Nintendo Wants Its Cut

[Zombie_Moogle]

Thank you. Thank you so much for this article

I have seen far too many Nintendo apologists banging on about it being copyrighted material, it being Nintendo & YouTube's decision to make, & any other reason they can think up that won't alienate them at the next Nintendo press event.

I've observed shockingly few people publicly saying, right-wrong-or-indifferent, what a horrible idea this is.

I've watch many LP's that impressed me; I then purchased the game I just saw

Nintendo has been skating on the goodwill of nostalgia for a long time and, for a lot of fans, it just ran out.

 

[Lyvric]

Nintendo Wants Its Cut

Can someone call Nintendo for me? We've been out of touch for a few years, and I've lost Nintendo's number.

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Cannot agree more.

Right out of my mouth.

It's such a stupid, stupid move. It's sad they don't even try to take part of the funds or strike a partial deal. By trying to completely take it all they've completely cut themselves out. Good job guys...good sad little job.

 

[SoDaRa]

I remember a time when people weren't paid to do Let's Plays. They made the videos solely because they wanted to show people a game they may not have heard about. Now, when you tell people they aren't getting paid, they're all butt hurt about it and refuse to play the game, even if they love it. If getting paid is the reason you do video LP's then I don't think you should be doing them in the first place. Also, plenty of people WILL be doing Nintendo games after this. Not because they get paid to do it, but because they love doing it. At least Nintendo isn't being like Sega, and just removing the videos outright without warning and shutting channels down.

If you want a really good discussion on this, I recommend this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

 

[Johnson McGee]

It's a good point that Nintendo is behind the curve of internet workings. Nintendo have always been playing catch-up on the online front. On the other hand, Nintendo has always been good at judging it's audience so I still find the move somewhat surprising.

 

[Royas]

I can only imagine that people are taking down their Nintendo Let's Play videos so as to avoid giving them any money or exposure. I know that would be one of my first moves.

 

[SoDaRa]

Thank you. Thank you so much for this article

I have seen far too many Nintendo apologists banging on about it being copyrighted material, it being Nintendo & YouTube's decision to make, & any other reason they can think up that won't alienate them at the next Nintendo press event.

I've observed shockingly few people publicly saying, right-wrong-or-indifferent, what a horrible idea this is.

I've watch many LP's that impressed me; I then purchased the game I just saw

Nintendo has been skating on the goodwill of nostalgia for a long time and, for a lot of fans, it just ran out.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not a Nintendo fan, because I am, but I don't have a blind devotion. If they screw up, I will admit they screwed up (I'm looking at you Metroid: Other M). That said, I don't think what they did was this horrible.

I will admit that Nintendo really should have handled this better, but I don't think they're bad people because of it.
Nothing will change about this other than some people won't get paid to show someone else's content. When did Let's Plays become less about showing people a game you really love to other people and more about the cash? And is Nintendo really going to alienate all of its fans because some people aren't getting paid to play their games on Youtube? Is this going to affect the casual market? Are people going to stop buying their games simply because people aren't getting paid to play them? Are the videos going to be gone? No.

Was this handled very well, not really. But by people not getting paid to play the game, more quality LPs will probably be noticed because the person isn't playing it for the money, they're playing it because they like the game. At least Nintendo wasn't like Sega, who outright flagged, and as a result, destroyed several channels just for the mere mention of a game.
If you want more on this topic, I recommend you listen to this podcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

 

[AtheistConservative]

Great! Maybe Nintendo can finally either get its act together or just die off and let it's IP go to people who actually love it. They just pump out stale IP and bad consoles.

 

[NiceJobBreakingItHero]

I remember a time when people weren't paid to do Let's Plays. They made the videos solely because they wanted to show people a game they may not have heard about. Now, when you tell people they aren't getting paid, they're all butt hurt about it and refuse to play the game, even if they love it. If getting paid is the reason you do video LP's then I don't think you should be doing them in the first place. Also, plenty of people WILL be doing Nintendo games after this. Not because they get paid to do it, but because they love doing it. At least Nintendo isn't being like Sega, and just removing the videos outright without warning and shutting channels down.

If you want a really good discussion on this, I recommend this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

I can only recommend to get an Something Awful account and follow the LP's there. I don't know how and when a hobby of showing videogames that you like turned into a business but the whole entitlement of wanting to get get paid for anothers copyrighted material is simply baffling. Everyone acts as if all LP's make money of it and therefore will stop showing of nintendo games ...

 

[Kristal Crow]

One of the most disturbing things was seeing Notch's tweet referring to a meeting where YouTube offered up the ad revenues for every Minecraft LP out there. Looking at it from this point of view, if someone from YouTube says to someone at Nintendo, "Here, we want to give you a ton of free money, and you don't have to lift a finger.", are you gonna be the person at Nintendo to turn that down?

And WTH is YouTube doing making these kind of offers behind the backs of its own content creators? Why is this not getting more scrutiny?

 

[SoDaRa]

You can't say "everyone knows exactly what happens in a Nintendo game" just because you know the general premise the series is based around. I play for gameplay *and* to "see how they turn out". Just a small gripe, though - the article as a whole was good, agreed with it all

You better be careful, nintendo may charge you for using that avatar.

OT: I am generally a Nintendo fan and have been since I first got an NES, but this is the exact thing that can turn away a lifelong fan of their exclusive series. I mean i am one of the few people who bought a Wii-U already, mostly coz it has playbackability and i skipped the Wii. This little stunt of theirs has almost convinced me to do a LP video of me smashing it to hell.

What changed because they did this? Is the fact that you and other people aren't getting PAID to play their games mean that now you can't do them or they aren't good games? If you're buying and playing games just to get some cash, then I don't really get why you even play games. Isn't the point of an LP to show people a game they may never have seen before, or to present it in a new way? And what did the WiiU do in order to deserve being smashed? I'm sorry, but I just find it weird idea to buy a game, and expect to make money from it. I mean its not like you worked 4 years painstakingly adjusting the mechanics for them to be fun.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Thank you. Thank you so much for this article

I have seen far too many Nintendo apologists banging on about it being copyrighted material, it being Nintendo & YouTube's decision to make, & any other reason they can think up that won't alienate them at the next Nintendo press event.

I've observed shockingly few people publicly saying, right-wrong-or-indifferent, what a horrible idea this is.

I've watch many LP's that impressed me; I then purchased the game I just saw

Nintendo has been skating on the goodwill of nostalgia for a long time and, for a lot of fans, it just ran out.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not a Nintendo fan, because I am, but I don't have a blind devotion. If they screw up, I will admit they screwed up (I'm looking at you Metroid: Other M). That said, I don't think what they did was this horrible.

I will admit that Nintendo really should have handled this better, but I don't think they're bad people because of it.
Nothing will change about this other than some people won't get paid to show someone else's content. When did Let's Plays become less about showing people a game you really love to other people and more about the cash? And is Nintendo really going to alienate all of its fans because some people aren't getting paid to play their games on Youtube? Is this going to affect the casual market? Are people going to stop buying their games simply because people aren't getting paid to play them? Are the videos going to be gone? No.

Was this handled very well, not really. But by people not getting paid to play the game, more quality LPs will probably be noticed because the person isn't playing it for the money, they're playing it because they like the game. At least Nintendo wasn't like Sega, who outright flagged, and as a result, destroyed several channels just for the mere mention of a game.
If you want more on this topic, I recommend you listen to this podcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

I gotta disagree

It's not that Nintendo's evil for doing this, it's that they're stupid. LP's a free advertising as far as most developers are concerned & that'll be drying up for Nintendo. It's not that people are gonna be upset over not getting an extra couple bucks from a Mario LP, it's that people will stop doing Mario LP's all together to avoid the hassle.

I can guarantee I'm not the only one who's made game-purchase decisions based on an LP. That's lost sales for Nintendo.

 

[Voltano]

I remember a time when people weren't paid to do Let's Plays. They made the videos solely because they wanted to show people a game they may not have heard about. Now, when you tell people they aren't getting paid, they're all butt hurt about it and refuse to play the game, even if they love it. If getting paid is the reason you do video LP's then I don't think you should be doing them in the first place. Also, plenty of people WILL be doing Nintendo games after this. Not because they get paid to do it, but because they love doing it. At least Nintendo isn't being like Sega, and just removing the videos outright without warning and shutting channels down.

But this isn't really going to hurt a lot of Let's Play (LP) producers like it would hurt Nintendo. It might hurt that some of their content won't give them any revenue, but they can always start another game that isn't in Nintendo's library. And while there are some people that will still do an LP for a Nintendo game, that isn't the majority of LP producers. Some of them treat this as a serious job that needs compensation of some way, and if they are not going to get paid, then they won't do LPs for games in Nintendo's library.

This is going to hurt Nintendo in the long run. People do LPs right now because its their only way of earning income, and they can still do this by playing some other game. That won't hurt me as an LP watcher or any of these LP producers as they can earn ad-revenue somewhere else. But this is going to remove a major publicity field for Nintendo-based games, and make LP producers -- possibly ANY Youtube producer -- scared of mentioning Nintendo otherwise they get no revenue for their Machinima/reviews/discussions.

Yeah, Nintendo isn't being like Sega. Nintendo just passed Sega in being worse.

 

[SoDaRa]

While I don't have a clue whose in the legal right here, and certainly don't have any copyright law knowledge to hazard a guess much less judge this grey area, Nintendo has indeed done more damage to themselves than anybody with this move for one simple reason: their competitor's products are now superior to theirs in at least that aspect.

If they're trying to make money from this it's going to fail because no one's going to work for free for Nintendo when other companies are satisfied to leave them be, and if this is about defending copyright then (like all other attempts, legally justified or no) the best its going to achieve is killing coverage of their games outside major outlets. And while those major outlets certainly have their place, I know watching someone actually play a game is a lot better at selling it to me than more typical reviews are.

[edit] oh, and of course, legally right or not, financially right or not, it's always a risk to take any action that spurs this much contempt from the customers.

If this was to protect their copyrights, then why didn't they just remove the videos entirely? And what about Let's Plays before they made money? Didn't they make videos about Nintendo games and not get paid for it? And don't the people who work for 4 years on a game have a right to decide who can make a profit on it? I'm not implying they should remove bad reviews, but if people are making a profit by LPing a game they hate, or just make fart jokes at it, do they not have a right to say they don't want that? I mean if you worked 4 years on a horror game and someone completely destroys the atmosphere for people seeing the game for the first time by making random jokes about irrelevant stuff, is it wrong of the developer to say they don't want that video to be making that person a profit?

 

[DTWolfwood]

I do love it when i see companies digging their own graves. Nintendo haven't been relevant to me since the super nintendo entertainment system. safe to say i have no stake in their well being.

 

[TitanAura]

Wanna know what got me to buy Zone of the Enders Collection last month? SEEING GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE OF ZONE OF THE ENDERS COLLECTION. I had never seen the game before but I looked up a speedrun because it looked interesting and the moment I saw the gameplay I wanted to play it immediately. I have not had that kind of frantic NEED to play a game since Portal.

 

[BeepBoop]

You know, this is kind of a low hanging fruit. Demanding monetary gain? What happened to the Nintendo flushed with Wii/DS/3DS cash? Have they made one too many missteps before WiiU started earning it back?

This is what I sort of suspect as well. A move like this really gives the impression the company is strapped for cash.

 

[Karadalis]

While I don't have a clue whose in the legal right here, and certainly don't have any copyright law knowledge to hazard a guess much less judge this grey area, Nintendo has indeed done more damage to themselves than anybody with this move for one simple reason: their competitor's products are now superior to theirs in at least that aspect.

If they're trying to make money from this it's going to fail because no one's going to work for free for Nintendo when other companies are satisfied to leave them be, and if this is about defending copyright then (like all other attempts, legally justified or no) the best its going to achieve is killing coverage of their games outside major outlets. And while those major outlets certainly have their place, I know watching someone actually play a game is a lot better at selling it to me than more typical reviews are.

[edit] oh, and of course, legally right or not, financially right or not, it's always a risk to take any action that spurs this much contempt from the customers.

If this was to protect their copyrights, then why didn't they just remove the videos entirely? And what about Let's Plays before they made money? Didn't they make videos about Nintendo games and not get paid for it? And don't the people who work for 4 years on a game have a right to decide who can make a profit on it? I'm not implying they should remove bad reviews, but if people are making a profit by LPing a game they hate, or just make fart jokes at it, do they not have a right to say they don't want that? I mean if you worked 4 years on a horror game and someone completely destroys the atmosphere for people seeing the game for the first time by making random jokes about irrelevant stuff, is it wrong of the developer to say they don't want that video to be making that person a profit?

Nowadays you have to invest alot of time to get anyone to watch your lets plays. You have to spend hours to cut the footage, edit the sound, and ofcourse playing the game in a way that doesnt make you look like a noob.

As said in the article "professional" lets players spend alot of time to bring us these lets plays.

What did letsplays looked like before people got paid for? The sound of the commentary was awfull, the videos themselves had low resolution and the whole thing looked very poor quality.

Its not like the people that will get hit by that just hold a camcorder towards their TV and record the footage in one afternoon and just slap it onto youtube.

You have to give them a bit more credit here, they are actually investing more time then the lets players of old to make sure to have a certain quality.

And yes it is wrong to claim complete ownership. A partnership model would have worked miles better then claiming COMPLETE ownership, totaly ignoring the hard work some of those LPers put into their videos.

Also watching someone play a horror game and actually playing one yourselfe is a huge difference... or did Amnesia became less scary because you watched a lets play beforehand? And even if so.. if you dont want the horror to be ruined for you.. why the hell are you watching a lets play in the first place?

 

[Zigot66]

Imagine what would happen if Microsoft did this when Red vs. Blue was just getting started. No way Halo would have gotten that well known.

Of course, they did actually do this a few years ago. Notice how Halo is no longer the big one in terms of lets-plays and videos, with the title going to Call of Duty.

Bad move, Nintendo. You will not benefit from this in the least.

And officially Microsoft won't do that. I just watched the special live announcement of the new Xbox, Xbox One.

Like Sony, they are going to let people share gaming videos. With Xbox One, with every game, players will have the ability to view and record playbacks just like players have done with the last few Halo games, and then share them with their friends and the world.

Actually, you were always allowed to share Microsoft stuff, but you are not allowed to make money (ie ad revenue) off of it. They want the free advertising, but they want the revenue as well.

Unfortunately most big companies follow this sort if thinking, though calling it thinking is probably inaccurate. It is the resulting action from several small decisions made throughout the company. As cathartic as it is to imagine some high level executive twirling his mustache about how evil he is, that just isn't how it works (unless it's the legal department, they just don't have souls, not their fault though, they check them at the door).

 

[SandroTheMaster]

I remember a time when people weren't paid to do Let's Plays. They made the videos solely because they wanted to show people a game they may not have heard about. Now, when you tell people they aren't getting paid, they're all butt hurt about it and refuse to play the game, even if they love it. If getting paid is the reason you do video LP's then I don't think you should be doing them in the first place. Also, plenty of people WILL be doing Nintendo games after this. Not because they get paid to do it, but because they love doing it. At least Nintendo isn't being like Sega, and just removing the videos outright without warning and shutting channels down.

If you want a really good discussion on this, I recommend this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not a Nintendo fan, because I am, but I don't have a blind devotion. If they screw up, I will admit they screwed up (I'm looking at you Metroid: Other M). That said, I don't think what they did was this horrible.

I will admit that Nintendo really should have handled this better, but I don't think they're bad people because of it.
Nothing will change about this other than some people won't get paid to show someone else's content. When did Let's Plays become less about showing people a game you really love to other people and more about the cash? And is Nintendo really going to alienate all of its fans because some people aren't getting paid to play their games on Youtube? Is this going to affect the casual market? Are people going to stop buying their games simply because people aren't getting paid to play them? Are the videos going to be gone? No.

Was this handled very well, not really. But by people not getting paid to play the game, more quality LPs will probably be noticed because the person isn't playing it for the money, they're playing it because they like the game. At least Nintendo wasn't like Sega, who outright flagged, and as a result, destroyed several channels just for the mere mention of a game.
If you want more on this topic, I recommend you listen to this podcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

This thinking of yours is disingenuous. The problem here is that Nintendo just wade in and demanded all the revenue for the videos. This is not all that different from a musician to go to a movie that used their piece and requesting that they get all the movie's revenue in order to allow licensing their music. It is to spit in the face of the people making a great effort to showcase your game. And even worse, if people make a tribute for a music for the musician for nothing and then the musician but-in and demanded to be paid for that. It'd not be much of an issue if Nintendo requested a cut and NOT started making revenue off the people who were already doing it for free.

It is a choice not to place advertising.

I'm saying this as an LPer. I'm making a LP of Supreme Commander on Something Awful because I love the game and I'm not being paid a cent. But if at any moment JoWood or Square Enix (whichever holder would have the right to call it since it's... complicated) demanded that I start placing adverts somehow to pay them off, I'd just stop it altogether. Not because I want the cut, but because this shows spectacular bad faith and disrespect on their part for my work. It takes anything between 8-20 hours of work to produce each update. And it is exhausting. I'd not stand this kind of blatant disrespect and money grab after all that effort. Many of my followers bought the game because of my Let's Play, but if the company doesn't want this kind of exposure without ALSO getting something more out of it, it is their loss.

 

[zinho73]

I remember a time when people weren't paid to do Let's Plays. They made the videos solely because they wanted to show people a game they may not have heard about. Now, when you tell people they aren't getting paid, they're all butt hurt about it and refuse to play the game, even if they love it. If getting paid is the reason you do video LP's then I don't think you should be doing them in the first place. Also, plenty of people WILL be doing Nintendo games after this. Not because they get paid to do it, but because they love doing it. At least Nintendo isn't being like Sega, and just removing the videos outright without warning and shutting channels down.

If you want a really good discussion on this, I recommend this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYplcqazWCA

It is going beyond that, because shutting down their content is inside their legal boundaries and usual international copyright laws. Making money with other people work isn't.

I know that it is exactly what LPers are doing now, but as Ghandi said: an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind - starting with whoever took that decision at Nintendo.

Love must be a two-way road. You must remember that Nintendo will also pursue all videos from people that are not youtube partners and have never seen a cent. Those loving fans will now work for free for Nintendo.