Nintendo and YouTube's tumultuous relationship

Based off this news from Ninty.

Saw some chat about the Youtube affiliate scheme that Nintendo have put in place this week - I know Jaster's for it judging by Twitter, but what do the rest of you all think?

I honestly don't see the merit in such a scheme. It can't be about money - the profits Nintendo will make off such a scheme will be miniscule, especially considering the existence of such a scheme will only dissuade big YouTubers who rake in the real money from even covering Nintendo games on their channel. That's a loss of promotion. What Nintendo are essentially asking then is for YouTubers to pay them to promote their games, which just doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

And that's not even considering the smaller, Nintendo-centric channels who cover Nintendo games because they're passionate about them, not because they care about money. That's harming them a lot more than it benefits Nintendo. Nintendo games are not known for being story-driven, so any argument that a person can just watch a playthrough of a Nintendo game to experience it is totally moot in my opinion. If Telltale were to set up a scheme like this, then I could definitely see the point as someone can easily experience all a Telltale game has to offer by watching a playthrough on YouTube.

It's a little sad, considering so many other developers and publishers have given the go-ahead to YouTubers and streamers to record with their games, because they understand the value of coverage on these platforms. It's such a valuable source of advertising for them, considering millions and millions of people will see their game because of it. Now, it's unlikely that Nintendo will see as wide-spread coverage on YouTube, diminishing a huge source of advertising for them.

I understand that it's a bit of a legal grey area in terms of fair use of content and whatnot, but for Nintendo, considering the real lack of any story driven games from them, I think this is akin to Hasbro demanding money for someone recording a game of Monopoly and putting it up on YouTube. Just my two cents though - I'd love to hear some debate from the other side of the argument, and also if anyone thinks the idea is flawed but could be reworked into something more viable.

My vote was "No". You've said it better than I could, Jay, but I'd like to add that it seems like what a younger person than me might call a "dick move". Scraping money out of people in this way will not put beleaguered Nintendo in a good light, at the very least.

I also voted No and you've already said why Jay.

And I've seen some like pewpie or whatever he's called dropping Nintendo games and he has millions of subscribers.

But still could be activision soon as I put a video up with COD in for instance it's down.

I voted yes but the scheme definitely needs work and that will only happen if the youtubers, especially the well known ones are willing to meet Nintendo in the middle on the matter but in my opinion for now they are hiding behind the very thin reason of "it's free promotion" no doubt it's a very good form of promotion but why should they be able to make money off content they don't own or weren't a part of? That's like if I was to say "I'll help you sell your car free of charge" but then I take a cut of the money without you knowing.

The scheme is a step in the right direction but as I said above it will only properly work if youtubers get on board & help figure out what is and isn't fair for both parties.

I'm with Jas on this one. Youtuber types are incredibly entitled pricks. Like I said on twitter, imagine they were commentating on whole films and uploading, or reading out a novel. The point is, their videos wouldn't exist without the games and I think it's pretty fair for Nintendo to take a small cut.
I put that it needs to change because at the moment there's a set list, I think, so they need to simplify it a bit.

I've been noticing more adverts on my own youtube videos lately, so I need to check what money I'm owed!

I voted "no". Don't get me wrong, Youtubers are entitled pricks. PewDiePie mewling about how people come to watch him, not the games, is the worst of them. Without Nintendo, or others, providing the content, you wouldn't have a game to play.

But here's the thing: it is free advertising. And just from a business sense perspective, rather than what's "morally right", it makes more sense for Nintendo to cash in on that. I hate PewDiePie, but you can guarantee that if he played SM3DW in his nauseating screamy Scandinavian way, the game would suffer a sales boost.

It just seems silly to me. Fair enough, but silly.

Drunkalilly wrote:

I'm with Jas on this one. Youtuber types are incredibly entitled pricks.

Oh, don't get me wrong, some of them definitely are. But, I think that this scheme is inherently flawed because the entitled Youtuber types who are only in it for the money are just going to be dissuaded from covering Nintendo games. Pewdiepie, for as obnoxious as he is, he gets colossal view counts. Here's a video on Super Smash Bros with 7 million views. Mind-boggling. To put that into perspective, nothing on Nintendo's official channel has that viewcount - and that Pewdiepie video is a somewhat average viewcount for him. What they've essentially done here is removed 7 million potential customers that might have seen Pewdiepie's video.

That's not even considering the Youtubers who aren't entitled - the Youtubers who cover Nintendo because of their passion for the company. Take a look at this video for a Super Mario 64 DS guide. That's a fully interactive map, enabling you to click on different parts of the castle. I've tried to record even basic gameplay videos before, and it takes ages if you want to put out a halfway decent video. I can't fathom how many hours that must have taken. And now Nintendo can take money from that video. Doesn't that seem off to you? Doesn't it seem wrong that their most passionate fans on YouTube will be the ones to suffer from this?

I just can't agree with this scheme whatsoever, and I haven't heard a really compelling argument for it yet. To really drive my point home, Ubisoft, evil mega-conglomerate that they are, have come out and are actually encouraging Let's Plays and coverage of their games. There's the question of fair use with all of this, but I can't believe I'm going to say this - I agree with Ubisoft and not Nintendo. And it makes me really sad to have to say that.

I think Nintendo's approaching this from entirely the wrong direction, as most have said before me. I voted "No". Them making a couple of bucks from YouTube videos pales in comparison to the potential effects of the passionate video makers out there who clearly adore Nintendo and its games. Love it or hate it, a well-populated YT vid also encourages conversation and nostalgia, however puerile some of these conversations may be.

YouTubers who are in it for the money really irritate me, but I suppose I can't begrudge their ability to take advantage of an income. It's the videos that are clearly the product of much passion, love and awe of Nintendo that do the most good, and it saddens me a little bit that such people will be penalised for their work. No company comes close to Nintendo when it comes to fostering passion, and I think here the suits at the top are showing a bit of that misguided/outdated ignorance the company is often capable of.

Stu_the_great wrote:

It's the videos that are clearly the product of much passion, love and awe of Nintendo that do the most good, and it saddens me a little bit that such people will be penalised for their work.

Yep, it's exactly this point that bothers me about their affiliate scheme and policy on YouTube in general - I couldn't give two tosses if Pewdiepie and his ilk suffer because of this, but there's a lot of great content creators on YouTube who'll be shafted by this.

It's a no from me, this is the sort of thing the youtubers could probably charge the company themselves for, they have the audience regardless of what they're playing so why Nintendo would effectively discourage them from doing so really is baffling. I see where they're coming from but I don't think they're looking at the wider picture.

I'm going to be a special snowflake and say yes, up to a point.  The way I see it, proper Lets Plays and the like are like sports commentary.  Nintendo's games in this particular case playing the role of the sport and an opposing team, with the video creator being both the commentator and the other team.  

So I'm fine with Nintendo taking, say, thirty percent of the profit, they made the games and all that.  But at the same time there is a limit where taking money just becomes a miser move that ends up hurting both parties, there is (at least in the actually good Lets Plays, not the ones where someone runns around screaming like a tard while playing awfully) also a good amount of content in them made by someone else that they are in fact essentially stealing, and that portion the video makers should have full right to make money off of if they so choose.  

With all that said, what I've seen and heard from both sides makes me feel incredibly apathic to them both.  Nintendo is being a typical nasty company swinging its weight around for no good reason, and the youtubers (or the ones I've seen videos from on the issue at any rate) are behaving like entitled whining crybabies.  Both sides need to grow up and discuss the issue, instead of this huge hissyfit they both seem to throw.  Well, the youtubers anyway, with nintendo it's less of a hissyfit and more of a "we're the ones with the power and if you don't like how we use it then tough s*** because we don't care about you" attitude.

balladeer wrote:

I voted "no". Don't get me wrong, Youtubers are entitled pricks. PewDiePie mewling about how people come to watch him, not the games, is the worst of them.

He really said that? I dislike him even more now, there's a lot of youtubers that I like to watch because they do provide good entertainment but if they are playing a game I have zero interest in then I will not watch it.

Jay wrote:

To put that into perspective, nothing on Nintendo's official channel has that viewcount - and that Pewdiepie video is a somewhat average viewcount for him. What they've essentially done here is removed 7 million potential customers that might have seen Pewdiepie's video.

I'd really like to see some sort of poll that shows what percentage of people watching a game on youtube went out and bought it off the back of a video, as it no doubt happens (I done it myself with minecraft) but I'd be really surprised if it was quite high.


----

Athrun wrote:

Both sides need to grow up and discuss the issue, instead of this huge hissyfit they both seem to throw.

That's it in a nutshell for me, the complaints from the youtubers will subside in a month or two & most will go back to making the content they normally do & no progress will be made then another shouting match will happen in 6 months.

Here's the actual quote, Jas:

PewDiePie wrote:

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 the most up themselves I've seen anyone in a very long time.

Yeah, but it's true. The sales spikes caused by Pewds alone are ridiculous. People really will watch any shit he does.

I do realise how popular he is but more popular than Nintendo? Nah.

I don't think that's the point he's making, I sub to Jim Sterling for instance as I like his stuff and saw him talk about This War of Mine which I went to look up.

So people might just sub to Pewds and if he is playing something they like the look off they might go check it out be it Nintendo, Ubisoft or whatever but now it won't be Nintendo. So all the people that sub to him might now not get exposed to Nintendo games and it does sound like a lot of YouTubers agree with him, so that's less exposure for Nintendo and there already awful with marketing.

Plus the odds are they aren't getting introduced to the big youtubers through Nintendo games, so the odds are they aren't in Nintendos own circle of influence. It has mass appeal to a whole new audience and they're missing it.

Got to agree, Jas: it's a different ball game. PewDiePie may not be as popular as Nintendo, but he doesn't care because people wouldn't get into him through Nintendo. People could get into Nintendo through him. (Or a Nintendo game, at least.)

I would actually say pewdiepie is probably more popular than nintendo right now actually, although that would have to do more with Nintendo not actually being all that popular. Nintendo had a chance to solidify the popularity of the DS and Wii and turn it in to something that would last long term and apply to them as a brand, and instead let that chance slide past and have since sunk back to where they were in the old gamecube days. They may have a few extremely recognizable mascots and systems, but that does not mean they as a company are the popular ones.

Meanwhile as irritatingly arrogant as Pewds statement is it's also bang on correct. He's the popular one, not the videos but the person. Which is why he enjoys long lasting popularity and is the one setting the trends rather than having to tailor himself to the trends.

The_Jaster wrote:

Jay wrote:

To put that into perspective, nothing on Nintendo's official channel has that viewcount - and that Pewdiepie video is a somewhat average viewcount for him. What they've essentially done here is removed 7 million potential customers that might have seen Pewdiepie's video.

I'd really like to see some sort of poll that shows what percentage of people watching a game on youtube went out and bought it off the back of a video, as it no doubt happens (I done it myself with minecraft) but I'd be really surprised if it was quite high.

Not sure about AAA developers, but YouTube has a proven effect on indie developers. This article is just one of many examples indie developers give. If coverage of these games cause a spike in sales, I don't think it'd be a stretch to assume that AAA games receive a similar, if not larger, boost to sales following YouTube coverage.

Athrun888 wrote:

Meanwhile as irritatingly arrogant as Pewds statement is it's also bang on correct.  He's the popular one, not the videos but the person.  Which is why he enjoys long lasting popularity and is the one setting the trends rather than having to tailor himself to the trends.  

Yep. It might not be the case for some, but many people watch Let's Plays on YouTube because of the content creator, not because of the content itself. YouTube is a cult of personality in that regard. I think it's summed up by this quote:

Tony Ponce, former editor of Destructoid wrote:

The success of these videos relies on the talent and likeability of the authors almost as much as on the game itself, sometimes more so.

JayMoyles wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

Jay wrote:

To put that into perspective, nothing on Nintendo's official channel has that viewcount - and that Pewdiepie video is a somewhat average viewcount for him. What they've essentially done here is removed 7 million potential customers that might have seen Pewdiepie's video.

I'd really like to see some sort of poll that shows what percentage of people watching a game on youtube went out and bought it off the back of a video, as it no doubt happens (I done it myself with minecraft) but I'd be really surprised if it was quite high.

Not sure about AAA developers, but YouTube has a proven effect on indie developers. This article is just one of many examples indie developers give. If coverage of these games cause a spike in sales, I don't think it'd be a stretch to assume that AAA games receive a similar, if not larger, boost to sales following YouTube coverage.

That's what will happen with Drunkas review of Frenchy Bird

400% sales spike imminent.

In addition to the Jim Sterling video that went up in the Jim Sterling thread, Nintendo Life have done an editorial saying that Nintendo's policy won't work. You can think what you like about the Grand Fat Man of Gaming (a crown that will rescind to Gabe Newell should Half Life 3 ever be released), but NL love Nintendo utterly. That they are so damning about this policy says a huge amount.

Read the details on the NL article. There are elements of it that are counterintuitive at best. It's a non-starter for me and if Nintendo try to push it through, they will only enhance their reputation of being out-of-touch.