Nintendo Advertising on Youtube Videos

Link to the CVG article.

Nintendo wrote:

"As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips."

Anyone come across any of this? Any thoughts?

I think this is a dumb move on the side of Nintendo. I watch a few guys on YouTube who put out Nintendo videos on a regular basis, and these guys are some of the most passionate gamers I've ever seen. Their videos were essentially a source of free advertising. I remember a few months back Sega launched a campaign similar to this for Shining Force videos, and it was a kick in the nads for a very loyal portion of their fanbase. What Nintendo is doing is no different from that - they're shafting a portion of their fanbase who do nothing but support them.

Nintendo isn't the only one who has the power to do this, and by doing this, what's to say that this won't bring about a cull of gaming videos on YouTube? Stupid move.

Can't be too angry at this - for everything YouTube has afforded us, I can't blame them for having extra adverts or paid partnerships. Can't blame Nintendo either. I know a guy who didn't buy Professor Layton & The Curious Village because he watched it on YouTube. That's mad.

Nintendo has shafted us far harder than this. Not too much to be concerned about, in my opinion.

I haven't encountered anything, and I don't really see the big upset.

Yes, I've complained about online ads a few times, but only if they pose a technical or usability problem*, which YouTube's don't- and that's because I accept that Nintendo and YouTube employees are allowed to want to put food on the table.

That being said, they should look towards a revenue share with creators if this is going to be policy from now on, especially for the more creative works.

*This means you, 4oD

Depends on the genre though. With Mario, an LP is giving you next to nothing; with Zelda, you're not getting the full experience; and with something like Dangan Ronpa or Phoenix Wright, there's no need to buy the game afterwards.

Anyway, I've conclusively decided that I don't know what I think of this. Every time someone posts a new opinion, my own changes.

Nothing wrong with this at all, what harm is it causing? None and its their right to want to make money out of their product.

Silver light wrote:

JayMoyles wrote:

I think this is a dumb move on the side of Nintendo. I watch a few guys on YouTube who put out Nintendo videos on a regular basis, and these guys are some of the most passionate gamers I've ever seen. Their videos were essentially a source of free advertising. I remember a few months back Sega launched a campaign similar to this for Shining Force videos, and it was a kick in the nads for a very loyal portion of their fanbase. What Nintendo is doing is no different from that - they're shafting a portion of their fanbase who do nothing but support them.

Nintendo isn't the only one who has the power to do this, and by doing this, what's to say that this won't bring about a cull of gaming videos on YouTube? Stupid move.

Anyway, as long as the whole issue just begins and ends with just an extra ad being shoved onto every Nintendo YT video or something, i'm not quite seeing the issue

That's not the issue here - the issue here is that Nintendo are taking this ad revenue that would otherwise go towards the video creator. This is really harmful to a lot of guys who legitimately make around $50K to $100K off putting out Nintendo videos - that's a living. Nintendo are taking away from their livelihood by doing that, and it'll dissuade people from putting out Nintendo videos and instead focus on other formats.

What this shows is Nintendo yet again not understanding the Internet generation. YouTube is a huge source of advertising for video games. I personally don't buy a game until I check out a few gameplay videos, and Nintendo's act of seizing ad revenue - which they are perfectly entitled to do, don't get me wrong - will likely massively reduce the number of gameplay videos out there. By contrast, Sony's PS4 has a button on the controller which shares gameplay footage straight to YouTube - instant and easy gameplay videos of a game. The whole argument that Let's Plays are a detriment to a game's sales is stupid to me; more people will buy the game as opposed to not buying it after watching a Let's Play. I know I have.

I fully understand Nintendo's right to do this, but I don't agree with it. There are many many examples of games companies who've embraced gameplay videos and spun huge success from it, the chief of these being Mojang. I'd never have heard of Minecraft if it had not been the huge YouTube community surrounding the game, but because Mojang encourages gameplay videos for their game, they've achieved huge success. Blizzard and Valve, two companies renowned for understanding what a huge effect the Internet has upon a game and that are strongly respected amongst many gamers, also allow gameplay videos to be monitised for advertising, because they like Mojang understand what an effect gameplay videos can have upon sales.

Nintendo needs to realise that nobody is winning here - the ad content they'll receive is inconsequential in the long run compared to the harm they'll be doing unto themselves and to the online community, their online community, by seizing ad money.

tl;dr These videos are essentially free advertising and the YouTube community surrounding Nintendo games contains some of the most passionate Nintendo fans in the world. What Nintendo is doing here is cutting off the nose to spite the face. They're discouraging the very people they should be wanting to gush about their games from covering them at all, and it's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

Wait... I'm not following. How does/did a person make money out of posting Nintendo videos?

You can allow ads to be played on your video, and you would receive a tiny bit of money per view, like a decimal point of a penny. However, this mounts up. I've got a mate who makes £100 a month from doing occasional tech reviews and Let's Plays, and he only gets a thousand or so views per video. Imagine what an individual who's getting hundreds of thousands to millions of views is making.

I think the best case scenario would be for Nintendo to work out some sort of percentage based system where if a user wants to make a YouTube video on a Nintendo game, Nintendo takes a small slice of the revenue.

There's a good discussion thread on Reddit at the moment about Nintendo's new ad policy.

(Although ignore the ignorant people saying "I WILL BOYCOTT WIIU FOR THIS TRAVESTY")

EDIT: Another good article on this, with bonus stalwart Nintendo statement at the bottom.

How come it's okay for YouTube to make money off the videos, but not Nintendo?

Because YouTube don't take all of the money from their users, the users receive a cut of ad revenue whereas with Nintendo they take all this revenue from these videos. As I said, I understand that's fully within their rights, I just don't think it's good business practice. I reckon they should work out some agreement with these people making videos and with YouTube so that they aren't shafting content creators.

There is a lot of people that do Let's Plays that are basically just bad quality videos of them playing the game while talking about random crap. But there is also a lot of people that put a lot of time, effort and money into making high quality entertaining videos with high quality expensive equipment and I don't think it's really a good move for Nintendo to stop them from making money from that.
They aren't really losing any money from these videos and if anything videos of their games are more likely to make people buy them. I personally don't watch any YouTube channels that make videos of Nintendo games but I watch plenty for PC games and have been convinced to buy games many times that I normally wouldn't have even heard of.

Like others I can see it from both sides but Nintendo are well within their rights to put out these claims & going by some LP'ers (who also do other formats) I follow on twitter they seem to be just throwing their toys out the pram rather than working towards some kind of compromise.

Aye, I disagree with the LPers and others saying "Screw you Nintendo, we're DONE", compromises should be made. I think the worst one I saw was a guy saying (paraphrasing here) "This is an outrage. I will never get to see Nintendo on Youtube again. I am boycotting all Wii U products until this is resolved".

It's more of a bad thing than a good thing, in my opinion. A very cynical move for Nintendo.

Without wanting to cause any offense to the OP or anybody who's contributed to this thread, between this YouTube news and EA's announcement regarding Wii U games in the last couple of hours, all I have to say is this: thank f**k we've got a Nintendo Direct tomorrow. Things to look forward to. New things. Some of the stuff cropping up online today has been downright mince (in every sense of the word).

This was a day that needed A Heron, Another Heron, Sammy Snake, Reggie's Big Face, Tingle and the rest.

Don't think that could cause offense!

It's been a crappy day for Nintendo - let's hope they show some new things and maybe address what's happened today. PR nightmare for them.

Oddly enough, since my last post in this thread I made a start on Super Metroid. After thirty minutes of aimlessly jumping around, I decided 'bugger it' and stuck on a YouTube walkthrough. I don't recall doing that before. On today of all days!

I remain resolutely unoffended. It hasn't been a great day for Nintendo, that's for sure.

EDIT: And that was before I saw the EA thing. Sour grapes much, but not good at all.

someone caw-lled? BWAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRK

Epilepsy warning!

Spoiler:

but yeh, even a heron liek me hates dis news

It's okay heron. Our feathers may have been ruffled, but our pots and pans live to be messed up another day.

There's absolutely no chance anyone would read that epilepsy warning before clicking the spoiler

Apologies, Buska. Hope your eyes still work!

Ha, i'm fine. I don't have epilepsy, it just amused me that I clicked it and then read the warning.

I'm not sure it would be that bad anyway, really.