Nintendo Wants YouTubers to Pretend Some Games Don’t Exist

Source: http://recode.net/2015/02/04/nintendo-wants-youtubers-to-pretend-its-competitors-games-dont-exist/

Nintendo’s revenue-sharing program for YouTube, already made controversial by some odd rules, is getting even thornier.

Nintendo’s YouTube Revenue-Sharing Policy Is Here — With Lots of Strings Attached

By Eric Johnson, Feb 4, 2015, 11:40 AM PST

Now, Nintendo is telling YouTubers that if they want to get paid, they may have to delete some videos from their channels completely.

An update posted to the program’s website says video makers won’t be accepted to the program at the higher revenue-share rate — 70 percent — if their channels have any videos of any games not explicitly permitted by a Nintendo whitelist.

“If you have already submitted your channel for registration and it includes video(s) that contain game titles outside of the list of supported games, please remove those videos from your channel within two weeks of the submission date,” the update reads. “If the video(s) are not removed from the channel within this time, your channel will not be registered with the program.”

That whitelist omits some big-on-YouTube titles like Nintendo’s own Super Smash Bros. series. More crucially, it means that anyone who makes videos of games made by Nintendo’s competitors — since those games are also not on the whitelist — will have to submit videos one by one and take only a 60 percent cut of the revenue.

The new rule, originally spotted by VentureBeat, brings into sharper relief the difference between Nintendo’s view of the video world and that world’s view of itself. As YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg wrote on Tumblr last week, he and his personal brand of silliness are more popular than the titles he highlights.

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

Still left in the air is what happens to video channels that have already built followings around a mix of Nintendo and non-Nintendo titles, or around videos of blacklisted games like Super Smash Bros. And left unknown is what sort of word-of-mouth exposure those games might miss out on if the creators of “Let’s Play” videos choose to just avoid the hassle and skip them entirely.

Welp you beat me to finally make a thread on SW for once.

Anyway, I think the greed is getting to Nintendo so much as of late and it saddens me because Nintendo was doing well with the new Super Smash Bros games as well as other recent games. It's shit like this that makes me want to lose respect for them.

They should just stop what they're doing before it gets worse but frankly, I don't see that happening and that's a damn shame. If I was a famous YouTuber that made Nintendo LPs, I'd be against this as well.

**** Nintendo.

Sinners, I will put them in the fiery depths for this.

Nintendo lives in a vacuum. If it doesn't pertain to game design, they don't get it.

Wait, I'm a bit confused here.

Is Nintendo saying that all games not made by Nintendo need to be removed for anyone submitting Nintendo videos to be approved (basically turning their channels into Nintendo only)? Or that they need to remove only Nintendo videos they've done previous without consent that are not on the white list? If it's the latter I see no problem, if it's the former Nintendo can go get fucked. If that's the case, who the hell do these people think they are, and on what grounds do they claim jurisdiction to make such a demand?

I'd love to see the NDF come out for this one if I'm understanding this correctly.

Nintendo is love. Nintendo is life.

I'd like to post the vid but don't want to get banned.

isnt there a thread on this already somewhere

I applaud them for their 3DS and its exclusives, but Nintendo's policies have always been foolishly archaic and deserving of great disrespect.

Seriously Nintendo, you are one of the only major companies that still make games that are more fun to play than to watch. I have no fucking clue why you are going rabbid about this.

I mean, like if someone does Let's Play of Uncharted or God of War, Sony has legit reason to get mad cuz, you know, visual flare is all that they have, but Mario? Pokemon? Zelda? Dude, nobody plays Mario for story or scripted events.

Shiiiiiiiiit, I nearly bought Wii U just watching those Super Mario 3D Land playthroughs despite I barely had money at the time.

Reading the announcement carefully, it sounds like channel registration is intended to be a convenience (with a higher cut) for channels that only intend to post whitelisted games*. Otherwise, if the channel includes games that aren't a part of the program the videos have to be registered individually (with a smaller cut). Either way it takes up to 3 days for videos to be registered and they'll pay you within a month or so.

*Though, the way they phrased it, it sounds like they take a cut of the ad revenues even if you post a video that doesn't involve copyrighted material.

You know, I've been wondering that when Nintendo enters shit like this, I really have to wonder if many (not everyone of course) in the gaming community and the games industry REALLY have much ground to stand on in mourning them SHOULD the day they become bankrupt arrive, considering they've been called dictatorial or, hell, I've seen comments that compare them to freaking organized crime bosses (again: European Mafia, Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triad, take your pick).

I'm not saying what they're doing is right, but still...

What are you doing Nintendo?

I sense an overwhelming amount of inappropriate Peach scks Bowser dkc videos on the horizon.

Nintendo is **** in their head confirmed.

Idiots. Ninty shareholders at work.

That's stupid...i really hope this stuff doesn't interfer with EVO and other majors.

Nintendo is stuck in the past.

Nintendo need to dragged kicking and screaming into age of social media. They need new leadership, they are stuck in the 80's relying on Mario and grasping for total control over their IP like it means anything anymore.

Sony and Microsoft are raping them right now, to pull this crap is idiotic at best.

Why don't people just start their own space and do reviews and whatnot independent of YouTube?

Can't really blame them on that front, considering they MADE Mario/Zelda/Metroid/DK in the first place. What should users have a share in their IP's? THAT won't spell DISASTER!

Who cares, unless you make a living off lets plays. ( What a nice/easy living at that)

Meh, they created the IP and all assets. They should have complete control over it.

I really don't care, I just think the whole "watching games" scene is fucking awful.

Keep talking about it and they MIGHT change it.

That Youtuber Program is in Beta after all.

This is stupid even for Nintendo. What's the big deal? Let them play your games.

How would that be legal? They have no right.

I don't have a problem with taking ad revenue from videos of their games even though I think it's petty, control freakish, and will ultimately hurt them in the long run more than help them. But for them to think they can stick their nose anywhere past that point again goes to show nothing but the largest degree of their arrogance and also shows the contempt they have for people. Nintendo continues to act as if they can dictate what goes on, and it's pathetic because now they're not the big boy in town. People can just tell them to **** off and laugh at them, as they will.

I'm getting to the point that I want to see Nintendo suffer more and more. Acting like this, they deserve it.

Nintendo doesn't deserve to be mourned if they continue to act like this.

Nintendo being Nintendo... have to do their best to try and maintain this fabricated self-image as being pure as the driven snow in the eyes of the American public; can't let anybody have any control over their brands here but themselves.

Also have to make sure to continue censoring the NA releases of their games just in case a 3DS-level sprite is showing too much skin.

I still get the feeling that this perpetual nanny-state bullshit is coming directly out of Nintendo of America, too. Japan and Europe don't seem to have to put up with it to such an extent.

It's also cute watching them try to bully the fresh faced Youtubers like they've been trying to do with actual mainstream media for years and years now. Unfortunately the average Youtuber can't just tell them to go to hell quite as easily.

My best guess is that in registering your channel, you are giving them permission to monetize the channel in it's entirety (and because they're taking a cut of all your revenue, they give you a larger cut) but if the channel contains content they can't legally collect ad revenue from or if you don't want them taking cuts from unrelated, unprotected content then you have to register only the applicable videos individually for a smaller cut.

Tell that to the hypocrites who'll end up doing that anyway.

This is some MS E3 2013 level shit lol.

This is one of the few times I can ever recall agreeing with PewDiePie, because **** that guy. But he's right, millions of people aren't watching the videos on his channel to see Nintendo games, they're watching his channel to watch him do his thing. Nintendo may legally have a right to some of that money, but they're acting like a bunch of dicks and causing way more damage to their image than this whole thing is probably worth. Idiots.

Because Pewds SURELY did a lot of Nintendo related gameplay... OH WAIT!

Insert any game or company name here. Calm down.

Telling me to calm down? Look who's the one calling them "idiots" and "dicks?"

looooool. I really hope I misunderstood that part about forcing to take non-Nintendo games off their channels cuz wow.

And that WiiU list is really small. lol I don't get it. What a mess. I'm sure all that trouble is not even worth it for them. Anyway, let's wait and see how things turn out. My guess is not for the better.

If it's so easy, how about you do it too then? Everyone like easy money. ;)

Exactly what I was thinking.

@nintendoboy16: I see the Nintendo Defense Force has arrived! lmfao

Nintendo sucks

It's so typical that Nintendo is the one pulling this nonsense.

Ninty is sponsor, so I doubt it. So was APEX, and they seem to be happy with the format

Tho, they can just go fascist all of a sudden if they desire.

This whole Nintendo program is really horribly handled,

if all Nintendo did was like "hey, you can use our stuff, but we want a small percentage of money", that would have been okay.

But all these restrictions, rules, all these ways they are trying to control and censor youtubers, it's ridiculous. Why be so stingy over this stuff?

Not a very good way to make money unless you already have a big fanbase like the normalboots guys.

I think its awesome Nintendo is paying people to use their full original content. No wonder so many have flocked to sign up to the new Partner Deal. They even had to place a 72 hour waiting period cause so many are trying to join. This is good for the industry.

Also Pokemon is not entirely licensed by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures share that deal, and some of the characters in Smash Bros are not owned by Nintendo either. Sucks, but thats life. You have to respect their creators.

Also Nintendo is still allowing clips, replays, highlights, guides, snaps, etc to be uploaded and shared for free. Just not full original content. They want to protect their product from slander and cursing and assure the 25+ years of building a fine respectable kid friendly corporation was not in vain. They have an imagine to uphold and have every right to regulate how people use their content.

So less people can make money off of filming themselves playing Nintys games now? Oh noooo... The horror...

Lol Nintendo.

Nintendo is stuck in the 90s..

They obviously don't want you to remove games that are from other publishers. I don't even get where you guys got that idea. As for the whitelist missing Smash Bros., the reason is pretty obvious, it has 3rd party characters and they probably don't have the right to make money from a video with them. Same with Hyrule Warriors that I notice is missing too.

It should also be noticed that their previous policy was that you did not get a penny. So I don't get why people are getting mad that they actually took a step in the (subjectively) right direction.

@Gue1 said:

@Blabadon said:

**** Nintendo.

Nintendo is love. Nintendo is life.

I'd like to post the vid but don't want to get banned.

AHHHHHHHHHH the nightmares.... Its all ogre now.