control a market that was once a haven of free expression.

@Spade_the_prinny No you're not. In a day and age where the relatives of a long dead comedian can sue, because that comedians punchline was put on a t-shirt, it amazes me how these people consider themselves doing a company a favor. In essence doing companies a service, but those same companies are doing you a favor as well, that's why you get free games, perks, etc, while NOT having to work a 9 to 5

@BlatantlyHeroic At the same time, I would be sued by the NFL if I did "commentating" without their permission. Most of those people have a contract and/or permission from the industry that they comment on

What everyone seems to be missing is that the creator's program in itself is nothing but a good thing. It's great that Nintendo is reaching out to the YouTube community and trying to support them.

The program is only a problem when it's combined with Nintendo claiming other videos not with their program, which, as far as I'm aware, they aren't doing right now.

Anything that ticks off PewDiePie is alright in my books.

@FullbringIchigo That's another problem. I want to buy the game itself, not some stupid license. The consumer is already getting screwed over since they don't actually own anything besides an imaginary agreement.

I think this set-up is just fine for now.
Yeah, gameplay videos are protected under fair use and we shouldn't need to abide by a fee simply to showcase the games we love,
but this is a middle-ground that should serve well as a starting point to improve from.

@Quorthon

I'm definitely wondering if a lot of them just make these videos for the money though, which is the part where I begin to feel it's wrong. It's one thing for a fan to make videos of them playing a game they enjoy, as it's a labor of love sort of deal, and then get a little money out of it. But then I see this Pewdiepie person, and I think it's just a jerk with a big-head and a typical sense of entitlement making money off something he doesn't deserve money for in the first place. His comments in the article definitely strike me as someone who is only in it for the money, which is pretty sad.

I get that it takes time and effort to make the videos (I've done video editing before and it's definitely a tedious process) but still, this practice is something I don't get. In comparison to someone like AVGN, his work is clearly something that takes a lot of time, effort, and even money to create. Sure it mostly boils down to a guy sucking at a game and using profanity, but he puts in roughly 5 times the effort these Let's Player makers do. Then there's the fact that as I said, a lot of them are simply pirating the games (In the case of the FE game, I'm relatively certain it was pirated because it was an FE title not released in the US but was using a translation patch, I'm pretty sure you can't patch a cartridge to run a translation patch, and if you can, I imagine it takes a great deal of work to do so).

@TingLZ YouTubers are protected by YouTube's video policy.

@BlatantlyHeroic well it is a life time license but the sad thing is that's how it works and it's the same with every game, film, tv show, song and book you have ever brought and ever will buy in the future

it's just the way it works I'm afraid

@Spade_the_prinny Nope. I agree. QQ Cachew. I don't understand the draw of people like him, but...then again I'm not 11 yo.

@BlatantlyHeroic At the same time, you do NOT own Link, Zelda or any of the content you purchased, and therefore you cannot do anything with that content as you please. This has always been the case when copyrights, patents, and trademarks started.

When you buy a game, you own that copy alone, not everything in it.

@BlatantlyHeroic So by your logic they could just post their commentary without the actual gameplay footage and be just as successful, since they're not making money off the games. Be realistic. They're playing a video game that usually cost millions of dollars and may have taken years to develop. Somehow they should just automatically have the right to broadcast the entire game and get paid off it without any consideration for the creators?

For anyone who's still stupid enough to defend these ideas that Nintendo has with YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-67CvWTQ0I

That's alright, PewDiePew is at the bottom of my list.

Keep in mind this is the same guy who recently banned comments on ALL his videos. The guy doesn't even care about his fans or what they have to say, only the views and thus ad revenue and cash that they bring to the table.

@JellySplat Seriously? 3 Million...you're kidding right.

@Quorthon no we don't, it's a very western thought (and a very wrong one) that having some information through any medium makes that information automatically complete - or at least complete enough.

Consider marketing strategy. Perhaps nintendo wants to be known for quality games, and has no intention of trying to keep that up by having amateur quality videos with yelling teenagers in them. Or, nintendo wants to launch their own social media integrated media channel (have you taken a look at how agile they develop miiverse?). Platform message, anyone?

In any case, nintendo might have a valid strategy. It seems like backwards thinking, but isn't necessarily wrong or lacking a forward thinking mentality. They could be wrong and shooting themselves in the foot, they could be tactical and have a clear winning future strategy.

The thing is, we don't know. We only assume that, based on these tidbits of information, they are wrong because of the marketing we are used to by others. I have a feeling they could very well be right in the long term, though I have to admit the odds are currently stacked against them by outwards appearance kinda standards.

Heck, movie TV and movie critics only use clips in a fair-use kind of way, whereas LPers show just about the entire content. That in itself makes the comparison moot

While I have no sympathy for anyone that's lucky enough to earn a living simply from playing games, Nintendo really doesn't get it. These you tubers are doing far more for them than the other way around. More sales will be lost by Nintendo than subscribers to PewDiePie over him not showing their games.

Meh... not sure I care.

YouTubers don't deserve to keep 100% of the profit when their work is derivative and relies on broadcasting video of games that people want to see. But of course they are going to fight any change that affects their income.

Nintendo is (IMO) asking for too much of a cut though, and is also putting too many conditions on use of their content - especially when they are the first and only company taking such a stance. But it's their content and they are fully within their rights to make those demands.

Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Come on Nintendo, the biggest youtuber ever is defying you, that's not something you want! Plus we all share his opinion, it's a TERRIBLE idea!

@Spade_the_prinny I agree with you, I never have Ad revenue on any of my videos and I upload gameplay footage

@FullbringIchigo
This guy gets it, honestly I don't see why the big three doesn't just sue companies like GAMESTOP out of bidness and handle secondhand sales themselves..

Nintendo isn't doing anything wrong yet this is just going to fuel the 'Nintendo Sucks' train. They're giving these people a better option than being sued for copyright infringement IMO. I'm sorry but I feel like people like Sakurai, who work themselves almost into the hospital aren't okay with it, I can't speak for anyone but if it was me I wouldn't feel Let's (get)P(aid)lays are fair to me when MY TIME, for everyone saying they should get paid for making the vids, is worth less when I CREATED the content and when let's players are padding their pockets with AD revenue while funding those same companies...it's bull no matter how you spin it.

@OnionOverlord

I don't know anything about PewDiePie, and from what little bit I've seen, I find him (and that Francis jackdonkey) monumentally annoying. It's not for me, but these people have an audience, and every other game developer or publisher clearly sees the value in the free advertising. Video games, in this way are different from movies or TV shows because watching someone play the game isn't actually playing the game.

Per your point on just doing it for money--well, I think the number of people making a substantial amount money doing this is pretty damn low. It's not the norm. You have a few superstars who make a lot, a bunch of people who make some additional income for their lives and regular jobs, and a massive number of people who make a negligible amount of money that, maybe, pays for an order from Pizza Hut one month.

I don't think anything should be done purely for money, because no matter what, unless money is all you love, it becomes a tiring and hollow experience. I've seen those people in the military--begrudgingly signing on for another contract so they could earn enough time in to get retirement money, but so many of them hated it. I don't doubt that PewDiePie likes video games, and supposedly he makes enough money that if this ever became a hollow experience for him, he'd grow tired of it and move on to something else. He'd have the money to do it, if his high income is accurate.

Per the piracy part--there are excellent video capture devices out there that work through computers. There's no guarantee that the game is pirated, and with as high profile as these things are now, I'd think most YouTube personalities would not want to be dancing on that dangerous line. I'm sure there are probably a few--there's always a bad apple out there somewhere--but as noted, the developers and publishers may not care about one pirated game if it means sales of, say, 5,000 more. To that end, Microsoft has revealed that Windows 10 will allow the Xbox One to be played on a PC, which indicates that MS is going to be making these kinds of things easier on YouTubers--perhaps deliberately.

Look, I agree with you in the aspect that, hell, I'm just not a fan of these and don't see the point in watching people play games. But clearly, there is an audience for it, and the rest of the gaming industry views this very differently from Nintendo. YouTube can be a powerful ally to a game publisher--and Nintendo has effectively taken steps to ensure that they lose this ally.

I find Mr. Scott's statement somewhat hypocritical. He complains "Do we want game coverage to be based upon who pays the most or perhaps takes the smallest cut?" and yet only a few sentences before he praises EA's " Ronku program that pays YouTubers extra as an incentive to cover their games".

Oh well so sad. I'm sure pewdie-idiot's Let's Play of Deadpool help that game sell the majority of it's 1/3 of a million globally.

I'm so tired of these idiots thinking that they actually increase purchase intent a significant amount.

Fine by me. I don't really like the Let's Play/ You tube thing. When did watching someone else play a game become more fun than simply playing the game. Have you own opions internet!

Must be rough for those poor YouTube "stars".

I hope I one day get to break Pew's face.

No, duh. Of course no one would like this. Almost no other company is doing this kind of idiocy.
Nintendo is just, once again, showing that they have no idea what they're doing.
And of course all of Nintendo's white knights are out in force today.

Call me an old fart but I think the current YouTube promoters are going to run into a payola type scandal in not too much longer (one may argue it has already occurred) and end up gutting the YouTube market to where people simply view it as another form of paid advertising. I think Nintendo is just being up front about something that I would wager is done behind closed doors as current policy. No proof on my part, just the belief that there is too much money in all of this for it not to be about money!

No one has watched a pirated movie and then said, "Now I'll watch it for myself!" But that's what happens with video game vids - people watch, then want to play for themselves. That is why this is inherently different from trying to profit off of movie clips that you post online and maybe talk over. What if a car company wanted to keep people from uploading vids of them driving the car? It's a similar principle here.

@FullbringIchigo Selling used games is illegal? If you can actually take legal action against that, then please explain why no one has done so? Someone just has to target Gamestop. Surely someone who's done some sort of online pass for MP or SP content would have done so. I think you're misunderstanding something here, because I'm not gonna believe a claim like that when no one has ever done something with it. If it really was true, then someone would have done something by now.
I think that license gets sold to someone else when you sell a game.

@erv

I'm not sure Nintendo has a tactical winning strategy for the future, at least right now. Most of their decision-making in the past few years has been very damaging to them and their public image.

Per your point on the idea that they may want to ensure some kind of "high quality" standard, I feel the need to remind you that with developers like Treefall, Ninja Pig, and Rcmadiax, the quality level of games on the Wii U is not looking particularly good. Nintendo's look good on their own, but the console itself is running into a quality control problem.

Ha, maybe Nintendo is doing this so they can sweep those low-quality titles under the rug!

@Quorthon actually, i was responding to that other bloke PewDiePie.

I can't see why content creators aren't all taking a cut. It's free advertising I suppose, but arguably it's also spoiling the game for others. I think the biggest problem for these YouTube "stars" is that what they're doing is unsolicited - they don't ask for permission, they make videos with game content front-and-centre and get revenue for it. If I tried putting an entire feature film on the Internet with my reaction in a corner of the screen there is no way in hell I could hide behind "fair use."

Nintendo has every right to issue takedown notices and get a royalty cut in this circumstance.

@Spade_the_prinny Well, I think that YouTube in itself is a very unstable job to be living of off. If one day, all these corporations (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, etc.) said no more monetising of videos, and we get all the money, pretty much all Let's Players' jobs would go down the drain, as the companies do have every right to because it's their content and people are making money of off it without any sort of their own original views, and thus the law is in the corporations' favour. It is different however, when you have a video game critique, such as TotalBiscuit, who critiques games, and should the aforementioned hypothetical scenario occur, he would be protected under law and still make his living.

Nevertheless, it is of my opinion that although Nintendo has every right to carry out this policy, it actually ends up being better for them without it, for as everyone else has said, free publicity.

The only time I ever see or hear about this PewDiePie guy is when he is complaining about youtubers or someone stealing his money.... why is this guy famous?

I must be the Grandpas of the Southpark Rehash episode, because I find all forms of Let's Play and similar videos to be painfully dull to watch.
The RPG ones are the worse- I'm wondering what happens if you choose the bad option/picked a male character/whatever in a game like Fantasy Life or Mass Effect, and instead of seeing the cutscene I get either some reading all the dialog out loud, or some inane commentary on the cutscene.

Shepard: Miranda, I think we need to
Let's Play person: LOL I LOVE THIS SCENE MIRANDA SO HOT LOOKIT DAT BOOTY AWW MAN I'M OUT OF CHEETOS

Total Biscuit made a much better argument imo. I didn't realize a large cut of revenue was already lost to Google (which is fair considering YT is their service to begin with) and Networks.

By the way, for those of you blindly calling YouTubers "entitled," it might be valuable for you to learn that most YouTubers make almost no money on these videos, and the average is more like $2 or $3 per 1,000 views.

http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-can-an-average-user-on-YouTube-earn-from-a-video

@erv
Not really clever if it's ridiculed by the people it targets and is only supported by Nintendo's usual army of clueless white knights.

@Quorthon Well then my question is why people try to make a living off income that is not even stable. Heck, contracted jobs have more security than that

@Jaz007 they don't stop it for many reasons the main one being because they need places like gamestop for example to distribute their new games, it's a give and take relationship and aparently it doesn't actually cause as much of an impact on game sales as people think it does

this was also the reason many publishers started with the online pass as a way to control the used game market and make some money back from it

also for the license transfering when sold the was a legal case a few years ago when someone tried to leave the iTunes collection to his family when he died but apple said it was illegal due to the EULA they went to court and apple won because the person in question never actually owned the content thus he could not transfer it (I know it's music in this case but the EULA is the same for games)

People go on youtube to watch people play games? Really? I miss the 90's, when times were simpler and people just played games themselves and read gaming magazines. sigh

@TingLz

I think that's a "to each their own" kind of thing. I could really only say for myself, I would only use YouTube for some additional income if I A) had the time to make content, B) had the equipment to do it, and C) had an idea that might be worth doing. Most of my ideas are video game ideas or story concepts, not exactly YouTube material.

To extend this anecdote, I would only do it full time if A) I was garnering a consistently high number of views and B) the income was sufficiently replacing whatever my current job is.

Sometimes, though, you just have to take a calculated risk. Some of these guys may see the value. Some of them may just want some additional income to their day job.

As much as I dislike it, I believe that a program is the way to go. There is positive marketing, and this is why they should have a program, but Nintendo has been target of MUCH hatred and biased criticism regarding their games. This was so strong at a certain point that I literally unsubscribed to major gaming channels.
I see what Nintendo is doing as "If you're going to be nice with our content, we can make money together. If you're not, I will take your video out of youtube".
I just hope that Nintendo is smart enough to charge nearly nothing from very big youtubers.

@Quorthon
"It's attempting to control a market that was once a haven of free expression."

That stuck out to me. At first I wasn't sure why... then I realized: this isn't about free expression, it's about revenue.

I can't back your statement because nobody is losing their right to express themselves. Nobody is losing their right to earn a living. All that is being lost is 30-40% of ad revenue when their content relies on using source material from Nintendo to exist.

I think those percentages seem high in most (not all) cases, but the idea that YouTubers should be free to use content other parties have created to generate profits without any need for approval or a license doesn't make sense.

@Quorthon

Hmm, well I admit I was not aware of how common it was to make money off of the LP videos, so I wasn't too sure of how many Pewdiepies there were out there. I still dislike the practice of course, but I can somewhat see the reasoning behind it now. I still question how of the authors own the games they are making, but again, I see your point on whether or not they would think it's worth the risk, and in the case of the japanese FE games, they probably ARE pirated but no one cares on account of the fact those games never got released outside Japan anyway,

As for this hurting nintendo, I personally don't see it. Nintendo has a very strong fanbase and following, and I really doubt there are that many people who are going to watch a Pewdiepie video and then decide they desperately need the game. For the most part, it would probably only appeal to people who don't own the console the Nintendo game is running on, and even then, I just don't see it encouraging them to run out and buy the console+game. Nintendo's fanbase is pretty rabid and devoted as it is. However in the case of games like Dying Light, I can certainly see why Let's Play videos would impact it, as I'm interested in it myself and a LP would possibly convince me to get it.

I love it. I don't really put much faith in YouTubers propelling Nintendo games to popularity--in fact, I've never heard of a positive correlation between YouTube coverage of a Nintendo game and increased sales.

I think these kids better recognize that this is Nintendo. We all indebted to them for saving the game industry and repeatedly expanding its appeal. A little YouTube coverage is of no consequence.

@ejamer They will not be able to use Nintendo's content. So no more Mario parodies or people trashing Nintendo games for no reason. They are just going to take the video out.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony and Microsoft do the same thing later on, why do they care so much. Can't they get a real job?

I just can't understand why someone would watch a Let's Play.

I'd rather play the thing, or if I'm going to watch, watch my best friend or someone close to me.

It's absolutely foreign to me, and proof that Nintendo should just go ahead and invest in well-made movies, because apparently, young kids just don't play videogames that aren't shooters or mobile any more.

@ejamer

Ahh, a valid point. But that revenue is likely enough to change how that free market behaves or where their focus is laid. Which we are now seeing, is likely to happen.

I think Nintendo could've made this work if they'd just vastly lowered the percentage of money, or even opened up a way to work with these people as a review outlet. The way it looks now, it's shooting themselves in the foot.

The only Nintendo game Pewds Played while I was subscribed to him was Conker's Bad Fur Day. He really has no right to make a fuss over it.

@Jaz007
Look at gamestop's business practice and you tell me that its not illegal. Just put yourself in the devs place of only getting paid once for doing all the hard time consuming work to have someone make PURE profit multiple times while you don't see a dime of it. When you buy a game you are only buying the rights to play it as well as the right to have one backup of it. It'd be different if the game when back to the companies and GS paid something to get the right to resell. GameStop found a way to pirate and get paid from it..just cause there's a second hand license doesn't mean its still morally wrong.

Also why would you stick up for a corporation that honestly doesn't care about the people as much as their money? Wanna know their new motto is "Protect the Family" and I hate to break it to you but you're not family.

I don't even think PewDiePie has a Nintendo system. He's never played Nintendo games, either. The only Nintendo thing he did was play SSB1 through an emulator

@TheGreatBrawler

What's a "real job?"

Should Shaun White get a "real job?"

Should Barack Obama get a "real job?"

Should my girlfriend get a "real job" instead of sticking with her successful home business?

What the hell is a "real job?" Do you want them serving fries or pushing heads onto a Barbie torso in a factory? Or do you just not like seeing people making money you aren't making?

This was/is a bad move by Nintendo. Nintendo was getting free advertisements by some popular Youtube stars. I don't know of any other company that takes money from YouTube creators that reviews/plays their products. When Nintendo doesn't do any marketing themselves they should praise any marketing that they get for free.

I don't really know what to make of this. I've seen PewDiePie before and, no offense to any Europeans, but he's just so damn obnoxious and Euro-trashy. After I heard about how immensely popular he is and the whole disabling comment fiasco he just sounds like a whiny child to me.

Anyway, as far as revenue is concerned, I'm not sure who it's hurting when YouTubers make all of these Let's Play videos. A good number of people use LPs to determine whether or not they want to buy a game - superficial as that sounds - and if they decide it doesn't appeal to them, then the developer would lose out as LPs spread through YouTube faster than a high school rumor.

A lot of people on YouTube tend to be sheeple as well, blindly sycophanting to whoever they're subscribed to because they like them, so if they say something bad about a game, word will spread as well.

Bah...

@Zatioichi Then you would imply that ALL second hand sales are illegal, which they are not

@Zatioichi I don't think it's illegal. It happens all the time with other industries. People do hard work to makes houses, cars, and many other things, someone buys it, then they sell it and other people, and the people who build it don't get a cut. It's called the right to sell your property. I suppose libaries should be illegal too. So many people are getting to read a book, and the author only got payed once.

@Quorthon Playing video games is a job now?

The free expression crap is pure nonsense. You have to be from la-la land to believe that. Anyone is still free to express their views on Nintendo games, on YouTube or otherwise. Nintendo simply created a program to force YouTubers who monetize their videos to share the revenue.

This is about the freedom to make money and reveals the true colors of these YouTube "stars". They are simply in it to make money, so if you think their coverage and opinions are genuine then you're plain naive. Can there be any doubt, based upon these responses, that their coverage is potentially compromised by the PR departments of the games they show?

I mean, if your choice of game coverage is based upon which will grant you the greatest cut of revenue... Then I just see them as a disservice to gaming fans and detriment to game journalism.

@OnionOverlord

Nintendo does indeed have a dedicated fanbase, but that dedicated fanbase will not be enough to prop them up indefinitely.

What Nintendo needs to be doing now is making the Wii U more palatable to the non-Nintendo crowd, or they will be starting from a losing position with the next console--essentially, they need to work as hard as possible to turn things around in a manner similar to what Sony did with the PS3, which helped rebuild confidence and make the PS4 a quick success.

Nintendo currently struggles with looking outdated, irrelevant, and old-fashioned to the people outside of a strictly core fanbase, and in order for the company to survive beyond the next generation, they need to reconnect with the gamers outside of that core. Unfortunately, this will have the opposite effect.

When Nintendo was forced to rely just on their core fans, it was during the GC era and they were sluggishly just surviving. They weren't thriving or impacting the industry. They are at this point once again--merely dragging their donkeyes, "just surviving." This is not an enviable position for any company, and, personally, it saddens me to see Nintendo at this level.

They do have a strong fanbase, but the reality is, that fanbase alone is not enough to make them really thrive.

@TheGreatBrawler

I got paid to play video games. Welcome to the modern world.

And you failed to answer my question: What is a "real" job? By all means, enlighten us.

I think these YouTubers who get free money from playing video games need to have some Wahburgers and French Cries: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p57/vegasgoodfella/wahmburger_frenchCries.jpg

98% of the time, before I even think about buying any game, I watch a short video on it. It should be obvious that YouTube is free advertisement. But of course Nintendo has to be money-hungry like everyone else...

@AceChaos: Meanwhile they post their own videos and many other networks post videos anyway.

Oh wow, the Youtube stars with millions of subscribers are complaining they don't get enough money....

I'm sorry, but I feel no real sympathy for them. The people this really hurts are those with smaller channels.

@FullbringIchigo
Nintendo games don't come with EULAs (at least not too my knowledge). And the EU has dismissed them as actually having no legal ground. So I would say you own the software, and should be allowed to make youtube videos.

@Quorthon
By your logic I shouldn't get a job because I make money selling and using drugs.

@ZenTurtle

Actually, Nintendo games all come with a copyright content warning either printed with the packaging or manual, or in the credits of the game.

@ikki5

Bunch of little girls thought he was cute, and enjoy is immature squealing. Oh. And because he is foreign.

Listen. It does sound easy right? Play games make money. But the amount of work that goes into it...baffling. for one! You have to keep a running commentary. Play a various amount of games to keep people entertained. Video editing to keep things interesting. And dont mention audio levels...ita hard stuff. oh...and theres a bazillion of us. So standing out is near impossible.

@FullbringIchigo Someone would have tried something with a game or movie or something then. Someone would be that stupid. I don't think you have the ability to deprive someone of the right to sell their property. Making illegal copies and selling those or yours, sure, but simple right to sell what you phyically own? I don't think you can do it that like that.
And honestly, I don't think a publisher can do something like that even if what you're saying is somehow true. I'm pretty sure they'd break an agreement with Sony (or whoever), and they'd take legal action, or Sony would use its EULA against them.

@PaperMario64

Clearly, being a drug dealer is your job. Not a particularly legal one, so that's probably likely to bite you on the donkey one day. Or you work at Walgreens. Good for you.

If you can make money doing something legally, who has any right to call that "not a real job?" That's just petty, pathetic, childish jealousy.

The only reason anyone would ever say "get a real job" is jealousy that someone else makes money different or better than you.

@ZenTurtle ...except that European courts only ruled on the legal grounds of the second hand market of digital games. EULAs are still legal in some aspects

Nintendo does tend to take a different approach than the rest of the industry. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

It's certainly Nintendo's right to control how other people profit from their intellectual property. But with the Wii U, I think they desperately need more exposure. They need more "Luigi's Death Stare" attention. So even though I don't think they're doing anything wrong, I think they'd profit more from the an increased YouTube presence than the tiny percentages they'll be getting from video posters.

@AceChaos

Well good thing that Let's Plays aren't the only video resource.

@Hachiko

You have a YouTube channel? What do you do?

I actually find myself supporting this decision from Nintendo, even though I can see that it may hurt them in the long run. Their games, their rules - simple as that.

Anyway, my motto with Nintendo's marketing strategies: Accept and move on.

@Jaz007
Not all things but when its made clear in the user agreement you can't do it then it is. If you can have total ownership with no agreements with a outside party then you can sell it
@TingLz
Those are all things you can have total ownership on, you can sell your home/car but you can't sell the land your house comes on if you don't own it.

At the end of the day ownership trumps all and because they don't have totally ownership of the content they're using they violated the terms and agreements. Honestly I want to see Nintendo act out and be the real "bad guy" that most people want to make them out as. I hate when companies sue us consumers but I think its time for lightning to start raining from heaven..

I just can't feel bad for these people. You are making money on someone else's IP. Just because it is a Company doesn't mean you have the right to profit from their products.

I'm not going to say get a real job or anything because people do tons of useful youtube vids that don't infringe on someone else's work OR they get permission or go though a program like the one Nintendo is offering.

hmm, after thinking about it. I can see where Nintendo is coming from. People are doing these videos for revenue, sure it is free advertising but at the same time, it would be no different than say, taking something someone else made, using it in your project and then you end up having to pay royalties. So many companies get burned with this because they use something that someone else created for their own profit. Really, I don't see much of a difference in this.

But sure, yes it is free advertising but just because someone has a million subcribers, doesn't mean a million people will see it. I kind of disagree with his statement here:

"If I played a Nintendo game on my channel most likely most of the views/ad revenue would come from the fact that my viewers are subscribed to me. Not necessarily because they want to watch a Nintendo game in particular."

When I search for a game, it is not by the user, it is by whoever comes up first. Unless the person specifically subscribed to them to watch content for whatever system, then most of the views will probably come from the people searching for that game and from youtube pretty much pinning their videos on the main page for an easy click on the due to the users previously viewed videos and interests. This is also why I think that it is not because they are subscribed, but because of the users interests that they get the video and with youtube, it puts these "Stars first". If the "stars" stop posting videos, the videos will still be posting of people playing because that is how youtube works, it will just put someone else's videos there.

In my opinion, Nintendo isn't shooting themselves on the foot... They're pulling a M3 Shotgun and blasting all of their feet! Seriously, what's so complicated to understand here? People like your game and play it, the viewers get interested in said game and buy it (With a VERY small amount of players actually not buying their game). Video games are an interactive experience that change with every playthrough unlike a Movie or a song. This program basically discourages people to Let's Play their game which is the one thing they SHOULDN'T do due to how badly the Wii U is doing! You refuse to spend money on advertising your games and now you are going after people who are doing the free advertising for you!

Do we have people with the brain of seagulls at Nintendo doing this crap? Back in the 80s and 90s, you had no clear way to know what you were getting into flash forward to the present and now you have video reviews and let's plays that are there to help you make a decision on what you want to buy. Let's Plays are the next big step for gaming and advertising! Take a look at Chuggaconroy's current Xenoblade let's play and read the comments. There are hundreds of people actually buying the freaking game because of him! People should stop being sheep and take every decision from Nintendo as ''Well, they can do so''. THAT'S NOT GONNA GET THEM ANYWHERE!

PS: Nintendo needs, I accentuate on the word NEEDS, new top management.

Well, to clarify the EU court ruling, you can "own" a digital copy of software. However, like physical media, you do not own the characters, scenarios, etc. of that software. You just own that one copy. Ergo, you can sell that copy alone if you like, but you cannot make copies of it for others to use, you cannot take the characters and make your media and sell them, etc.

You just own that one copy of the software. That's all

@Quorthon
That is copyright. It does not state anywhere that I cannot make video of the game. Copyright merely prevents copying of the work; making a video of the game is not the same thing as a derivative work of the game, if anything it is a celebration, free advertising.

@Spade_the_prinny na they should, most of them that make big money on youtube put at least 40 hour work weeks making videos, editing videos, and everything else. its a job just like anything else

@Quorthon
Yeah... Clearly working as a video game player and uploading to youtube is the farthest you'll go in life. As the goverment makes the rules, Nintendo makes the rules of copyright. I'm jealous? Hardly. Stop being a paracite leeching off others hard work

@ZenTurtle

Oh sorry, I see what you were getting at. My mistake. Copyright =/= EULA. Nintendo does have them for software updates, but I haven't seen any for individual games.

"
If I played a Nintendo game on my channel most likely most of the views/ad revenue would come from the fact that my viewers are subscribed to me. Not necessarily because they want to watch a Nintendo game in particular."

It goes both ways. Nintendo viewers might also view your other non-Nintendo related videos and will give you more revenues. If you stop making Nintendo videos, it's your loss from Nintendo viewers.

Bunch of entitled big heads.

@Jaz007 @ZenTurtle thing is at the moment the whole thing is a bit of a grey area over what they can do and what they should do, you see they could crack down on everyone like a tonne of bricks but it would do serious damage to them as a company as well so there has to be a bit of give and take but all I'm saying Nintendo along with every other game developer and publisher are well within their rights to do this kind of thing if they want

is it a consumer friedly thing to do...no but they have the right to do it to their property if they want to

@ZenTurtle
How is making a video of a game not derivative? And how is it free advertising by default?

@PaperMario64

What a fallacious and absurd post. For one, Nintendo does not make the rules of copyright, they can only file for them. And yes, you do appear to be quite jealous.

I actually make no money on YouTube, or use it (had you read more than one post, you could've saved yourself that ignorant statement) to upload much of anything. Indeed, as a developer, I'm much more interested in finding YouTubers so that I can give them a copy of my software.

@Inkling and @Quorthon

See, that's the kind of crap I was referring to. If he was doing a LP video using a rom and emulator (unless it was the VC version), then not only is he making money off Nintendo, but he's giving squat back to the company for not even owning the game he just profited from! Insanity from my point of view. From what I've seen Pewdiepie doesn't really play Nintendo games, so why would Nintendo fans watch his videos?

Conversely, the idea that this affects Nintendo could also go the other way around. By not using Nintendo games in his video's just because he's too greedy to give them a percentage of his earnings, doesn't he in turn damage his own profits? By using their games, he would still make money, just less of it.

More importantly, it sounds like Pewdiepie wasn't doing any Nintendo videos anyway, so what exactly is he crying about? If he hasn't made very many by now, he's probably not going to. I still fail to see how it would really hurt Nintendo unless it eats into the uploaders profits so much they have nothing left to make.

At the end of the day I suppose this is a case of both parties being too greedy to let a penny slip between their fingers. If it hurts one side, I can't fathom why it wouldn't hurt the other. The difference being who it would hurt more, which in this case would probably be NIntendo since they stand to lose more than the uploaders.

Even so, if Nintendo didn't demand a cut, would pewdiepie suddenly start making a dozen or so of this so called "free advertising" for Nintendo? Probably not, it just sounds like an excuse for him to seek out more attention and cry a bit. I'd be more concerned how this would impact people who are actually Nintendo fans uploading Nintendo videos, but since I don't do LP videos,I wouldn't know of any.

Right or wrong the point is that Pewdiepie makes in excess of over 4 MILLION a year - he can afford to slip Nintendo to the bottom of this list. For other youtubers as someone said above, youtube rewards those who are most successful, those who are less known can now benefit in some way through this new programme. At the end of the day Nintendo could or couldn't ask for 30-40% of profit made and as old fashioned it may seem they have every right to do so- it's just how they work. It has positives and negatives but youtubers who make millions or thousands probably shouldn't be complaining; at the end of the day though as this is all in a BETA stage, their feedback is relevant.

@Zatioichi If a major publisher tried that on PS4, the lighting from Sony would hit them before anything else could, and they've barley let the lighting bolt out of their hand. When Sony said the PS4 could play used all used games, it was pretty obvious that you couldn't block it. Plus if Nintendo or Sony tried this, they'd go down in flames faster than the Hindenburg. This all going on the impossible situation someone can stop me from selling my property like that. There is no situation where it works.
@Fullbringichigo They can do full online passes as MS showe with the original Xbone vision, but you'll get ruled against in a court if you try to stop me from physically selling a game.

@Miigato

I'm not kidding, that's what I heard this guy actually makes. I mean, I'm glad he was successful, but that just seems kinda ridiculous to me

@mainstream05
I would argue that it is not derivative as people clearly know a video of a game is not a game. It is (usually) free advertising as it lets people see the game: It is showing the content, it spreads awareness of the game, and reviews can be good publicity for the game.

@mainstream05

The free advertising part should be obvious. And a derivative tends to be a low-quality imitation of a work, not a recording of the work.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=derivative

For instance, Spikey Walls is a derivative of Flappy Bird.

@Zatioichi It's not illegal. Buying any good includes buying the resell rights. The original creator is only entitled to a share of the first sale.

Also Microsoft just updated their policy on YouTube and Twitch. They also have the rights to take out your videos that includes their first party games (if I understand it correctly.)
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules

@anem0ne

A good point on the "BETA" aspect of this, as those YouTubers can work with Nintendo to make this program something other than a disaster. Most YouTubers, by the way, do not make millions. That is an extreme minority of YouTubers. Those most heavily impacted will be the ones that made Nintendo a priority and found a way to make a living off a predictable income, which is now affected by nearly half.

First off, PewDiePie is an idiot and anyone who watches his videos is dumber than he is. Secondly, uploading gameplay is copyright infringement. It is no different than uploading music or TV shows without proper consent. And finally, it is not free advertising. Watching some dude play through a game defeats the purpose of buying it and I'm pretty sure Nintendo will make more from taking their rightful cuts off these videos than the "free advertising" will make them in game sales.

@BensonUii

All of these companies have the rights to take money--the problem is that only Nintendo is hungry enough for the money to do it. MS actually heavily promotes people posting videos of them playing games, and indeed, the Xbox One store is absolutely filled with player-made videos of all games.

On top of that, with Windows 10, the Xbox One will be playable via PC, which will make recording games vastly easier.

On the one hand, Nintendo is technically in the right in terms of all the legal stuff.

But at the same time they're robbing themselves of free advertising. Say what you will about LPs, but the fact of the matter is that when a popular Lper plays a game, many people will be exposed to it in depth far beyond what any commercial, demo, event, ect. And many of those same people will end up buying a game they normally wouldn't have if the LP didn't exist.

@Quorthon Yeah I know it's very rare I was namely thinking of the minoriy like Pewdiepie and the likes of Jenna Marbles sorry I should've made that clear. Like I said the whole thing has positives and negatives and my uncle had to switch from Nintendo to Sony gameplay to continue making some kind of profit. However I'm sure by the end of the BETA stage they might come to some kind of compromise.

@Quorthon
Clearly your brain is malfunctioning from playing too much video games. Nintendo decides what license agreement customers must follow.
Btw you can't compare your silly game making hobby, with Nintendo's multibillionaire company. You sir, are of course desperate for attention from other gamers, so of course you would love to have famous youtubers play your game.
Call me what you like. I wouldn't trade place with PewDiePie for a billion dollars.

Saying Nintendo should take a smaller cut makes sense if you put it in the context of staying competitive with other video game publishers, but it makes little sense given that it's not clear how much these videos affect sales, negatively or positively. Nintendo spent an entire generation selling Wiis to people who probably aren't even aware these videos exist, and there biggest fumble has been failing to convince that same demographic to upgrade to a Wii U. Basing the argument that Nintendo should take a smaller cut from the ad revenue on all these supposed rights YouTubers have just comes off as entitled whining.

If there is such a high demand for videos of people playing video games - and clearly there is - the smartest thing for Nintendo to do would be to just start posting Let's Plays on their own YouTube channel.

The next person to say "free advertising" loses the Internet for the day.

It looks like most of us could care less about Pewdiepie and I absolutely guarantee you Nintendo isn't going to suffer from less coverage by that twit I feel a mixed bag about the program. Personally I think it is MORE than fair. If you're getting paid to play a video game and people watch it it's fair that the developer gets as piece. Remember that VERY few of the Nintendo related videos actually fall in this category - how many actually make money? The let's play people with the highest subscribers are basically majority party here.
Another arguement is that NIntendo is loosing the exposure... question is, do they really need it? Yes and No. Some games need it alot don't. Is pewdiepie';s review of the next Legend of Zelda going to be an influential difference? I can promise you no.

@Quorthon Hmmm, now that you mention Microsoft, wasn't there something back then that they prevented users for getting income on youtube by playing games they directly own, like Halo?

Or was that lifted?

@anem0ne

I should hope so. Nintendo could easily walk away from this as a winner by lowering the percentage of money they take, and maybe including certain YouTubers as "official channels" where they send them review copies.

Your uncle has a channel? What is it? I've been trying to figure out where to send review codes of my team's upcoming game.

@Jaz007 oh your allowed to sell the disc and the box those you own but the data on the disc you don't

one of the ways to get round it though is to say that the game sale is a contract and reselling is transfering the contract from one person to another that's another way stores get away with reselling

but unauthorized monetized broadcasts such as let's plays are still technically illegal, it's esentially the same as setting up a projector in the street and charging people to watch a dvd

@PaperMario64

It's amazing that each of your posts gets more ridiculous. How do you do that?

By the way, if I was desperate for attention, I'd have probably advertised the name of my studio or dev team, which I have not.

Nintendo is taking this approach because the You Tubers need Nintendo more than it needs them. The "free advertising" is probably not making much of a difference in game sales.

What is disheartening is that it appears any game which had third-party help is not on the list.

That all being said, I wonder if Nintendo is behind or ahead of the curve on this. I would not be surprised if others decide it is time to get "a piece of the action."

@Gridatttack

Of that, I am completely ignorant. It doesn't even ring a bell. Granted, we've lost interest in Halo in my household because Halo 4 was booooooooooooooring as hell. So I'm unlikely to be following much news in that capacity.

Having defined rules is much better than the vague rules about whether a random company will shut you down or not. Many companies will simply turn a blind eye to it, but without predefined rules you cant really tell when someone will jump on you.

I would liken this situation to reading a book out loud on youtube. If I sat and watched someone read an entire book, It certainly wouldnt lead me to go and buy that book.

Games are a bit different since the act of playing a game is part of the enjoyment, but Nintendo allowing people to make money off their games at all is better than simply shutting them down. And yes if youtubers are making money off showing Nintendos games, then, Nintendo has a right to revenue.

Youtubers whining about it are just doing so for attention really. (with articles like this)

@Quorthon Either way it doesn't help that Youtube still has a very grey area when it comes to copyright and such, but I agree on lowering the percentage. I imagine 'official' channels could include those such as 'WiiFolderJosh'.

Yeah he has several but his current main one is -> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2zIyveI3dcYG1h5p0tI2fA
Then his semi-active 3ds one -> https://www.youtube.com/user/latest3dsgames/channels

Quarthon's hands

@anem0ne

I'll keep his channels in mind. Does he do Wii U?

@Quorthon
Wow!
Perhaps get some fresh air now and then. Would help wonders for your selfesteem

Many Youtube "celebrities" are annoying and arrogant to me. Most of these guys just seem to be hopped up on Adderall and don't display any talent in their commentaries.

@Yorumi yeah I said in an earlier post that it was a grey area and until a precident is set it will continue to be one

@MasterBlaster

Oh please, I've been on the internet for decades, my calluses...

You know what, nevermind. I have to figure out which tab is making all the porn noise.

@Quorthon He said he has either started or really wants to but every time he uploads Nintendo content he gets slammed for copyright so I think he's given up for a while. I started to as well and my second channel got shut down for the same reason so it's a loose/loose game right now lol.

@Jaz007
Doing what? Sueing people for using copyright images and characters or blocking used games?

@Kroisos
No you're right its not by law but morally it is IMO. I don't think the first sale doctrine should apply to media like games, movies, eBook etc just cause it just sounds like youd be buying plastic but you still need to buy the rights to play. As far as used games goes i don't think you should be able to sell them unless you published them. You should be able to loan em out and swap em but there shouldn't be any profit in it.

Edited to add the bit about buying plastic lol

@Yorumi: Ironically Nintendo is one of the few companies that never fought used sales (from what I can tell).

After all the mis-steps made by ninty lately, this seems petty and begging for more bad PR.

@anem0ne

Were they actual Nintendo games, or 3rd party on Nintendo? Because I don't think Nintendo can have a say in a third party's software. If you have a YouTube channel, maybe there's a part of this you know that I've missed. What is your channel? We're supposed to get a whole bunch of these download codes. YouTube is a new place to see these things, and I'd like to consider them equal to traditional news outlets.

@TingLz
I think thats because nintendo fans usually keep their games after playing them, where as Xbox and PS fans don't.

Like he doesn't get enough money from just playing freaking video games already. These big Youtubers just come off as petty to me. So they get a smaller cut of the revenue, they get mad, even though it doesn't diminish the quality of the games at all. "Let's Plays" for $$$ is a scam.

I think this is a foolish move on Nintendo's part, but that doesn't mean they don't have the right to do it.

@Quorthon I think I found one source who claims the news: http://tinyurl.com/lyahu43

However, what I found for trying to find the info is that recently, they addressed a bit more specifically the issue: http://tinyurl.com/pkuv32n

@Quorthon
Nintendo going after the money and exercising their rights isn't wrong even other companies don't. It's wise for Nintendo to establish and exercise their rights now BEFORE YouTubers become even more out of control. Nobody would be complaining if this was implemented before LPs grew this big. I assume Nintendo predicts some dangers of letting these LPers on the loose so they are taking actions now.

@Quorthon Animal Crossing New Leaf was literally all I was posting. I no longer have the channel as I can't dedicate any time to it. Yes I would to, I do enjoy watching gameplay reviews of something before I buy and keeping up to date with the latest games etc.

@shigulicious

If you hate YouTube 'celebs', check out this video of comedian Norm Macdonald hosting some crappy YouTube award show thing and mocking these talentless people unmercifully

@BensonUii

True, Nintendo is within their right. The issue is that it makes them look bad and out of touch with modern gaming--which this noted outrage demonstrates.

And what "danger" could come from LPers?

@ZenTurtle
@Quorthon
A free advertisement is a poster for Super Mario Galaxy in the background of a video of me eating Cheetos, not an hour-long session of footage of Super Mario Galaxy called "Let's play SUPER MARIO GALAXY." That's me using Super Mario Galaxy to draw attention to my video. I know these YouTubers have millions of subscribers that are genuinely following their personalities, but that fame was obtained by using other people's work.

Now if a company or an artist is okay with that, that's their choice. If, @Quorthon, someone makes a video of them playing your game and you don't want a cent from them - that's your choice and I don't have an opinion about it. But video game makers have to pay royalties for third-party work. You might buy a GTA because it has an awesome soundtrack, but Rockstar had to shell out money to the artists because it was using their work in a game they're selling for music. I hold YouTubers profiting from ad revenue to the same standard.

We can argue that their royalty is too high. Fine. As armchair analysts, we can sit around and critique their practices if it's rooted in the belief that they will make MORE money by LOWERING their cut. That is how business works. But Pewdiepie is just being a little @*#$(%.

@anem0ne

Well, that's a bummer. Thank you, though, I will still keep your uncle's channel in mind.

@anem0ne
The problem is, those Lets' Play are not reviews. There in affect spoilers. I've heard some of the channel owners claim that their audience come to listen them, not to watch the game. But the reality is that without the game, they have no content and the idea of youtube is that you create your own content without using copyright material. Its in the Google terms and conditions

@Quorthon No prob - I'll let you know if he starts his Wii U channel back up, in fact he may even take up this programme Nintendo are rolling out.

@mainstream05

Actually, a poster in the background and someone playing the game are both free advertising.

It's kind of like Seinfeld--the TV show. It got a lot of criticism from "the suits" at NBC for featuring actual products in the show because they considered it free advertising for those companies, be it Coca-Cola, Junior Mints, whatever. If the company didn't actually pay for the product to be shown, but it gets shown, it's free advertising.

Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David didn't care about "free advertising." They preferred the show use actual products people could relate to.

@megamanlink I know, yeah without them they wouldn't really have any content or profit however it's such a grey area in Youtube it's hard for anyone to distinguish what is allowed and what isn't. It seems to awfully vary by channel.

The last decade or so has been a constant display of Nintendo not really understanding this "internet" thing or why the rest of the world thinks it's so great. They (eventually) resigned that it's too big to ignore, so they're trying their next favorite tactic; controlling it. Because Nintendo.

Why is it whenever Nintendo is being a jerk, you can tie it to how willfully out of touch they are?

Sorry but it annoys that people here complain about pewdiepie not liking this thing and he is greedy, but he rarely even plays nintendo games! So it doesn't even affect him that much.

@anem0ne
The thing is, its always been in their terms and conditions, so its not a grey area. The problem stems from Google not policing it. this has led people to think they can do as they will with other peoples content but if it was fine you would be able to do it in other mediums.
Reviewing a game does not infringe on nintendo's rights and there for they cannot impose their policy on you.

What a selfish attitude! So what if it's free advertising? That doesn't negate the fact it is still OWNED AND COPYRIGHTED CONTENT! I see Nintendo making a very generous offer trying to meet people half way, and all I'm seeing in return is "No! It's not my content but I demand to take all the revenue from it!" Simply because Nintendo also benefits.

Imagine if Nintendo had that attitude. "You can use our content but you can't make a dime, we take 100% but hey, you still benefit because viewers gravitate toward gameplay".

Each is a selfish view, only difference is Nintendo is the one who owns the content. Like it it not, that's life. If someone told me I could use their content AND keep the majority cut, I'd be more than greatful.

Wow, I actually liked this guy before, but I can't respect falsely justified selfishness.

When I saw +200 comments on an article written the very same day that Hyrule received its DLC and Metroid Trilogy was released I asked myself "What are they talking about? It must be very important". Then I realized that YouTube celebrities exist. Oh dear... Maybe I'm just an old, boring aged gamer, but this is too much for me! If only I were at home now, playing with my WiiU...

@Yorumi
In an ethical and moral sense, if not an entirely legal one, I don't think it's right to profit from someone else's work like this. There's creative expression, which would just be doing it for free, and then there's actually depending on it for your livelihood, in which case the decision to not opt into Nintendo's revenue sharing program should be a clear and emotionless one. If it doesn't make financial sense, don't do it. The free market will dictate that Nintendo will eventually make their revenue sharing program more attractive or - what I think would be smarter - simply start putting out their own content.

Nintendo is unquestionably out of touch when it comes to issues like this. But I do not like the sense of entitlement some people have when it comes to what they can and can't profit from.

The other point in regards to its free advertising could come down to this one statement! 'Did Nintendo ask you to advertise their game?'.
I can go further with 'can you demonstrate that you videos have translated in to direct sales'.

This kind of stuff shows the true colours of some Youtube "stars".

@JaxonH
100% agree

While I understand the copyright issues, having big YouTubers showing their games will help sell the games. Since Nintendo already has the smallest adverting of the big companies, they need this

@Quorthon
Is there really not a clear difference between Jerry and Larry using real-world products (and by your admission not caring about "free advertising") to make their show more relateable and, for example, spending twenty-two minutes reading aloud from a best-selling book every week, and using that book to advertise their show?

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" - Jerry and Kramer read Stieg Larson's best-selling novel. This Thursday on NBC.

As a cartoonist/animator, an LPer, and overall content creator, I can see where both sides are coming from in wanting to make money and protect their property.

What REALLY gets me about the "free advertisement" argument, though, is that it's essentially saying, "[I assume] I have the power to better your sales/profits, so I should be getting paid 100% to show how much fun I'm having!" But if your message is so important, then making money shouldn't be necessary, right? Of course not, because you know you CAN make money and you want to KEEP making money on something you have no legal grounds on, so you play the "poor little guy" card to protect your profits.

And I'm not saying that creators/entertainers don't deserve to make money, because as an artist, making a living off of my creations is a HUGE dream of mine. But you can't expect to keep all of the profits (or get mad when you don't) if you ARE using someone else's property in a non-critical or parody way (which are protected under "fair use").

All that said, it might be in Nintendo's best interest to ditch this program, but keep the split revenue sharing through content IDs. Also, if any of these LPers are smart, they'll do like Game Grumps and push other trades for when/if the Let's Play bubble ever pops. Companies don't have as much room/power to shut you down for parodies/animations/skits/music/etc.

"EA even has the Ronku program that pays YouTubers extra as an incentive to cover their games." That is nothing but a straight up bribe.

@NebulaGamer Your examples of how uploading gameplay is different from other media makes absolutely no sense and you should feel bad for saying it.

A 30-40% cut is rather steep, man.

@Nassov

Please tell me that's sarcasm or something...

You know, there are times where we, as Nintendo customers, can only see nintendo exclusive games through youtube ... Lookin at you, Fatal Frame 5

Honestly, these YouTubers sound like stuffy ameteur TV executives. Thinking their "channel" is of higher value than it actually is.

We'll all still play games and the world will keep turning. Dont care about needing maximum revenue gain to justify you playing a game over a webcam.

@Spade_the_prinny you should be

I guess we will see what happens. Other people will appear that are willing to do it - the question is whether the guys who won't accept it will make any difference. (Personally any opinion that puts ad revenue above actually showing the games they think are the best is one I am not interested in).

@JaxonH That's actually what they did up until now.

@Yorumi
if the game isn't important than why even show it? How do game sales get affected by YouTubers if the game they are playing is important. The fact is people are making money off copyrighted material without paying or partnering with the company that owns the copyrighted material. It is the reason why Team Four Star isn't making money off their videos (they make money off their merchandise) and they have the warning before every episode about who actually owns the content. This new Nintendo program is going to help YouTubers become a bigger role in Nintendo's marketing

This only effects little kids who watch these youtube "stars".
Nobody in their right mind watch that kind of stuff.
Intelligent people wouldn't care about this at all.
Those youtubers are just a bunch of whiny babies.

@Yorumi And there are YouTubers that make money solely from their personality or from the original content that they create.

Of course playing a game that you legally bought isn't wrong. I don't even believe that recording and broadcasting a playthrough of a video game is inherently wrong if it's done for free. But it dovetails with another discussion about whether games are a form of art. I, and a lot of other people, believe that they are, and for them to be taken seriously as a form of art, they must be held to similar standards. If you're going to use someone else's work, you must consult them before you're allowed to profit from it, ESPECIALLY when it's so dependent on its existence. It's as simple as that.

I don't really see what's so wrong with this especially if you are making a lot of money on every company's properties. This is basically part of the cut you get for making videos on all the systems you use, it's not you making a video on a game on Steam and Nintendo takes sone of your money on that.

I think this isn't as black and white as people make it out to be. People always talk about "free advertising". But advertising for what? If this advertisement worked, the WiiU would be selling a lot more than it currently does. (yes, almost every video is about how much fun the player is having with a Nintendo game). This is 2015. The ones that don't know about the Nintendo quality aren't the ones that watch this free advertisement. It's a shame that youtube has become a job platform rather than a section of the internet where gamers upload interesting videos for gamers. It's all about the money nowaday. The worst example is this: "Taking it further, EA even has the Ronku program that pays YouTubers extra as an incentive to cover their games.". Any self-respecting gamer shouldn't take money from EA or advertise their games.

All I can see and read from Youtubers is this: WAAAHHHH!!!!! No more money!!!!!

Simple fact 1: They are making money off of someone else's Intellectual Property with out the IP owner getting a cut. In any other business that would be shut down completely.

Simple fact 2: Nintendo are fully well within their rights to put a 100% ban on people making money from Nintendo videos on Youtube.

They should be thankful that Nintendo have even allowed them to continue. I can honestly see this being the first domino to fall and other companies follow suit.

@mainstream05

You're equating two completely different things. Like apples and badgers.

Someone reading an entire book is one thing--but there are audiobooks out there, and this is an established industry with clear boundaries. People buy books to read them or they buy audiobooks to listen to them.

People do not buy video games to watch them. Watching someone playing a video game is no different than watching someone eat at McDonald's or drive a Jeep.

The reason there's so much gray area talk in this because video games and YouTube are both entities that muddle some aspects of both copyright and EULA. The point of a movie is to watch it, the point of a book is to read it, the point of a game is to play it, and the point of a Jeep is to drive it (and be awesome doing so).

In YouTube, if you just read a book, you'd be stepping into copyright territory, so long as you're making money on it. If you're playing a game, that's different. The viewer is not playing the game.

You can't equate these things, it just doesn't work. This becomes particularly muddied if there is a running commentary on the work. Then there is also satire to think about.

A lot of this black-and-white over-simplification of this whole thing by many here is absurdly anti-intellectual, and personal opinions on whether or not anyone likes PewDiePie (etc) only advertises that said individual totally missed the point. @Yorumi has been pretty solid on this. And @anem0ne made a very good point about how this program is still in it's beta, so hopefully Nintendo will work with YouTubers to make it something worthwhile.

My only point is that Nintendo's reaction is a little too knee-jerky (despite the time they put into this) and such a stark contrast to how the rest of the industry handles YouTube, that it makes them look outdated, out of touch, irrelevant, and at worst, somewhat greedy or malevolent.

Nintendo is in their right according to YouTube policies, but so are other publishers, and they aren't taking this action, which makes Nintendo look bad at these initial stages.

Nintendo is in an unenviable position right now: They are trying to sell a console that the gaming industry as a whole doesn't care about, the company, by and large, looks archaic, irrelevant, and out of touch, and they're generally poor at marketing. This is a blow Nintendo should have avoided, and in the public eye, will not serve them well.

Good videos on the subject for people interested in them.

Totalbiscuit speaks about Nintendo's new affiliate program.

Totalbiscuit speaks about Nintendo's former targeting of Youtube videos in 2013.

@BieberBlows

"First off, PewDiePie is an idiot and anyone who watches his videos is dumber than he is. "

Wow, what a wonderful, lovely person you are. So mature.

"Secondly, uploading gameplay is copyright infringement."

Except it isn't.

"It is no different than uploading music or TV shows without proper consent."

With movies and music, you have to watch it for the full experience. On the other hand, with video games, you have to PLAY it to get the full experience. So uploading video game footage IS different than uploading music or TV shows without "proper consent".

"And finally, it is not free advertising."

Except it is.

"Watching some dude play through a game defeats the purpose of buying it"

No it doesn't (unless the game is heavily story driven).

@MajinSoul

The end of your post reeks of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

I'm a self-respecting gamer, and I happen to own a wealth of EA games, like Mass Effect and Dead Space. The company is imperfect, as any publisher, but let's get over this petty nonsense.

"In todays top news: People complain that they are not able to make free cash from doing what others do in their freetime. More at 11."

I'm sorry for Zack Scott

@Quorthon
I have some on my mind but I can name a few. For the immediate and obvious ones, these LPers think they became too big they are preventing Nintendo in exercising their rights by threatening to boycott Nintendo and making them look bad. I mean it's Nintendo's right you know. Why are they suddenly evil and greedy for asking where credit is due?

In the long term when they become even bigger, these LPers could even ask publishers to pay them to cover their games or if they don't, they could try to break them. I dunno really, but it could happen. Nintendo could see it better.

May I ask you if you're in charge of Nintendo, would you rely on these loose canons to do some of the marketing for you? No contracts like this BETA creator's program and no control over them, where either they could talk good or talk sh(i)t about your products while making money out of your IPs?

Nintendo didn't ask these LPers for free advertisement nor marketing. Now they are doing it officially on contract with the Nintendo Creator's Program.

Wow nintendo fanboys really are on flame here. I love the company but i hate that policy. Totalbisquit video about this whas well said I recomend that.

This video sums up why it sucks for Youtubers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cEU51PbTw
And why Nintendo SUCK when it comes to this!

I love Nintendo but there business practices are absolutely terrible & this thing that Nintendo made is stupid. From what I hear big networks that offer 90% of the AD-Revenue. Nintendo is only offering, 60 to 70% of the AD-Revenue. I watched Reviewtechusa video & he makes a valid point....If this works out, other companies will do this as well. This is stupid...Shame on Nintendo. — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbS16UJqH5g

@BensonUii

They aren't preventing Nintendo from exercising their rights at all. Nintendo is still free to collect money on this--and these guys are free to tell Nintendo to fornicate themselves if they feel unfairly treated.

There was already a huge backlash against YouTubers asking for money, and that did not work out for the few greedy donkeyhats that tried it.

Now, if I were running Nintendo? Man, if only. The current console wouldn't be the Wii U, and it'd be selling a lot better. Ha! But this is part of one of my long-running points--that Nintendo badly needs a change in management because the "old ways" aren't cutting it in this modern industry.

I would probably do exactly what I plan to do with my team's upcoming game--let it get out there, and let people talk about it how they wish. Marketing and getting noticed is one of the hardest parts of this industry these days. Take the advantages where they appear.

This is a bad thing. Other video game developers let LPers keep 100% of their videos. Nintendo is just being greedy and trying to take every penny they get. Also they're forcing people to say only good things about Nintendo, and they're not allowed to criticize their games in any way.

Seriously people, you can be a Nintendo fan but still hate their business practices and policies.

I own s franchiseed business. I have to pay for the right to use the name and products from this franchisee. End of the day, we both make money. Just because I sell coffee and Nintendo sells video games is no different. if a you tuber makes money off of nintendos games, then Nintendo has the right to share in that as well. If you don't like it, then don't use nintendos products. Hate to say but all devs will eventually follow Nintendo in this area.

I'm possibly being slow but regardless of how other companies operate - currently not allowed to use nintendo games , this new program means you can and you also get paid for it just not as much as for ther companies as nintendo get some!!? Currently nothing in future get money- why are people whinging? Greed goes both ways people

@kereke12

I don't think other companies will necessarily start doing it, even if Nintendo makes this work out. After all, when the XBO was originally online-only, Sony was adamant that their console would not operate in that way. Currently, this move makes Nintendo look bad--which is something other companies may capitalize upon.

whine whine I make money uploading videos of me playing games I didn't make to youtube and now the company that owns said games wants a cut of said money whine whine. Youtube stars are about the only thing worse than reality tv stars. Get over yourselves. Does anyone actually go to youtube to find out about games? Like, really? Between demos and officially available preview videos and all the other word of mouth info out there, why? This makes Nintendo look smart, not bad.

Over 250 comments on this, seriously who cares

Its a chicken and egg relationship, Pew doesn't get any clicks unless he is playing video games and those games are copyrighted in the first place. He can't complain about having to pay his fair share of the revenue generated when he has to exploit someone else's IP in order to get the revenue. Let's face it this guy makes a fortune for basically recording his own pass-times. His complaints ring hollow.

@kereke12

That's an outstanding video. He makes an excellent case and deconstructs the agreement itself. It sounds much more stringent than I would have expected.

@Quorthon First, authors receive royalties from audiobooks of their work.

Second, your point is not only that Nintendo has been too knee-jerky (which I have never disputed). Or if it is your only point, you have gone out of your way to also insist that these long-form videos are a form of "free advertising." To your earlier point, there's a HUGE difference between Jerry drinking a can of Coke on an episode of Seinfeld and a video of someone playing Titanfall (or what-have-you). One is a prop on a television show, the other is the subject of a video, and the game publisher and developer have no control over what is said in the video about their product. There is a general assumption that if a Let's Play is made about the game, it is reinforcing that the game they're playing is worth buying and playing for themselves, hence suggesting it benefits the publisher.

You're also arguing that video games are "meant to be played." Another commenter used the "this form of media is meant to be this, this is meant to be this, etc. etc." argument and, in the very same comment, claimed that watching videos of playthroughs saved him money, implying that it influenced his decision to NOT purchase a game. This is not helping the "free advertisement" argument! Nor do I believe that you can insist that games are only "meant to played" because it is a relatively new form of media and "played" is a vague term. The point of this argument is to devalue a recording of a playthrough. But by collective ad revenue on that action, YouTubers are demonstrating that it does have value! That is money Nintendo could be collecting on its own channel.

So once again, we come around to the "Nintendo being too knee-jerky" point. If that really is your only point, then your arguments should be rooted in why it's a bad business decision, not because Let's Plays are a form of "free advertising" (they're not; they've become a form of entertainment) or because it is not taking away value from its product (it is, or the amount of revenue Nintendo would be collecting is 0 percent). I don't dispute that there are benefits to Nintendo offering more of the revenue to the YouTubers, but I still don't think offering ANY revenue at all is the best business decision when they could easily and cheaply create their own content.

@Yorumi Your bakery comparison is, as @Quorthon called it, like comparing apples and badgers. Flour is a commodity, a good. The amount of bread is limited by the amount you can sell, which is limited by the amount of flour you have to make bread. To make more bread, you buy more flour.

Video games, video, music, and media in general are intellectual property. I can't make a movie using songs from incredibly successful artists and then sell it without paying those artists. Or to pick up on your "these personalities have millions of subscribers so they must be doing something right" argument, Grand Theft Auto is a wildly successful series with a reputation for featuring really good soundtracks. It could be argued, though, that those games are well-designed and would sell even if they used generic or unknown music. But Rockstar still pays every artists because that is - well, the law, but more importantly - because that's what's morally and ethically responsible.

If there is one thing we can agree on, it's that the laws need to be updated to define and protect interactive media.

LOL on those TV comparison making profit from advertisements. The TV companies paid those publishers rights to air their programs/movies. Did LPers paid publishers rights to share/air games? They only bought it for personal use.

@mainstream05

Totally agree with you

How about it is made ok for me to Stream the Blu-Rays and CD's I bought.

For other forms of media public performance requires paying much more in the first place.

I honestly don't get watching people on UTube play video games.

Call me crazy, I rather use that time playing the games myself.

I am about to ban UTube in my house - I swear that is all my kids do is watch other people play Minecraft on it.

We have two sign-ons for PC w/private server, we have it on PS3, Xbox 360, Kindle Fires, Ipad Mini 2's, Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung Tab 3 8.0 and Samsung Tab 4 10.1. The only thing we don't have it on is 3DS and Wii U and if it was available we would probably have it on those also.

@mainstream05

I never said anything @Yorumi said was like comparing apples and badgers.

Your point about watching videos and a guy deciding not to buy the game is no different than reading a review or playing a demo and deciding not to buy a game. Should we get rid of reviews, also? Should reviewers have to give ad revenue to Nintendo? Should Nintendo have to approve the review, in the same way they now have to approve the content in this Creators program? Should demos be done away with?

(As an aside, I would and have argued that demos are damaging to sales, but that if a dev wants to do them, by all means, they should be able to.)

This is another good one, and he covers a lot of the gray area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ud0j9q7pk0

they are dumb and pewdiepie doesnt needs any more funny.. like what for? im not on anyones side

I kinda want either a company, or youtuber, to go to court just so we can finally have a precedent

@Yorumi

At that point what are LPers transforming? They are not transforming the gameplay. They are showing the gameplay, the cinematics, and the music all of which is copyrighted. Them adding commentary doesn't transform the work, it adds to it. I can't record a new scene for a movie then sell the whole movie + my scene without the permission of the copyright owners of the movie. It is not transformative.

Seriously, this is a really good video, and he's explaining things many of you blindly defending Nintendo are not aware of. I wasn't aware of them either.

Nintendo would have total control over the content or approval of your videos and your channel would effectively become a part of Nintendo's channel system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ud0j9q7pk0

By the way, Smash Bros and Earthbound are not included or allowed.

@Quorthon Ahh, the slippery slope argument. Are we talking about written reviews or video reviews? Written reviews are words; they're protected as journalism and free speech. Publishers also release marketing materials for public use, including screenshots and videos. They have given permission for those things to be redistributed, so their use in video reviews or, really, anything is encouraged. I guess if people put up playthroughs of demoes, themselves forms of marketing material, I wouldn't have anything negative to say about them either.

You used the phrase "apples and badgers." I found that amusing, and gave you credit.

So much righteous indignation in one thread! Lol.

@Yorumi If fair use law is extended to protect recordings of people playing video games, I'll shut my mouth. But I don't see how it's a form of parody. In the case of most Let's Plays, I see it as using someone else's intellectual property without permission to make money, and in my book, that's theft.

When I look at this whole youtube thing it makes me think of scalpers purchasing Limited edition games or consoles and reselling them at ridiculous just to make a profit.

@mainstream05

Doesn't matter. Your argument was that a video convinced a guy not to buy the game, so anything that convinces a guy not to buy a game is some kind of problem. My point was that it was not a valid argument.

It'd be like trying to ban or control word of mouth if you told me not to buy Sonic Boom and I didn't because you told me it sucked.

It wasn't about a slippery slope, it was about an argument that simply doesn't work and creates too many other issues.

The apples and badgers note was more in the vein of Grammar Nazi correction. It came off as if you said I said that about Yorumi's point. If you have about 22 minutes and some headphones, what have you, I'd be interested on your thoughts on the video I linked. It's the YouTube channel FarFromSubtle and he seems to have read the entire document and has some very interesting points.

If you're doing a let's play shouldn't' you be doing it for fun rather than based on whatever monetary compensation you get for playing it? Whatever I don't follow Let's Play minus a couple people occasionally.

@liljmoore

Holy crap, those things are not even remotely comparable.

@FLUX_CAPACITOR

Yes, this was basically my point as well. The people watching his videos are unlikely to give a crap about the games he's playing (Let alone Nintendo) and that I'm fairly certain at least for Nintendo, the LP videos do very little to help or hurt the sales.

Obviously this may not be true for other companies and developers, but in Nintendo's case I don't see it doing much one way or another.

@Quorthon No, it wasn't, my argument is that a video using a company's intellectual property without permission and collecting ad dollars influenced someone's decision to purchase the product containing said intellectual property. The "without permission" and "collecting ad dollars" being the key parts.

As a creator yourself, I'm shocked that you're so quick to dismiss the IP rights of gamemakers.

@Quorthon
In reading random comments and backwards, and I just want to nitpick on something you said that video games are to be played and different from watching. Actually they are both and more. Do you play videogames without watching? Or hearing/reading?
I think playing videogames compose of watching, controlling and listening/reading.

@mainstream05

Man, that sounds like a gray area of a gray area. That may or may not fall under fair use, but then we're getting into territory I can't respond to. My point was always on Nintendo's public image in this. So, ha, sorry I can't take that further.

You were responding while I was editing my last post. If you have the time, about 23 minutes, I'm curious on your thoughts on the video I linked. He lays out a lot of really good points on all fronts.

Wow. It's free advertising and nintendo is the only one making a stink about this. Their marketing is just horrible. I work with people that still confuse the wii with the wii u. nintendo directs are only reaching fans and not the masses as well.What do they have to gain from this?I see several comments here defending the big n so that's no big surprise.I figure nintendo could leave a bag of horse dung on your door step and you'd still find a way to put a positive spin on it.

@BensonUii

Hey, don't Grammar Nazi a Grammar Nazi. That creates like (Grammar Nazi)2 and then we're getting into Math Nazi territory.

And frankly, that's maybe too much Nazi. And we'd need Semantics Nazi to sort it all out, and that's definitely too much Nazi.

(I was simplifying gaming to it's most basic element--playing, initeracting.)

@Quorthon It's just how I look at it. It's the first thing that pops into my head.

@Yorumi I would say these videos aren't transformative. They're using the product as it was meant to be used, and adding commentary. Rifftrax does commentaries for popular movies, but they only sell the audio of their commentary, because the movie in every other form is protected by IP law. Again, the law needs to be updated to protect video games and their creators.

I think Nintendo is a bit misguided here. They certainly have every right to take this position, but I believe it does them more harm than good. This will generate more ill will than revenue for Nintendo.

This is going to be a long post but here goes.

I am on side with the youtubers on this one. There are many games (regardless if they are Nintendo games or not) that I have seen them play games and they looked like I would enjoy them. I would stop the videos and go and buy the product.

Indie companies need Let's Players or Reviews on youtube to help promote their content as they don't have the money to show off there product. Many games became successful because of LP with minecraft being the obvious answer. Where would that game be if it wasn't for them.

Nintendo should work with them not create a program that pushes them away. It's free advertisement for them (They hardly do any advertisement themself so they should really be thanking them). The more people that will stop doing Nintendo stuff the quicker it will come back to bite Nintendo.

If you read the fine print of this program you will see that it will have to go through Nintendo for approval. While I do understand why they want to do this but this also discourages people from joining the program also as you will have to suck up to Nintendo just to to get your video approved. People won't be able to give any criticism about the product (even if it is constructive criticism in fear of it not being approved).

All in all this will just become a mess for 2 reasons.
1: bigger youtubers won't do it as this program won't benefit them but they won't do Nintendo products in fear of their video getting no money from them or getting a strike on their account.

2: Upcoming youtubers joining this program to make easy money but will have to give nothing but positive things about Nintendo products and in the end will lose all creditability for the youtuber because they they say "Product A is a great game" but it is really a terrible game and mislead everyone one who went out and bought the game because they said so.

There could a great game that Nintendo releases that they published but doesn't do any advertisement for themCoughWonderful101Cough. People could have shown off that game and would have shown the game to millions of people who never heard of it and are now interested in buying it but with Nintendo and their policies, people are not going to bother with it as they fear Nintendo will issue a strike to their channel. People in program will have to avoid saying anything bad about the game just to get approved.

Nintendo should just let let's players do their thing and let them earn their 60% from the video revenue (the other 40% goes to Google).

@Yorumi

It is just different ways of presenting the work. You can either experience the gameplay by watching someone play it or by playing it yourself. You can watch a movie on the big screen, tv screen, or whatever screen or stream it on YouTube. It is just presenting the work in different ways. This is just a big grey area but if Nintendo had zero right to do this then it wouldn't be happening. I wonder how long until someone takes a company to court for claiming copyright on a Lets Play.

The point is that YouTubers are showing massive amounts of copyrighted material. Whether it is the art, music, gameplay, characters, story, or cinematics it is all copyrighted. They should have to follow the same rules for any other copyrighted material. Nintendo is offering people a way to use the material instead of just taking down the videos. Nintendo is basically handing them the rulebook.

@Smash_kirby So, MST3K, then?

@Quorthon I won't have 23 free minutes for several hours, but I ask you to put yourself in these shoes:

You make a game. Someone does a Let's Play trashing it.

It's his opinion. His opinion is protected as free speech. But he's using footage of your game to show off the only parts worth playing to save his viewers money. He spoils the end of the game, shows off secrets you wanted players to find for themselves, etc.

And he's making money from ads doing it.

How the hell do you feel about that?

Can we put the whole "free advertising" thing aside? That has nothing to do with what is going on. This is about copyrighted material being used without the permission of the owner of the copyright.

@PaperMario64 hey jontron deserve a making money, he is funny and great guy

@erv
Nice comment erv makes sense.. Let's see where the chips fall on this one

@Quorthon
You can't compare reviews with what this article is about.
Once again you are taking things way out of context.
Also I'm not going to watch some youtube video about how illuminati is taking money from hardworking youtubers.

@Yorumi We are discussing Let's Plays, so let's focus on that.

The reason I don't believe it's a gray area, ethically, is because you're assuming that the only value a video game is the interactive component. As we all know because we're all gamers, video gamers are not solely interactive. Metal Gear Solid has like hours of cutscenes that are not interactive. That is value. Lots of video games have story, some of which (Rainbow Six Vegas comes to mind) is told exclusively through gameplay, meaning a Let's Play inherently is giving away the story as well. That is value too. That is why IP law needs to be updated.

I dislike most of the Youtube gaming community so good for all of them, hope more companies force this upon them!

@Yorumi

your right. the fact that they haven't been taken to court I think a good indication that Nintendo isn't doing anything illegal.

Its pretty simple. Let's play's are already shady ground, and the people doing them are not paying out anything. They are playing games they enjoy, talking about them while showing the game from beginning to end to people watching the stream. The game's aren't their past buying a copy and they have no right to make unfettered cash off them. The people running those channels are just 2 bit star wannabe's who want the attention and cash and no responsibility otherwise. I think Nintendo giving them free run to do their thing while Nintendo itself gets a share of the streams about their games is perfectly legit, and perfectly acceptable.

@DefHalan It goes both ways chief. Admitting that this is a harmful move is relevant to the article.Nintendo is the only one making a big deal over this.

@DarkKirby TB rules! also, I could look at your avatar all day

At the end if the day if these you tubers dont want to fall in with nintendos policy, then dont cover the games. What's the big deal, its not like anyones being forced to cover them is it

@Tiredman
Exactly! I'm not surprised if more companies will go the same way.
The gaming industry needs to control what is out there. The only reason it's not regulated more as it is, is because "streaming" and "let's play" is relatively "new" concepts, or just the last 5 years become this big.

@mainstream05

That's his prerogative. Look, my team and I are still dragging our donkeys through lotcheck, and I told them and reminded myself a long time ago that we're going to have to deal with negative comments, people not liking our game, and whatnot.

But we buckled down and we worked hard, and I'm really confident that we have something good because, dammit, I was just testing one small thing last night and I kept going. We have solid gameplay and an addictive formula.

If someone doesn't like it, they don't like it. It sucks, move on.

I have a moment of anxiety as to what your post potentially indicates. Do I want to take that guy's money because he didn't like my game? Do I want to silence him somehow? Should I be angry that he got paid something to trash or negatively review something I made? Or for that matter, does the game deserve the treatment and how does it compare with how others perceive it?

I mean, it starts wading into some really unethical territory, and I'd rather just take my lumps and use them to improve myself and my thinking. My games will only be as good as our critics, and sure, some people are donkey-holes. I won't let them bother me, and I'll work to maintain a positive attitude about any criticism within the team itself.

Whatever his opinion, I have no right to any of his money, nor do I have any right to interfere with his income just because I might not like what he has to say about me. Unless his behavior was crooked, evil, or actually harmful --like the old TV Evangelist Peter Popoff who was scamming money from people and giving them false hope and phony cures--then by all means, it is his right.

Edit: I forgot to answer your question through my ranting: Pertaining to my feelings, they are irrelevant to this.

@Superryanworld

Might be relevant to the article but not the conversation that we are having. Not sure what part you are referring to, the "free advertising" remark or the fact that people aren't trying to stand up against Nintendo for what they think they can "legally" do.

@Yorumi

People go after big corporations all the time. What is stopping people from going after Nintendo? If they really believe the law is on their side then what do they have to lose? The reason why no one is standing up against this is because Nintendo have the legal right to do this and people are just upset that it is happening.

It's Nintendo's property. They have every right to do what they want with it.

If I were to take a picture of a friend's painting that they spent months on, shrink it down, and then sell it to people as a postcard WHILE telling them that it's just a smaller version of the real deal,..

Most people wouldn't care, they just want a nice postcard and my friend wouldn't see a dime, even though it originally was his hard work.

This youtube deal is just the same. People like pewdipie don't make games, never claim to either, but they are making money off of games that other people made and who they basically don't want to compensate in any way.
Yet Nintendo is the bad guy here? Seriously? Saying it's 'free advertisment' is a joke. It's not free, pewds is getting paid and making money off of someone else's work. That's the problem.

@Kalmaro

That is not a good analogy.

@Yorumi I never actually brought the law into this, I just said it was wrong. Like from a moral standpoint.

At the end of the day, people are making money off of something someone else made, Review is one thing since it just gives you a small bit of a game but we're talking about playthroughs of an entire game aren't we?

@Quorthon Howso?

@Yorumi

One of the last guys that attempted to go after Nintendo lost all their patents to Nintendo.

@Yorumi

Personally I can easily ignore this. Why can't YouTubers? Many of them try to make a living off their videos. If Nintendo (or another big company) was going after my way of living, the way I support my family and I know I was legally correct and they were legally wrong then I would challenge them. I would risk my own life for the people I love.

The reason why YouTubers don't have a leg to stand on is because they are using copyrighted material. it doesn't matter if they are showing the game in a different way than it is supposed to be seen. The material they use is copyrighted, which is a fact. The owner of copyrighted material has rights that protect the way their copyrighted material is used. Nintendo is using their rights to protect their material. Team Four Star and other abridge series go through certain steps to keep their videos running (and part of that is not making profit off those videos) Why should another video that uses copyrighted material not have to go through any steps?

I'm with Nintendo on this one, they have every right to demand any percent of profits from these videos. And this arrogant guy thinks Nintendo owes him something, not only is Nintendo far more well known than this guy, but he hasn't done any work to get his money; it's based on the work of the developers.

@Kalmaro

Watching a video game on YouTube is not the same as playing the game yourself.

Viewing or selling a print of the piece of artwork is similar to viewing or selling the artwork itself.

Nothing of your own merit has been added to the postcard, it is merely someone else's work. The YouTube personalities are adding to the content.

This is where a lot of the grey area talk comes into play--Video Games are not like movies or books or art in a key way, and that's in their use and interactivity. For the most part, in order to get the experience of the game, you must actually play it.

YouTube itself is a chunk of this grey area, and Yorumi has done a much better job than I of explaining this. I think a part of why YouTube incorporated the options to make money on copyrighted things like games is to save the website (and company) itself from legal battles. They then give owners of the original content the right to call dibs on the money, and for the most part, only Nintendo does. The vast remainder of the gaming industry has stepped back and realized that showing these videos online does not really harm their game sales or interfere with the end product.

@Quorthon See, if you decide to not take any of his money, that's your decision. But I'd argue that if he uses YOUR IP to voice his opinion - not clips of promotional material you sent out, but recordings of things you wanted people to discover for themselves - and he makes money from it, you're entitled to a cut.

I deliberately picked the worst case scenario because the flip side of the coin is what if someone uploads an entire playthrough of your game but loves it. It's easy to say the value of that video is free advertising, but I argue that that is not the inherent case.

@mainstream05

There's still some value in the free advertising, even of the negative.

Nobody bought Treefall's dreadful "The Letter" because it's a good game. It has some of the worst reviews of any game this generation. People bought it distinctly to revel in in "E.T. 2014," as it were.

Again, just because someone says something bad doesn't mean I'm going after him. For one thing, I'd end up looking like some frivolous sack of crap attempting to silence his critics. Such an individual is extremely untrustworthy to pretty much anyone.

Would you have a positive view of, say, Atlus, if Atlus spent all their time trying to bully or silence critics? Or Denis Dyack? As that man did spend a lot of time online badmouthing critics? Or the recent example from this very site, of Ninja Pig attacking Nintendo Life for their criticism?

It's not my right to silence the opinions of others, nor would it paint a particularly rosy picture of me as a developer.

@CapeSmash I know I'm a wonderful person, people tell me that all the time. Everything else you said is wrong. Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright law with out permission, infringing exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to display or perform the work or to make derivative works, which is exactly what these YouTubers are doing. They are in the wrong and have no right to whine when Nintendo is demanding to take some of their revenue (30-40% is a little high but whatever). These videos being free advertising is debatable, as they can help some games but I believe they have an equal chance to keep people from buying games because you could save you $50-60 just by watching (no, it's not the same experience but it's pretty damn close).

Wow, so many comments
Anyhoo, people say it's "free advertisement" and that "Nintendo is being stupid" or primitive. I think it actually harms them more than it does profit, since viewers can simply just watch a game being played through without having to buy it and play it themselves. Trust, there are people like that, unfortunately. So I say, good for Nintendo, don't always do the things that everybody else does, be different. They think long-term, which is why they always survive. Who knows, this whole youtube-gaming thing might just be a fad that will die out quicker than we think. I mean, it already has become somewhat oversaturated and is steadily losing value and becoming uninteresting. Everybody wants to be a "youtuber", trying to earn a quick buck through cheap (and arguably lazy) ways *cough playing games. I respect the educational side of YouTube though, and the content creators that put a lot - and at times - an unimagineable amount of effort in providing entertainment (you know, not just buying the one-time equipment and sitting in a dark room playing video games, in a mediocre manner at that). Just goes to show how society's standards and priorities have become all messed up in the recent years. Media dictates what we should consume and what we should like. When young, liable, naive children see that subscriber number on certain youtubers, they subconsciously feel obliged to subscribe to them as well and pretend to enjoy their content in some cases. Peer pressure, I guess. The fear of not belonging to the masses, not being accepted and what not. The cool kids like this and talk about this, so should I.
In the end, I don't wanna be that person, but sittin' in front of a screen with a mic in front playing video games and shouting (keep in mind, without providing some sort of valuable information)... hmmm. Is it entertainment? Sure. Is it valuable entertainment? Not the least bit, I don't think.
All in all, I personally couldn't care less just as long as Nintendo keeps doing its thang and providing me with my fav games. It seems to me that YouTubers are just bitter about this whole Nintendo situation and that they don't feel that total freedom that they would maybe like to have or have expected with YouTube, so their main reasoning and justification ends up being, "oh, Nintendo doesn't want our money...they're behind the times"
Oh, and such advertisement can be negative, with youtubers who have great influence (especially on young, liable children) talking badly - and usually unjustified and biasedly - about the games the play, which would then put off a lot of the viewers, have them jump on a bandwagon of subjective and unreasonable hate. We all want to be cool, right? Follow that popular opinion ...Mario is for kiddies, say the kiddies

Awesome! Now that Pewdiepie won't play Ninty games, I don't have to worry about any of them skyrocketing in price on ebay because "OMG PEWDS PLAYED IT IT'S SO EPICCC!! XD"

Can somebody please explain to me what a Pewdiepie is... I'm not 5 years old. LOL #Holidayspecial

@Quorthon That's debatable about playing a game and watching someone playing it being vastly different.

If you watch someone play a game from start to finish, you're basically getting the entire experience without really paying anything for it.

Some might say that it's just advertising still but what if the viewers get their fill and don't plan on buying the game since they already "seen" all of it? What then?

@Yorumi
Well I believe most would agree that profiting off of someone's work without them getting compensated in any way seems off.

@Yorumi

This is just going in circles. NintendoLife actually does get creatin things from Nintendo that they are allowed to put on their site. Fair use covers reviews and criticism. Fair use does not cover uploading entire works so you make money. You can say games are meant to be experienced by playing them, but that isn't how everyone experiences games. My wife is content watching me play some games. That is her experience. Some people are content with just listening to a movie and not watching it. Some people are content feeling the bass of a song without actually listening to it. There are multiple ways to enjoy entertainment. Ask any actor the proper way to experience Shakespear's work and they will tell you to watch a play in person. People still pay to see those works on TV and Movie screens. The way something is supposed to be enjoyed doesn't matter. What matters is that YouTubers are not following Fair Use and just throwing that in people's way cause it is easy to twist. I got to get to work but you guys have fun carrying on this conversation.

If you're willing to put the work into it, isn't it only right for people to make a living off of what they enjoy and do best? Not everyone has the right gifts that allow them to get a stable job. I know a lot of people aspergers who get bored and aren't motivated enough to keep a single job because it's just in their nature.

@BLPs Sounds like he needs to get a job

@Yorumi Just because a representative is elected by the people doesn't mean they do everything the people wants them to do.

We elected the president (or you guys did, I didn't vote for him) and I'm sure he's not doing everything he was voted in to do.

@Kalmaro

Well, that's highly debatable. If I watch someone play Far Cry 4, that's way different than experiencing that game for myself. That game is extremely lively, varied, and changes so many things so constantly. I once turned around to see a bear ahead of me, which was then attacked by a tiger that I hadn't noticed was in the area, and that gave me a clearing to run away from them to continue on the task I had given myself.

For the most part, games must be played to get the actual experience.

However, if it's something like a heavily story-driven game, say Heavy Rain or the Telltale games, it edges closer to your point. At the end, though, watching the game on YouTube is something that is distinctly different than the game itself--notably, the interactivity. And specifically in the case of Telltale games, maybe you watched only one way to play the game, and that frees you up to play it a completely different way if you so choose, but now you know somewhat what you're getting into.

In the end, it is not the same as selling, essentially, a picture of a picture made by someone else.

Video games are interactive. YouTube is not.

Nintendo really needs to get their act together on this front. I mean, registering an entire channel if they do 100% nintendo videos? Nobody does that, or will do that. And if you've done tons of nintendo videos you have to register them all 1 at a time. It's just silly.

Nintendo should just be happy they're getting free advertising

@BlatantlyHeroic

My girlfriend has blown disks in her spine that prevent her from any job where she sits all day or is on her feet all day (her schooling was in culinary arts, otherwise known as "on feet all day"), but she has a home business that allows her to run it how she wants and she can manage her back her way and right when she needs to.

@Quorthon That's all very true, is why I pointed out that people may not buy a game because they've "seen" it. I know for a fact that let's play are still good for getting people wanting to play a game but for the people who would have bought the game for the story but now can just watch a youtube video, that's lost revenue.

@Yorumi That's assuming that the majority always has the power in every situation. That's also assuming that every single person who is upset is saying something. Not everyone bothers to complain vocally though. Just like how not every person votes, some don't feel like they will be heard either way.

@DTFaux I am wondering how the Grumps feel about this.

"I guess what we're saying, Nintendo, 'We love you. Thanks for not suing us.'"

@Kalmaro

I'm not a fan of anything spoilerriffic, and on a personal note, regardless of if it's a YouTube video like this or an article at IGN that my girlfriend accidentally read that gave away a plot point of Gears of War 3 (thus partially ruining the experience for her), I'm not a fan.

I think thought, it's still just personal choice on the viewer. I'm all for the YouTuber's right to make these videos and earn a few bucks for it, but at best, the only thing I'd like is a big-ass spoiler warning.

For the most part, these guys aren't going to ruin anything else about a lot of these games just by watching them. As a developer, there's a valid point that it might cost a few sales here or there, but as a consumer, maybe it helps me save money on something that might have actually been a poor choice for me.

And now I'm sad about Gears of War 3 again.

@Yorumi What most people want is irrelevant compared to e.g what Disney wants.

@Yorumi
I said most people actually.

Not sure why you think I'm trying to remove free speech. i think people should be free to say whatever they want. However, his is about people showing footage of an entire game being played and not wanting to compensate the people who worked on the game.

Most people would agree that making money off of someone else's work isn't right, especially without getting permission from them. How is this any different? Nintendo is trying to make things easier by just taking a percentage of profits, that why no legal work will have to be worried about and people can do videos without worrying about stepping over any lines.

Get Pewdiepie the heck away from Nintendo games, please!

I've actually never watched PewDiePie, and don't plan to start. Quite frankly, I feel excessive YouTube coverage of game-play spoils the game. This issue won't affect the videos I watch in any way, shape, or form.

However, Nintendo's not taking the right approach and really should just appreciate the free advertising that YouTube creator's have provided them.

Pewds and Mr. Scott are completely right. What was Nintendo thinking with this move?

his argument has merits but everyone who punches in the name of that game will get a direct link to his crappy site. l him and his crappy channel . greedy. I would rather watch 8 bit eric lol

@Yorumi Fair Use is a defense but not a right. I think that, as others have said, it is extremely short-sighted to do this. However, I can understand some of their logic (flawed as it may be). Basically they are using a shotgun approach to a nuanced issue.

There is a difference between a Let's Play 'live' event stream that vanishes and an eternal video that let's you watch the game start to finish on demand. One should be allowed, the other is a murkier thing. It gets even more murkier when it is a story style game vs a tournament game (like a fighter).

If Nintendo wanted to exert control (which let's be clear, is their right), they needed to do the surgical work required to address all these different kinds of videos.

I think we should just say this.

Say you are someone who creates pixel art and you make something for say... RPG maker, lets say it's a tileset and you release it and let people know what you can do so people can have fun making a game. Someone then comes without asking takes your tileset and uses it for a game and they make a butt load of cash by selling the game they created but only gave you acknowledgement. then when you come and ask for royalties, they say "That's absurd, I am advertising your work so more people will want your work!"

How will that make you feel? How will it make you feel that someone is making a butt load of cash off of something you created? This is why people have to pay royalties to other people. They use someone else material for their own general income.

Also, the fact that pewdiepie said that Nintendo games are at the bottom of the list tells me he plays them only for money anyway and doesn't really care. He's only upset because with this move, he can lose a chunk of his views that watch his Nintendo material.... that's if he really has any substantial.

@Yorumi that is actually untrue about music, with music, you can't just take 100% of a song, rewrite the words and then call it yours. With music, you have both the music and the words copyrighted. If you take a piece of music that someone else wrote that is not in the public domain and you write lyrics to it and then sell it on a commercial scale, you will need to pay royalties to the original composer or rights holder of the tune. Fair use doesn't just give you free reign over stuff. Fair use is for giving you pieces of stuff without the copyright holder coming after you. Really, the more you use of something, the less fair use applies.

@Yorumi Even the example of a parody there's a difference. In a parody you're only really showing a part of the original artist's work. The music is sometimes the same (or often not, I've heard parodies where even the music is changed just a little) but the lyrics are different. thus it's not really the same song.

Showing gameplay footage of an entire game however is just that, you're showing everything that the developers worked on. Nothing is altered to protect the people who worked on the game in the first place, you're just showing everything and making a profit.

Stealing? Maybe in a sense. You're essentially stealing the work they've done to make a buck. That's why Nintendo is making these agreements in the first place.

As much as I hate to rush to the defense of a big corporation (pfftt, like they need more money), these youtube stars are just as greedy...except the only thing they contributed to these games are girly screams, terrible video editing, and a ton of stupid memes. I'm afraid I'm going to side with the original artist on this one. Playing the entire unaltered game and getting 100% of the profit? Vanilla Ice, anyone? (dun, dun, dun, d-d-dun.....sssss!)

@Yorumi I've seen more than a few let's plays without commentary. They're easy to find to, just search for "no commentary" and you'll find hundreds. After that you're basically just watching someone playing a game for you. I do it all the time when it's a game with lines I don't want to miss.

I'm al for people doing let's plays, especially for people like me who are broke and can't afford the games. Nintendo should just be compensated in some way too since it's their product.

@R_Champ didn't the Iceman say there was a ting in there as well? original remix!!! LOL

@Savino

That was a big part of PewDiePie's point.

@Yorumi What would you say to Nintedo just making it they took a cut if you recorded over a certain amount?

I think that sounds more fair to me, or maybe tagged your video as "Commentary"

@Spade_the_prinny no, buddy.

Well Boohoo. Cry me a bloody river. I have only heard knightmare stories about PewDiePie, about how his only commentary style is screaming into a mic. Therefore, I have made it my duty to avoid any off his stupid videos. This guy gets so many subscribers from assumingly screaming into a microphone, yet proper, genuinely great commentators like Chuggaaconroy and others are popular, but way too underappreciated. Sure, my not one view doesn't affect him at all and I understand that, but I ask, what makes this jabroni so special? Seriously, what's the dang appeal. And before anybody says it, the reason why I choose not to try PewDiePie out, is because I don't want to chance getting my eardrums burst because of the reported constant screaming...

@PaperMario64 I agree with you. My channel is small, and while I don't deny I'd love to get paid for my videos, I do it for the joy of gaming and not the money.

Lots of funny comments here. Since Nintendo is doing so badly right now, they shouldn't do stuff like this. Besides, how many of the few million Youtubers actually make their living by playing videogames? There are a lot of users like my friend who make, what, 0,05 € of it.

I can't blame the people on YouTube. Nintendo basically is getting away with having people work for them and the people have to pay them to do so. Its a very greedy move on Nintendo's part. Nintendo really should re-think this whole thing just from an ethics standpoint. This is almost as bad as what the NCAA does to College Athletes. NCAA gets away with slavery.

It is a weird attitude to have, especially at this point, Nintendo need some support and promotion.

But I'm extremely tired of greedy Youtubers importing games early and uploading full-length walkthroughs just for views and money. It spoils the surprise.

Pewdiepie has only played two Nintendo games on his channel - OOT and Smash 64 - and they were both ROMs played on the Project 64 emulator. Here's a guy who makes an insane amount of money by recording himself playing video games while being otherworldly feminine complaining about not making a few extra pennies off games he never bought.

I genuinely can't wait for him, and the self-important ninnys and pompous reviewers on there to fade into Fred-esque obscurity.

Though I do kind of feel bad for the channels who've been solely dedicated to Nintendo games, I wish them the best.

Sigh. Stupid of the let's players to think that they could go on making money by uploading unauthorized content anyway, but I feel for them. I doubt this will pan out, but ugh. Pewdiepie, you're an idiot.

YouTube stars aren't happy? Well, who cares?! I don't.

Who said they were somebody in the first place?

Let's Play/YouTube people whining again? See, this is why I'm extremely selective about the let's players I subscribe to.

What a laugh. "Free exposure and free publicity". Please. PewDiePie and his ilk are worried about the monetizing issue, that's all it is. They're not promoting anything (though if they really think they are, most of them are doing an extremely poor job). If Nintendo was interested in adding these people to their extensive marketing department I'm sure they would do so. As it is this program is the best they're gonna get and probably more than most of them deserve.

There's a difference between advertising and marketing, and I would argue these sorts of videos fall under the latter. The implication isn't necessarily that people will immediately go out and buy the game, but rather you're building brand awareness, content awareness, hardware awareness, etc. Marketing is a long con, and exposure and eyeballs mean everything. It's not the broadcast model anymore, with a transmitter and a receiver (company/audience, whatever you like). It's buzz and likes and sharing that builds a groundswell. That build support. And that is what Nintendo has utterly and completely failed at. They talk to the people they already have. But they don't build the bigger network of support, of awareness, that they should.

Let me see if I got it: This new system is basicaly Nintendo taking some of the profit these youtubers get?

If they're getting paid and the videos aren't being copyright claimed I don't see the big deal.
And if Nintendo is the only company that takes a cut of the revenue, how do you know other companies don't do it and just don't say it?

Hey anyone who doesn't want to be and think freely: just follow me!! I'll tell you what to think, what to eat, when to sleep, when to breath, even what to feel..

So, yes, fans of YouTubers may discover Nintendo games via their channels. But this works both ways. If Nintendo sets up a scheme like this it then becomes in the interest of them to promote the YouTubers as well. They're being very short-sighted in not seeing this. Nintendo already do it with certain YouTubers, promoting them on their social media, arranging interviews with devs and such.

Plus, sorry but Nintendo are the ones who did the hard work here. They made the game, these guys are just playing it and commentating over the top where commentary is not necessarily needed. Most people pay for the privilege to play these games, these folk expect to be paid?

And finally, aren't we constantly being told these days that demos can be damaging to game sales? And could that not extend to these videos too? Certainly for more story driven games.

It's exposure sure, but it's exposure for both parties. It's advertising for both parties. It's potentially beneficial for both parties.

If you're going to not play Nintendo games just because of this you're not really in it for the games, you're in it for the money and I don't want to watch you play.

@mch Which britpop band should I listen to?

@Quorthon
Wow, insulting people by calling them blind.
What other pewdiepie levels or narcissistic behavior are you going to get at by talking to others this way? Or is it just your plan to be known as "edgy"

@Takerkaneanite6
Not to mention swearing and insulting constantly
Much like user quorthon

@Yorumi 45 minutes doesn't sound too bad to me.

I find this kind of corporate bull from companies like Nintendo and Microsoft really disappointing. It's this kind of business practice that turns once loyal fans into ex customers imo.

@Kirk don't forsee anyone leaving nintendo over this

@Quorthon
How is that relevant to anything?
And yes I read the comment you were replying

Nintendo has every right to do this. However, that doesn't necessarily make it the best thing to do.

This is likely to cause plenty of people on youtube to stop covering Nintendo products, which will result in less free advertisements for Nintendo, and less people buying Nintendo products. Right now, Nintendo needs to be increasing their marketing campaign and encouraging promotion on various sites including youtube.

Plus, I don't get all of the hate for Let's Play videos here. I don't enjoy watching those videos, but I've got no problem with anyone else watching them.

@AndymanMessiah
If you are 'kean', don't look back in anger, 'chumbawamba'! All dazed and confused from that 'supergrass'? Then i recommend studying the lyrics of song two, 'take that' to your 'radiohead', creep!

lol, that was bad..
My point was: Everybody should go out there and live life (and play games) themselfes, no need to focus too much on others, fashion, youtubers ect.

World's smallest violin.

Holy crap. I just noticed how small my scrolling bar is. This comment section is HUGE.

They do make some valid points but as a YouTuber who doesn't make money off of any videos, I really have no problem with it.

Hard to believe people would stick up for Nintendo in this case because of a fanatical belief Nintendo can do no wrong. These guys dedicate a lot of their time to their Craft. Nintendo wants to make slaves of them, but there is nothing wrong with that?

@AndymanMessiah
Sorry for stalking. I just read your comment on here and totally agree with you. I understand you are Swedish?! Man, no need for Britpop, you got (or had) 'The Hellacopters', love their sound and very muched enjoyed seeing them live when they used to visit my country.

I like how half of the comment section just sterotype lets players all because one terrible, greedy lets player said something stupid. I'm guessing none of you heard of Vinesauce or SGB.

It sad when I actually expect this out of the NL's comment section.

Why the heck does nobody get the fact that this is affecting everyone not just Let's Players. Websites like mine and Nintendo Life get hit with copyright claims constantly by Nintendo and Youtube for showing any footage of any of their games during podcasts, video reviews, and video features. Which is the equivalence of Nintendo shooting their own selves in the foot, especially considering the company has shown that they don't even understand how to advertise anything. Even media websites that do podcasts and video reviews without making money off of their videos are having their channels shutdown...all-in-all Nintendo is definitely the "bad guy" regarding the youtube situation.

@Geonjaha His opinion would be a lot easier to take into consideration if he wasn't such an donkeyhole.
"Nintendo doesn't release THAT many games"
"Limiting your content to a single company is silly"
"Play other games"

But I agree with most of his point. Nintendo's doing something incredibly stupid just to get pennies, and it's even more stupider how so many fellow fans are supporting them.
God, I hate this fanbase.

@ACK
Excellent statement and very well said. And the answer is no, you can't trust a YouTuber to give an unbiased opinion knowing they're choice of game is based on the cut of revenue they receive. Reminds me of what RazorFist was talking about with journalists (and even smaller Youtubers) getting an E3 press pass and being handed free consoles by the manufacturers. It raises doubt as to whether or not you're going to get an unbiased opinion.

If these Youtubers barely make any money off their videos, then this whole debate is a moot point for them. It doesn't really matter because either way they're not making money. If they are making substantial profits, then they should be rejoicing at Nintendo's generosity here, because now they can monetize gameplay AND keep the majority cut.

Fact is, it's Nintendo's content, like it or not. And just because Joe Schmoe company allows such and such, doesn't mean they're automatically entitled for Nintendo to do the same. If I were Nintendo, I'd recant this offer and say ok ya bunch of ingrates, you wanna complain about free money we didn't have to offer you? Ok fine, forget it then. Permission denied.

But that's just me.

Wow 401 comments!Ugh you guys go overboard on this type of stuff,half of you don't even know what you're talking about!Which it makes this more hilarious!

@JasonAnArgoNOT64 Really? I haven't heard of that one...

I already hated PewDiePie's videos just because I think he's annoying, but I'm getting the impression he only cares about money, he doesn't even care what the fans say, since he disables comments. And now this "oh,Nintendo games went to the bottom of my list because I don't get money". Yeah, having fun is overrated, huh? I don't fully agree with Nintendo's policies on this, but that sense of entitlement just pisses me off. OK, rant over.

@Melkac - He's fairly blunt, and I realise many people don't tend to like that, but its not like what he says is untrue, and I think that's the most important part.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the matter of LPs (as frivolous as some might feel about it) should be taken up to the higher courts. This format of entertainment clearly shows that:

1) A market exists for them
2) That market is VERY profitable [for the few that can get a substantial userbase]
3) Movies and music have their own defined rules concerning copyright and fair use, so video games should too.
3a) Due to the lack of definitive rules surrounding video games and LPs (and lengthy reviews), game publishers are allowed to make the rules, leaving video makers no wiggle room at all in such a moral grey area.

Until the FCC/Supreme Court/Whathaveyou chimes in, and I might've mentioned before, I think it would save everyone the headache and paperwork to just ditch the program and contracts BUT keep a concrete revenue split (when the content ID system spots it). That way, LPers get a share for their commentary and publishers get a cut for the game that's being played.

Has PewDiePie ever even streamed a Nintendo game?

I literally have no opinion on this.

Hey not sure where to post this, but has anyone else had an email from Amazon saying that their pre-order of Splatoon has been cancelled due to it being no longer available?

@Spade_the_prinny: You aren't. I'm not fond of this trend either. I'll gladly watch a movie, and I'll gladly play a video game. But I don't see much point in watching someone else play a game so they can profit and make a living off of it.

Eh...I'm kinda on both sides of this argument. On one hand, I do think that Nintendo should ease up on lets-players a little. Some of them merely do it just for fun of playing nintendo games, and it is, in a way, free advertising. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about people making money off of those videos. They are making money off of someone else's creation. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be illegal.

I think youtubers should be glad that they can make money off of playing video games at all. It's just a hobby that costs money for most people.

i defend Nintendo (don't judge me) just because this program is not perfect doesn't mean that it won't change in the future. i disagree with YouTube partners they are just greedy just like wario imo.

So Pewdiepie puts Nintendo games at the bottom of the list cause they make him less money. Are games suppose to be about enjoying them instead of making money off them? This just makes Pewdiepie sound greedy.

Don't worry PewDiePie, you're already #1 on my s**t list.

A trashy youtuber whining about Nintendo not letting him keep 100% of the profits of his copyright-infringing videos... this is news how exactly?

@NintendoFan64 think about it again... those that do these for fun won't be upset or affected by this. Nintendo's policy only affects the greedy people like pewdiepie who do it for the money.

I definitely don't like PewDiePie, or agree with him 100% but he's actually making a good decision with this.

The point is that Nintendo videos now give him significantly less money in ad revenue (of which is part of his living, all cash he already has aside), so of course those games would be at the bottom of his list to play. You have no place to judge the people or the quality of the content in this issue — fact is that people like him, watch his videos, and he gets money from ads. The content does not matter, simply the fact of its monetization. People do make livings on this type of thing, and just because they need the money doesn't mean they don't care about the games. (of course this is not true of every LPer, but it's an unfair assumption)

Nintendo's program is very harmful to YouTubers who want to show anything of theirs. They should drop this program quickly as they clearly just don't know how to deal with the issue.

So it's ok if I start a channel reposting the best youtubers with hardcoded subtitles in portuguese? I guess they wouldn't mind.

I don't particularly care because I'm not on Youtube, it doesn't matter if "Youtube Stars" don't like it, Nintendo have the right to do it (it's apart of the Copyright laws), just like Youtube Stars can decide whether they want to sign up. Also, it's a Beta promgram, I can see this ending 3 ways:

1. It doesn't work out the way Nintendo would like, so they scrap the the whole thing.
2. It DOES work out, so they make it permanent. (More than likely, other companies will see it works and follow suit).
3. It doesn't work, but Nintendo act stubborn about it and keep it going.

(I hope it doesn't end the 3rd way).

In the end, this program is still just a Beta program to test the waters, it may work (probably won't). But with this program Nintendo are actually giving people permission to play their games on Youtube (with conditions), where as before you could touch them. People love to whine and complain (especially Youtube Stars), but time will tell if it works out for them.

Besides, when has Nintendo ever done what everyone else is doing?

The white knights of Nintendo need to stop defending bad business decisions like this, especially if you actually care about the company. Free publicity certainly can help the Wii U (especially since it's well on it's way to possibly becoming the worst selling Nintendo home console ever).

If you're going to defend this, you might as well defend the New 3DS not being in America, the lack of a charger for the New 3DS XL, and the amiibo stock issues. It seems okay to defend Nintendo when their decisions don't affect you personally, but when it does...things change quickly. That's kind of selfish of you, don't you think?

For all those people saying: "Why do people watch Let's Plays, when you can play the game yourself?"
1. Maybe some people simply can't afford the game, so the next best thing is to watch someone entertaining play it.
2. People like the personality of the person playing the game (Ex. They're funny, cool etc.). The content creator shares the same interest/passion as the viewer, so they have someone who they can relate to.
3. If it is a horror game, people might be too scared to play it in the first place, so they watch someone else play it. The viewer does not have to feel as scared and as lonely with someone else "by their side".

Please be a bit more understanding. There are simply some people out there who are in a different situation/have a different mindset than you guys. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that it's any less important for other people.

These YT's should get a haircut and get a REAL job.

@Taceus This is a real job, a very easy one!

What about Twitch? They don't have anything covering Twitch!

Wow, that's a lot of comments! I might as well add my two cents.
I've been a YT uploader for a couple of years now. I started monetization last year. Nintendo, of course, has all the right to do this, so I have no complaints there. Do I think it's a particularly good idea? When looking at what other companies do, I'm not feeling too hot about that.

If they want to take revenue from the views, then I understand. I wouldn't like it all that much, however. Monetization has been fairly helpful for me in terms of buying new Ninty games and then doing videos on those later (and 3DS games, I admit ). Generally, just being a YouTuber and doing what I do best has always been something I've enjoyed doing. I've met some awesome people over the years and have had cool experiences through uploading Ninty walkthroughs and whatnot. From the countless time spent from editing videos to responding to comments and whatnot — it's all awesome. They can throw money out of the equation and I'd still do it.

The only reason I can see myself taking a temporary halt on videos is if I get a certain amount of Content ID claims. Even though it's Nintendo, I'm still trying to remain cautious of the fact that they could decide to do copyright strikes instead without notice.

Sadly, I'm still in a network for about another year, so I couldn't test this out if I wanted to. Right now, I feel as if they should strongly consider what everyone is generally saying right now, because as I've seen so far, this isn't all that harmful.

@StaticWind Wat is ur channel?

Number 427...yeah.

@DGGames Oh. I see.

@justlink It should be in my forum signature.

Lots of arrogant Youtubers. Sad really, a lot of the bigger "stars" of Twitch and Youtube seem to have these inflated egos, thinking their opinion matters. At the end of the day, Nintendo owns these products and can do as they like. Plain and simple. And even if these AMAZING Youtubers will not rise to the occasion - guess what? Someone else happily will. So Nintendo stands only to gain from this, and they should get some revenue from Youtube, it is their right.

To echo some of the sentiments here, it still amazes me that people can make anything more than a few dollars a month doing this. Watching some of the incredible speed runs at the charity events is pretty neat, but the whole "Let's Play" phenomenon has me baffled. They should be thankful they make ANY money by sitting at home playing video games, not entitled jerks.

I'd be more inclined to be in these Youtubers' corner if they didn't come off as arrogant douchebags that only cared about which games they can make the most buck off of and not whether their users are getting the best content. Don't worry PewDiePie, I won't be missing any Nintendo games on your channel or ANY games for that matter.

Can't exactly be in Nintendo's corner either but I imagine they're not the only company that's been plotting in their secret laboratory how to get a cut of that pie. It was bound to happen one day... I just really wish it wasn't Nintendo that was crazy enough to pull the trigger, they can hardly afford any more bad press as is.

Nintendo keeps making decisions that will render them irrelevant. I'll go and invest on a gaming PC. It's sad, because I used to really like them, but they are going to die off.

1.If you're doing YouTube for the millions of loving fans you have,you can handle losing just a small bit of money you earn to do something your fans want you to.
2.If you are doing YouTube as a job just for the money,just get a main job so you can actually pay your bills.Channels do not become loved when all they are about is the money.
Seriously,a lot of these people already make enough money and really just come off as arrogant.Let's Players like Chuggaconroy never do what they do just for the money.Though,I still don't want Nintendo to become like Viacom with how they claim content and stuff.Bottom line,I think the some of the YouTubers complaining about this are just money-hungry and will do whatever they can just to get it.

@Maxime
Irreverent, just like your opinion.

@Albeanz It's not arrogant, it's the truth. He's the most subscribed person on Youtube by a fair margin.

I'm not a fan of Let's Play type shows myself, but Nintendo's current policy in this area is a civil lawsuit waiting to happen if they're not careful.

Doesn't everyone understand that this is just a beta testing and the actual program won't start until may?

Here is the thing from my perspective, reviewing a Nintendo game will still be fine. This isn't to my knowledge about reviews, this is about Let's Plays. Imagine if a YouTuber threw up the latest big movie that came out except that it had a little screen with his face and he was providing commentary on it. Nobody would think it would be unreasonable for that video to be flagged since people would essentially be watching the movie for free, watching the story unfold etc. It is the same for videogames imho. Why would I want to spoil any of the surprise of a last level twist or new interesting game mechanic from watching a YouTuber play the game? That would remove my incentive to buy the game because I would already know the story, how it plays, the secrets of defeating all the bosses etc. Nintendo's approach is a fair one. There is no reason YouTubers should think that they should be able to make money off of a company's intellectual property without paying any kind of fee. It is absurd. These big YouTubers aren't fans, they are businesses and what they are actually whining about is their revenue, which previously had zero overhead because they didn't have to contribute really at all to their content, being lowered because they will now have legitimate expenses, LIKE ANY OTHER BUSINESS. They may not like it but tough, truth is they've been getting away with an awful lot of copyright infringement and are lucky, especially the big channels, that Nintendo didn't take more serious legal action in the past as it was well within Nintendo's right to do so.

Way I see it, if you play somebody else's game and get money off of it then something needs done.

That's like me buying a movie.. playing it, and then charging admission at my front door to come and see it. Eventually it would get acted on.

I've watched youtubers play a lot of games, and never bothered to buy them myself. I like the games a lot.. but I just watch them to see what they contain. For example, I love the FNAF series.. but I never bothered to play it only read about it and watch others on youtube play and react instead. Conker's bad fur day is another one.. I'd never bother to buy the game myself but I love watching others play it.

This can be somewhat helpful advertising games to influence people to buy them for companies.. but harmful at the same time if people prefer to just see what's in the game rather than try it out themselves.

Plus I'm getting kind of tired of pewd's popularity.. he was sorta funny back then on certain play throughs but now he's being more arrogant and overconfident, "Anything I say or do doesn't matter my fan base will approve reguardless." About time to see something done to him.. and of course he'll complain and his huge fanbase will agree (big surprise).

@StaticWind I like your channel. You seem to be a pretty cool guy. ^^

I think nintendo should have just not bothered with the two months of no pay and lowered their cut to ten percent instead of 40. It's like agents with actors. They find the jobs (or make the games) and the actors (you tubers) do their work.

But pewds, he's really overrated. Mostly a lets playing angry video game nerd without the humor or old school charm to him. Just a screechy voice. If matpat is doing one thing right about game theory, it's making snide jokes about pewdiepie

@Maxime
Irrelevancy galore
Don't like nintendo? You don't have to go here

@Takerkaneanite6
What do you mean?
As I said before in another comment, he's basically a non-Funny AVGN

To the Youtubers.
You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it, you want to sell it.

Over 400 comments, wow!!!

To be honest, I don't think this topic can be addressed without taking into account other Google/Youtube policy decisions. A relevant issue that comes to mind is the complete restructuring of Youtube's algorithm for determining viewership and popularity. (And therefore, revenue potential.)

Back when Youtube was an independent company, more views and likes for a video quite simply equaled more exposure and links to it. Today, exposure is determined by the amount of time users actually spend watching a video, the number of subscribers in addition to the number of likes, and behind the scenes data business deals. (Google spyware/data trading) This fundamentally changes the framework of how content creators can monetize their products, while also deciding which professions are viable.

For example, if someone is an animator, they must spend much more time and effort than a Let's Player to make only a few minutes of animation. Even if their videos are viewed to completion many times over, there is no way they can compete with Let's Players who can upload multiple videos per day, counting 10 or more minutes each.

A good example of a prominent person who made this transition is Arin Hanson, AKA Egoraptor- he used to be just an animator and artist from around 2006 until 2012. After the formation of the Game Grumps, and the restructuring of Youtube after the Google takeover, he has almost completely abandoned furthering his former work- why go to all that effort when you can be a professional comedian/commentator, and make exponentially more money, even after splitting the money in a joint account with co-workers?

This issue spills into the topic at hand- there is a much greater incentive now to monetize commentary and Let's Plays based on popular products. Guess which products are among those that pull the most overall views, likes, and time spent watching (and therefore revenue) for such channels as the Game Grumps? That's right- Nintendo games.

Whether it be Wind Waker HD, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 3D World, Super Metroid, or Punch-Out, these are not only evergreen titles for Nintendo, they are evergreen opportunities for professional commentators, analysts, comedians, and Let's Players. The Game Grumps combine all of these aspects to some degree, and the functionality of Youtube (in addition to their 2 million subscribers) ensure they stay financially fit. And yet, they are nowhere near the top.

Basically, Youtube is in a survival of the fittest situation right now. There is an enormous gap between the top 100 channels and most everyone below them. We need some specs to provide perspective:

http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-channels

The top 10 channels draw a huge amount of subscribers and watch time, but look at the #4 spot- Pewdiepie occupies almost as much coverage as the General channels for Music, Gaming, and Sports! His channel's content has almost 7.7 Billion total views, more than any other individual Youtube channel on the planet... In fact, he is among the most well-known people on the planet!

How can a single person claim a literally royal amount of attention, on the level of a world leader, just through their actions on a seemingly innocuous Youtube channel? I think we must investigate this process, to understand why Nintendo has finally acted upon the runaway train that is Google.

I suspect Nintendo is implementing this policy to counter Google's policies within Youtube as a whole- not necessarily to suppress individual content providers, especially not those who do not monetize their channels. I doubt Nintendo is maliciously acting against individuals when they use the DMCA or other means at their disposal- rather, they are acting against the data, which in the case of Youtube becomes a part of Google when it is uploaded.

@StaticWind Subscribed to you.

@JellySplat Ya it's a sign of our times.

@Redgrave 'by recording himself playing video games while being otherworldly feminine complaining...'

What in the world does that mean?

@DTFaux "Until the FCC/Supreme Court/Whathaveyou chimes in, and I might've mentioned before, I think it would save everyone the headache and paperwork to just ditch the program and contracts BUT keep a concrete revenue split (when the content ID system spots it)."

The only problem with that is the FCC is headed by Tom Wheeler, who used to be the CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, and an Executive at Core Capital Partners. In other words, he is a part of the current revolving door of Corporate Industry and Government colluding to serve Industry's interests over those of the public.

Case in point, the recent fiasco over Net Neutrality. It has been leaked/confirmed that he was going to allow ISP's like Comcast to further control their customers' access to the internet, from opportunistic bandwidth throttling to increased censorship. He seems to have since backed down after a huge amount of public outcry, but that could change at any moment.

And that doesn't even account for the Supreme Court... Oh boy... Take a look at this issue I found back in 2012...

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/11-697

"Both the District and Second Circuit courts held that any product manufactured abroad is not subject to the first-sale doctrine."

"The Supreme Court’s decision will impact the domestic and international availability of copyrighted products. The outcome will affect the applicability of the Act to foreign-made goods imported and distributed within the U.S."

"Proponents of Kirtsaeng’s argument state that Wiley’s interpretation would give rise to a chilling effect on the operations of public institutions and charitable organizations. For example, Goodwill argues that the first-sale doctrine sustains the secondary goods market because it allows resellers to sell goods at cheap prices without worrying about copyright infringement. If Wiley’s interpretation is upheld, Goodwill and its customers will be burdened with the task of investigating the origins of their goods, leading to a decrease of the benefits of Goodwill’s operations. Others contend that if § 109(a) were interpreted so that the first-sale doctrine applies only to products manufactured in the U.S., then museums, galleries, and libraries will have difficulty exhibiting foreign art or lending international materials because these institutions will have to obtain copyright licenses, which require extensive negotiations.

Opponents of Kirtsaeng’s argument contend that limiting the applicability of the first-sale doctrine to domestically manufactured goods would not inhibit the availability of foreign artworks or other cultural materials in the U.S. They argue that Wiley’s interpretation still allows for importation and distribution of foreign goods as long as the distributor obtains the copyright owner’s permission. If and when the copyright owner authorizes the importation and sale of the goods IN THE U.S., only then will the first-sale doctrine will apply, and the copyright owner will no longer hold exclusive rights to distribute the imported goods."

Thankfully, the Supreme Court passed in favor of Kirtsaeng, allowing the first-sale doctrine to continue applying to copyrighted goods made outside of the USA. If the Supreme Court had passed in favor of Wiley and Sons, Inc., then a major precedent would have been set that companies / corporations control ALL aspects of the sales of ANY of their goods not manufactured SOLELY in the United States. The end user (i.e. a customer, or perhaps a Youtube commentator) would have forfeited any and ALL rights of ownership of the bought product to the whims of the company or corporation.

All of that stemming from ONE decision in ONE situation. There is a point where there can be too much power vested into the lawmakers of the land...

Nice job Nintendo, throwing away free marketing. They can do what they want, but I'm not a blind Nintendo fanboy, I'll say it like it is: they're shooting themselves in the foot. There's no other way to say it without running away from the truth. The YouTubers (whether you like them or not is a whole nother matter) supply the videos, commentary, and gameplay, the game developers make the game. The former get the revenue, the latter gets the advertising. A win-win situation. Why you would discourage such is mind-blowingly stupid. Say what you will about whether you think they're entertaining enough to merit their wages, all parties win from them. Nintendo is in the right legal grounds to do this of course, it's just not a bright idea. I love Nintendo, but not unconditionally. Blindly cheering them on no matter what they do like a Vita fanboy is stupid.

I find it baffling that so many people keep bringing up the "hardship" that uploaders have to go through. I have a lot to say so I am just going to scattershot:

Why should Nintendo HAVE to accept free advertising? They OWN the material. They have the RIGHT to enforce laws protecting their property. Regardless of ANYONE else's opinion.
If the Uploaders should make money because they spent time creating the "content" (commentary), why shouldn't the creating company be paid for the use of their PROPRIETARY creations? I think Nintendo is right to ask for money, and the amount that they ask for is NOT unreasonable on the side of the Uploader. In fact, asking for only 30~40% is FAR low-balling for the content.
If the Uploader spends even 10 Hours crafting the video, they should get paid for their contributions, right? Alright. Let us compare that to the THOUSANDS of man-hours put into the development of that game. Uploaders getting more than 1% is insane from that perspective. Saying "their tech costs" doesn't contribute either. That SAME tech is used for other videos. It is not likely that they spent $1000+ on cameras and lighting just to abandon it after the one video.
Do people here not even fully understand the laws regarding property and retaining Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks? Unauthorized use of your assets CAN STRIP you of those assets. Ask Band-Aid why... oh, I'm sorry, ask "Band-Aid Brand" why they changed their name. Nintendo HAS to enforce their rights or they lose their property. Ask them if they want to give away Mario or Zelda.

Nintendo actively defends itself because of what happened in 1983. And since they REBUILT the ENTIRE video game market, they are sort of entitled to run their ship they way they want. Even if the rest of the world feels otherwise, it doesn't matter.

The funniest thing from all of this is that people STILL are buying Nintendo products. Nintendo is DOOMED people Like that time that their stocks dropped. Or when Sony tried to STEAL their IPs with the SNES-CD system. Or when they refused to make a CD based system that got PIRATED like crazy (PS original). Or when they forced the N64 instead of CDs and Memory Cards. Or when they made a Lunchbox for a system that (while superior in multiple ways) was ridiculed for being "kidware". Or when they started using proprietary discs that couldn't be read and ripped easily. Or that time their stocks went down. Or when they started doing "gimmicks" like a second screen. Or a "gimmicks" like touch screen. Or that time their stocks went down. Or a "gimmicks" like "motion-control". Or a "gimmicks" like 3D tech that works without glasses. Or that time their stocks went down...

@LordGeovanni "Or when they started using proprietary discs that couldn't be read and ripped easily."

Until the Wii HBC came along, allowing the Wii's own disc drive to read/write disc data onto an HDD... I could probably find examples for everything else there, too.

"The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes... We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction." –Aesop

Ewww.
Well, I have some YouTube Nintendo-related vids up but don't make any money from them. So they aren't interested in what I do.
But geez, it's free publicity, Nintendo! Everything I've seen online, from reviews to even parodies, are done lovingly. I love Nintendo so much, but I don't understand their business model.

I've been thinking about this awhile, and I have to just throw this out there: Does Nintendo even WANT to sell games? Clearly someone puts great care into making them, but then Nintendo just tosses them out into the wild with no care whatsoever. Then they go back to the drawing board like a bunch of confused monkeys wondering why they aren't selling anything, and why their games have no publicity, and why the Wii U is selling like paper bags full of excrement, or in other words, not very well.

There's no marketing and no ads, and Nintendo seems to believe people will flock to stores via magic or telepathy, not via, oh I don't know, YouTube? Advertisements? The Internet? The normal ways people hear about things.

I wish Nintendo put the same time and care into thinking about their marketing decisions as they put into their games. Then this idiotic nonsense wouldn't be happening and PewDie whatever and all the other YouTube stars can give Nintendo the marketing they don't care to do themselves.

**drops mic, walks out**

Wow, 453 comments, with no demo codes involved, this is outstanding

@PlywoodStick @Superstick Gee, thanks!

Im actually surprised how many people saying its good, I guess its not just nintendo with old mentality but nintendo fans too. This is so silly and its beyond me how you can not see it. Ive read half of comments and there was not a single decent argument for nintendo,

How many comments are we on now? 455? Yikes, that's a big number.

I thought long and hard about what I was gonna say. There have been passionate arguments on both sides of the fence, and I was going to give my two cents on the whole matter...

...And then I read about all the new Xenoblade Chronicles X info, which made me realise that I truly, positively, 100%, don't give a crap about ANY of this rubbish. Nintendo does whatever Nintendo does. Maybe they're right - and maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're being smart - and maybe they're being dumb.

But what I truly care about... Is that XENOBLADE IS 300 HOURS GUYS. AND IT'S 400KM2. AND IT HAS TONNES OF OTHERS STUFF OMYGODINEEDITNOWGUHGUHGUGUGGUGUG