Do you agree with Nintendo's Creators Program?

[FAST6191]

There's something I don't get...youtube originally started as a means to upload and share video's. Later, as the site became more popular than some television stations, adds ensured that the ones who were most popular got a bit of money from it. And even lots of money if you were popular. The problem with it that was originally small, though, also got bigger: that the used content to a large degree isn't of the creator of the video. It's not that hard to just upload a part or even a complete movie, serie or music track to youtube and watch the money roll in. Except that doesn't happen, as the owners rightfully wave copyright claims at me.

Why would video games be different? Let's plays are fundamentally different than reviews, critiques or other kinds of youtube-vids where only fractions of the game are shown, but get somehow thrown on the same pile in this discussion. And I really don't agree to that.

-the "free advertisement" shit is doubtful at best. Reviews and critiques may help a good game sell better, but let's plays? I've seen let's plays consisting of multiple hours (seen as in 'seen the description'. Not watched them entirely). Are we really to believe that people watching all that, see all the spoilers and gameplay, are going to go out and buy that game afterwards? I don't think so. It's the same case as with movies: show too much of it and people won't buy it anymore.
-this is a relatively new phenomenon. I kind of wonder how cocksure everyone is in their conviction that this is a failed marketing move by nintendo. I'm open to suggestions as to why, but thus far, nobody seems to be able to tell why that would be (in fact, nobody even seem to mention that at least they're not hindering anyone from uploading video's anymore).
-I don't watch let's plays, but it wasn't hard to see that most of them revolve around AAA-titles. In other words: the games that would've sold good anyway. Even more: due to the lack of decent third party titles, pretty much all that's left to do let's plays on are about titles of already very known and established franchises. And it's not like the sales of those titles will go up if there are many let's plays floating around.
-finally: do people follow let's players or rather the actual game being let's played? I would think the latter. So let's say there are 10 let's players in total. 9 of them are disgusted by ninty's policy and do stuff on other franchises. The tenth does a let's play and gets half the money. But because not that many people make these let's plays, he'll end up with more hits (and thus more money). So in the end, it scares away those who only do let's plays for money. And it may be black-and-white'ish, but...how exactly is that a bad move?

Reviews and critiques (and satire/parody*1 and eduction) would be exemptions from copyright though so that does change things a bit. From what I have seen most people seem to be using some kind of nebulous "but they have to do work on top of it" kind of argument, one that has precisely zero basis in most IP law. Copyright would seem to be the main thing companies are using, though some have dabbled with some trademark stuff for some aspects of it (I reckon Microsoft's recent policy on the matter has a lot of trademark stuff underpinning parts of it -- http://www.xbox.com/en-us/developers/rules if you had not seen it). Let's plays would not seem to be part of that, at least not by default. "fractional amount" means surprisingly little in IP law, though I would agree that if you potentially have to justify each use then it would be easier to justify if you did not have the lot there -- there is nothing to say a critique has to be shorter than the work in question or can not cover the entire work, the key word for most of that side of law would be transformative, something I agree most let's plays are not.
In the original Nintendo vs let's play threads I made comments to the effect of "end of the gravy train" or "the wild west has been tamed" and I stand by them here. That said I would have been content to have it remain as something of a legal grey area.

*1 was not in some (many?) EU states until later last year, had been in the US for a while.

Let's plays as advertisement is probably a whole discussion unto itself. Alas the only real marketing/sales data I have seen shared for games was the demos make sales go down idea ( http://www.pcgamesn.com/jesse-schell-releasing-demo-harms-your-game-sales ). However similar things are studied in films, TV and books, possibly with some analysis for piracy ( https://torrentfreak.com/director-won’t-think-less-of-you-for-downloading-on-bittorrent-080116/ is an example and torrentfreak has endless examples of similar things from various directors/producers/people responsible for such works).
The main thing seems to be it very much varies with your projected audience and the relative budget/reach of your work. Various high end things being troubled and a lot of low-mid range stuff often being boosted. Now I am hesitant to link things too heavily if games are supposedly still going to be getting the vast majority of their profits within the first few weeks of release (even if I hold that to be an accounting scheme a la Hollywood accounting most of the time, especially in this time when everything is available as a downloadable game rather than just a select few staying on shelves, or returning to shelves as a greatest hits).
With games you say about spoilers and that does seem to change the attitude devs take on a per game basis -- seeing someone play minecraft for four hours is probably not going to spoil it for me, seeing someone play through some story based game without choices may do this, or at least sate me until I see it in a bargain bin three years from then/it has a nice GOTY edition the next year.
To this end AAA, even more than my usual issues with the term, may not be that useful a description here, not to mention I am not sure how many of them revolve around this categorisation.
There have been various games that rose to prominence after let's plays were done, because a handful of the people doing them were popular*, whether that is because of that, because they formed part of a grass roots effort or utterly in spite of that remains to be debated.
On the flip side I have seen let's players where the players were exhibiting what I can only describe as infomertial levels of stupidity (on top of being painfully unfunny) and trademark law does include such lines as "general public likely to be confused". If certain types are likely to see your work cast in a negative light then it might be worth sacrificing this for the greater good.

*I do not know how much you know of slightly older UK radio but there was a DJ called John Peel, being played on his show meant a lot more than most other things you could do. There are similar examples of such people in all sorts of other areas, even today with culture/entertainment being as unfocused/diverse as it is compared to previous decades. The term behind it being "tastemakers", however I am not sure it is the most fitting here.

"do people follow let's players or rather the actual game being let's played?"
I covered part of that in the previous paragraphs but I think this might be an example of the internet loving its "fairness", all while completely misunderstanding the concept.

 

[Taleweaver]

They need to protect the status quo where 1% of the world's population owns more than the other 99% put together.
It's called capitalism, and it sucks.
Even ardent supporters of it must wonder how this can be considered "fair" in any way.

What the hell are you on? You're so caught up in slogan-speak that you even forget to mention which side you're defending: the "noble gaming industry vs the egoistic let's play-ers who mooch off of the work of the thousands of game developers"...or rather the "small enterprising youtube-community who attempts to make a living doing something they love but get thwarted by an evil corporation who claims control of their revenue in order to spice up the bonus of their CEO" ?

If a person gets all that he wants from a game through a Let's Play, I doubt he wanted to play it bad enough to buy it in the first place.

That's the same argument as pirates bring up: "I only care for the game if it's free; otherwise I would've pirated bought something else". The thing is that if let's plays are brought up as reasons for publicity, it's important to understand that they suck all the interesting parts of discovery/narrative out of it.
Also...it's pretty hard to have a completely unique kind of gameplay, so I wouldn't dismiss it as easily. If you know that the gameplay is akin to a game you already know and like, why would you buy another game with those elements if the main differenting factor (the story) is already revealed?

Story heavy classic JRPGs I can see being a problem, since they are just all story. Other than that, though, I'd argue that games are transformative, they differs depending on the player. It can be interesting to see how a favorite personality plays differently and makes different choices than you. They also tend to be more personality driven. People are rarely there for the game, but for the person playing them.

It's well more than JRPG's. Most games have some sort of narrative to it, not to mention choices and branches in a different direction. I admit that on let's plays, things may unfold very different than when you're the one playing, but I'm not sure if they're mainly watched for the person playing rather than the game.
(it would seem logic to me that those interested in let's plays go around and subscribe to a whole bunch of them, and when a game comes out they like, go check whom has a let's play on it).

I have noticed smaller games blowing up, seemingly due to Let's Players checking them out. I've also seen some of Nintendo's smaller games fall quickly into obscurity, seemingly due to lack of coverage from youtubers. That's mostly speculation, I have nothing to back that up and I'm not exactly a person that pays attention to what's popular. AAA games will sell, anyway, so I doubt they are hurting if they actually do manage to lose some sells due to Let's Plays.

Just out of curiosity: which ones would that be? No matter what title I come up with, "let's play <insert wiiu game>" easily provides me with hours of content. Most likely not by the more famous youtubers, but it both supports your case (games get picked up by mention of famous persons) as undermines it (the coverage IS there).

Unfortunately, youtube Reviewers tend to get lumped in with Let's Players in Nintendo's eyes. That's a concern as it could be abused to censor criticism. In the end, Nintendo content probably won't be as profitable for youtubers as other content, be it reviewers/critics or Let's Players, so they just won't be covered as much. The only ones that will really hurt from it are youtubers that exclusively do Nintendo content and maybe Nintendo themselves. It just seems silly to me that it's Nintendo doing this, not EA or Ubisoft.

As I've told earlier, the ones sticking by nintendo aren't exclusively worse off. Those who watch let's plays by famous youtubers aren't going to watch a second one, so it could be an opportunity for those guys to become more popular.

I'll admit I'm also surprised that nintendo is the first in doing this. Perhaps sony and (especially) MS are too afraid of the backlash it could cause, but EA is the kind of company that does everything for money despite what their customers want. Strange...

 

[Smuff]

What the hell are you on? You're so caught up in slogan-speak that you even forget to mention which side you're defending: the "noble gaming industry vs the egoistic let's play-ers who mooch off of the work of the thousands of game developers"...or rather the "small enterprising youtube-community who attempts to make a living doing something they love but get thwarted by an evil corporation who claims control of their revenue in order to spice up the bonus of their CEO" ?

I'm sorry....... You ask me what *I'm* on and then proceed to write that drivel ?

What the fuck is "slogan-speak" ? What "slogans" did I "speak" ?

My point is an indisputable fact, widely reported by the worlds press recently.

It also fits with the "greedy corporation ripping off the little guy" point in your reply.

 

[Taleweaver]

My point is an indisputable fact, widely reported by the worlds press recently.

Which is exactly my problem: you blindly parrot headlines of the press says without even noticing nobody of said press talks about nintendo getting a share of the content their employees deliver.


As to which slogans:

"They need to protect the status quo"

Do you even know what "status quo" means in this situation?

1% of the world's population owns more than the other 99% put together

Those numbers are about people, not companies. But even then: nintendo isn't in that top tier segment to begin with.

It's called capitalism, and it sucks.

Get to know the difference between "capitalism" and "free market". And while you're at it, think as to how this hollow statement has anything to do with this situation.

Even ardent supporters of it must wonder how this can be considered "fair" in any way.

The very fact that I can spin this statement into two opposite directions show how meaningless it is.

 

[Gahars]

-the "free advertisement" shit is doubtful at best. Reviews and critiques may help a good game sell better, but let's plays? I've seen let's plays consisting of multiple hours (seen as in 'seen the description'. Not watched them entirely). Are we really to believe that people watching all that, see all the spoilers and gameplay, are going to go out and buy that game afterwards? I don't think so. It's the same case as with movies: show too much of it and people won't buy it anymore.

Various games have gotten boosts from Let's Plays. This is most obvious with horror games; Amnesia, Slender, etc. exploded thanks to exposure from PewDiePie, Markiplier's playthrough of the original Five Nights at Freddy's gave that game a huge boost, etc. Though not exactly a Let's Player, developers have come out and thanked TotalBiscuit for sales jumps after coverage in his WTF Is... series. PewDiePie alone has a subscriber base of 34 million loyal viewers, and an average video of his may get 3-4 million views in a day. Publishers are even putting quotes from him on the box art of games (Dying Light, for example). We may hate PewDiePie's content just the same, but you can't tell me that you don't see the huge marketing potential right there.

Watching someone play a game and actually playing it for yourself are two very different things. The advantage of a Let's Play is that it lets people see how a game works before they plunge down the money themselves. Extremely plot-focused games/QTE-fests might benefit the least, it's hard to say, but it's not like Nintendo makes that to begin with.

-this is a relatively new phenomenon. I kind of wonder how cocksure everyone is in their conviction that this is a failed marketing move by nintendo. I'm open to suggestions as to why, but thus far, nobody seems to be able to tell why that would be (in fact, nobody even seem to mention that at least they're not hindering anyone from uploading video's anymore).

Then you haven't read the thread, because reasons have already been given. To sum up the biggest concern, Nintendo's system is by far the most restrictive; no other publisher has anything remotely similar to this. This (plus the stupidly high cut from ad revenue, the lengthy approval process, etc.) are going to encourage content-makers to avoid Nintendo products and cover other games instead. This is not in Nintendo's best interest.

Another concern is that this will also impact reviews. It seems that reviews of Nintendo games, with footage of the games, will still be subject to this approval process. Not only is this kind of shady (Is Nintendo going to approve negative reviews? Will there be pressure on reviewers to soften their criticism for approval?), the wait time is going to hurt, too. Reviews thrive on timeliness; people want to know as soon as a game is out if it's good or not. If you have to wait to be approved, customers are losing out on valuable information. Again, this will encourage reviewers to focus on other titles where they can put out content as soon as they can produce it.

-I don't watch let's plays, but it wasn't hard to see that most of them revolve around AAA-titles. In other words: the games that would've sold good anyway. Even more: due to the lack of decent third party titles, pretty much all that's left to do let's plays on are about titles of already very known and established franchises. And it's not like the sales of those titles will go up if there are many let's plays floating around.

You clearly didn't look hard enough. Let's Plays of AAA-titles certainly can help those titles, and the AAA's recognize this (publishers will send AAA titles to Let's Players, like TwoBestFriendsPlay or PewDiePie, sometimes well before release). It might not make-or-break a title, but good word of mouth is nothing to scoff at. Personally, I find it helpful to see how an upcoming title plays before plopping down $60 on what may be an overstuffed turd. I wouldn't have bought Wolfenstein: The New Order otherwise, for example.

The other big thing, though, is that Let's Plays of independent titles is huge, and the impact there is significantly more pronounced. Again, look at Amnesia, Slender, Five Nights at Freddy's, etc. Exposure from a major channel can be the difference between success or failure for these titles.

Mario might not need a Markiplier playthrough to be a hit (though, again, extra exposure to the 34 million kids that watch PewDiePie certainly wouldn't hurt), but as others have mentioned, it might do wonders for smaller e-shop titles that would otherwise languish in obscurity.

-finally: do people follow let's players or rather the actual game being let's played? I would think the latter.

Actually, for a lot of people, it's the former. PewDiePie's got 34 million subscribers and almost 8 billion views, Markiplier's got almost 6 million subscribers and 1.6 billion views, etc. If it was solely on a game-by-game basis, these channels wouldn't maintain their consistent popularity. You and I might go about it differently, but there's tons of viewers that will watch and want to buy whatever their favorite Youtuber is playing.

So let's say there are 10 let's players in total. 9 of them are disgusted by ninty's policy and do stuff on other franchises. The tenth does a let's play and gets half the money. But because not that many people make these let's plays, he'll end up with more hits (and thus more money). So in the end, it scares away those who only do let's plays for money. And it may be black-and-white'ish, but...how exactly is that a bad move?

The problem is that Nintendo's cut is so extreme (especially considering it's already on top of the cut already taken by Youtube and the networks channels are connected to), unless the viewcount is astronomically high, it'd still be in a Youtuber's best interest to cover other content. With the market as saturated as it is right now, there's no shortage of other games for people to cover; in the end, this just hurts Nintendo more than anything else.

Also... I've seen a lot of disdain for "people in it for the money," but... what's the problem there? These people depend on the revenue of their videos so they can focus entirely on producing more content. If people are interested enough and watch a channel enough to keep its creator afloat, that benefits everyone. Can't we be okay with, or at least, apathetic to, others' successes? Of all the flavors in the world, why would you choose salty?

 

[Smuff]

Which is exactly my problem: you blindly parrot headlines of the press says without even noticing nobody of said press talks about nintendo getting a share of the content their employees deliver.


As to which slogans:

"They need to protect the status quo"

Do you even know what "status quo" means in this situation?

1% of the world's population owns more than the other 99% put together

Those numbers are about people, not companies. But even then: nintendo isn't in that top tier segment to begin with.

It's called capitalism, and it sucks.

Get to know the difference between "capitalism" and "free market". And while you're at it, think as to how this hollow statement has anything to do with this situation.

Even ardent supporters of it must wonder how this can be considered "fair" in any way.

The very fact that I can spin this statement into two opposite directions show how meaningless it is.

1.I have an A-Level in Latin - I think I know what "status quo" means - in any situation

I was going to answer all your questions individually but then realised what a waste of my time that would be so I decided to answer them all rolled into one.

You, sir, are a prize prick

You are clearly correct in everything you say.

I am clearly in error here and cannot apologise enough.

Now kindly fuck off and stop bothering me

 

[Nightwish]

That's the same argument as pirates bring up: "I only care for the game if it's free; otherwise I would've pirated bought something else".

And you've failed to point out how either of them is false in your little false equivalence there.

why would you buy another game with those elements if the main differenting factor (the story) is already revealed? (...)
It's well more than JRPG's. Most games have some sort of narrative to it, not to mention choices and branches in a different direction.

If anyone is playing (most) games for their story, they're have no clue what a good story is.

(it would seem logic to me that those interested in let's plays go around and subscribe to a whole bunch of them, and when a game comes out they like, go check whom has a let's play on it).

And you'd be wrong, again.

Just out of curiosity: which ones would that be?

Compared to Let's Plays of EU4, CK2, Binding of Isaac, CIV4 & 5, Banished, ..., they have very little.

 

[TecXero]

That's the same argument as pirates bring up: "I only care for the game if it's free; otherwise I would've pirated bought something else". The thing is that if let's plays are brought up as reasons for publicity, it's important to understand that they suck all the interesting parts of discovery/narrative out of it.
Also...it's pretty hard to have a completely unique kind of gameplay, so I wouldn't dismiss it as easily. If you know that the gameplay is akin to a game you already know and like, why would you buy another game with those elements if the main differenting factor (the story) is already revealed?

It's well more than JRPG's. Most games have some sort of narrative to it, not to mention choices and branches in a different direction. I admit that on let's plays, things may unfold very different than when you're the one playing, but I'm not sure if they're mainly watched for the person playing rather than the game.
(it would seem logic to me that those interested in let's plays go around and subscribe to a whole bunch of them, and when a game comes out they like, go check whom has a let's play on it).

I wouldn't compare it to piracy, as with piracy you're directly experiencing the game. Even with all the homebrewing I do, I'm against piracy. With a Let's Play, you can't guarantee that the player will explore all the dialogue options or the entire world. You also can't guarantee he/she won't. Maybe he/she will take a different branching path than you. This is the big gray area. Big AAA games, I'm not too concerned about, it's generally smaller games when it comes to Let's Plays. FTL: Faster Than Light is a great example of this. People watch Let's Plays of it, not necessarily for the game, but to see their favorite personality go up against randomly generated content and see how he/she reacts. I've also noticed some people use Let's Plays for Walkthroughs when they get stuck.

Just out of curiosity: which ones would that be? No matter what title I come up with, "let's play <insert wiiu game>" easily provides me with hours of content. Most likely not by the more famous youtubers, but it both supports your case (games get picked up by mention of famous persons) as undermines it (the coverage IS there).

Dillon's Rolling Western and Crashmo, for example. I'm not saying they did poorly or that they don't have their fans, just that they seemed to quickly fall into obscurity and there generally aren't quality Let's Plays for them. Even the reviews for those are sparse.

As I've told earlier, the ones sticking by nintendo aren't exclusively worse off. Those who watch let's plays by famous youtubers aren't going to watch a second one, so it could be an opportunity for those guys to become more popular.

Back when I had roommates, they had a couple of games they absolutely loved. They would watch Let's Plays of the same game from different youtubers. Now, that isn't exactly that relevant as it was just two people, they already loved and owned the games in the first place (so that wouldn't have hurt Nintendo in any way), and if there was only one decent Let's Play of the game on the entire youtube site, it still would have benefited that one youtuber. The only people that would have been hurt in that situation, to a minor degree, would have been my roommates.

In the end, I doubt it will really hurt that many youtubers. The program itself probably won't hurt Nintendo that much either, probably just their small games. If it does hurt Nintendo, it will be because of the bad PR this is generating. The only youtuber I know of that does a lot of Nintendo Let's Plays is Chuggaaconroy. Even then, I do believe he's been transitioning away from Nintendo content.

 

[BenRK]

I think everyone is in the wrong here.

On one hand, Nintendo has every right to do this, but on the other, they're not explaining it well.

On one hand, letsplayers have been doing this for years, but on the other hand, Pewdiepie really is just a whiny idiot and I never understood why people think watching others scream all the time is funny.

I think something people forget is that a lot of the popular people on YouTube actually make their money through networks. These networks work out deals with publishers, and it's why people like the Game Grumps can have most of their videos be Nintendo ones and still make money.

I think that this is more to cut out the middle man then anything. I can't say I'm an expert, but if I had to guess, I would imagine going through a network gives you a smaller cut then going directly through Nintendo. Only time will tell, but I have a feeling this new program will allow more people to at least make some spending money.

However, Nintendo REALLY needs to expand on the list from "Here's a select few titles and none of the popular ones," to "EVERYTHING EVERYTHING!" I want to say that the list is that small only because they're still working out the kinks of the system. I want to say that, but I can't be sure.

 

[shinkodachi]

On one hand, Nintendo has every right to do this, but on the other, they're not explaining it well.

Everyone has rights. Exercising a right every chance you can is not necessarily the best way to go about things.

 

[BenRK]

Everyone has rights. Exercising a right every chance you can is not necessarily the best way to go about things.

You would be foolish to think that Nintendo is the ONLY one doing this. ALL major publishers are doing this in one form or another, Nintendo is just one of if not the first to do it publicly. And since when has exercising ones right a bad thing? Only when it inconveniencesyou?

 

[Gahars]

You would be foolish to think that Nintendo is the ONLY one doing this. ALL major publishers are doing this in one form or another, Nintendo is just one of if not the first to do it publicly.

Except that's literally false. The closest thing you have are networks (like Polaris, for example), which cover numerous Youtubers under their umbrella. From what I understand, they promote these channels and provide them general legal protection. They do take a cut of ad revenue, as does Youtube, but the problem here is that a) what Nintendo's asking for is quite large, percentage wise, b) it seems to be on top of the already present cuts, which is even worse, and c) its limitations and stipulations are pretty damn restrictive.

There's no conspiracy to bully Nintendo here, and deliberately misunderstanding this situation to support some sort of persecution complex is a waste of energy. If you like Nintendo, then you should be especially critical of their missteps so that they improve. Blind acceptance of any poor decision is going to hurt them in the long run.

 

[BenRK]

Right, because me trying to play devils advocate is me being an uber fanboy. I was simply trying to show another side of the coin instead of being "LETS HATE NINTENDO CAUSE ITS POPULAR TO DO SO!"

I fricken mentioned networks, and I don't think either of us have any real first hand knowledge to say how much of a cut they take, but from my understanding, 70/30 is better then what networks provide.

I REALLY want to hear someones opinion who deal with networks all the time rather then people repeating popular opinion.

 

[Gahars]

Right, because me trying to play devils advocate is me being an uber fanboy. I was simply trying to show another side of the coin instead of being "LETS HATE NINTENDO CAUSE ITS POPULAR TO DO SO!"

You would be foolish to think that Nintendo is the ONLY one doing this. ALL major publishers are doing this in one form or another, Nintendo is just one of if not the first to do it publicly.

That's not playing devil's advocate, that's blatantly misrepresenting the current environment with the networks. The networks support a wide umbrella, from AAA titles to the tiny indies, not just one or a handful of companies.

I fricken mentioned networks, and I don't think either of us have any real first hand knowledge to say how much of a cut they take, but from my understanding, 70/30 is better then what networks provide.

I REALLY want to hear someones opinion who deal with networks all the time rather then people repeating popular opinion.

Well, sure, we can look to someone who does.



Even in the most favorable light (and remembering the 50% split taken by Google), this is still a worse deal because it constrains the restricts the channels to certain Nintendo content and/or considerably longer "approval" times, whereas competing channels can cover a wider range of games without having to sit on a waiting list.

 

[BenRK]

Even in the most favorable light (and remembering the 50% split taken by Google), this is still a worse deal because it constrains the restricts the channels to certain Nintendo content and/or considerably longer "approval" times, whereas competing channels can cover a wider range of games without having to sit on a waiting list.

First off, I also have little respect for Totalbiscut, and I don't get why he would be complaining as I don't recall him ever covering Nintendo stuff.

In any case, I NEVER said it was perfect, and I seem to recall that what they're doing now is them trying to refine it, figure out what works and what doesn't. An alpha or beta test or whatever you want to call it. I agree, them approving videos smells fishy at best. I don't know how they would be able to manually do it and it opens up issues such as approving only videos that portray the games in a completely positive light. I get that and certainly hope it is something that is ironed out.

At the end of the day though, this isn't something that will effect 99% of us personally beyond OH NO people will stop screaming at Nintendo games, now how will I fill my laugh at screaming idiot quota!? (No, I don't have a high opinion of lets plays)

 

[TecXero]

First off, I also have little respect for Totalbiscut, and I don't get why he would be complaining as I don't recall him ever covering Nintendo stuff.

The point of Content Patch is gaming news and his opinion on it. TotalBiscuit is nowhere close to being perfect, he admits that himself. What he does do is be honest and willing to share his point of view as someone that relies on Youtube. Yeah, he doesn't do Nintendo content, for the most part, but he does explain why it's not exactly desirable for any Youtuber. You may not like TotalBiscuit, which is entirely up to you, but if you want the perspective of a Youtuber on this program, I'd recommend giving it a listen.

 

[Gahars]

First off, I also have little respect for Totalbiscut, and I don't get why he would be complaining as I don't recall him ever covering Nintendo stuff.

...Because he's a) covering this as part of his news program, b) familiar with the network system and able to convey criticisms from that perspective, and c) because he has friends/colleagues/peers who will be affected by this new policies.

In any case, I NEVER said it was perfect, and I seem to recall that what they're doing now is them trying to refine it, figure out what works and what doesn't. An alpha or beta test or whatever you want to call it. I agree, them approving videos smells fishy at best. I don't know how they would be able to manually do it and it opens up issues such as approving only videos that portray the games in a completely positive light. I get that and certainly hope it is something that is ironed out.

Considering the details of the program, I'd say "refinement" is too nice a word. Demanding huge cuts from fans and constraining their fans to certain content at a time when no other companies have anything remotely comparable and the general trend is loosening restrictions (Microsoft revising their policy, publishers giving Let's Players early access to new titles, etc.) is pretty regressive. It's either blatant money-grubbing or proof that Nintendo is that out of touch with the current online environment.

At the end of the day though, this isn't something that will effect 99% of us personally beyond OH NO people will stop screaming at Nintendo games, now how will I fill my laugh at screaming idiot quota!? (No, I don't have a high opinion of lets plays)

You don't have to be impacted by something to be critical of it. I don't make Let's Plays and I don't really watch them unless I'm just looking to see how a game plays before I make a purchase. I don't even like wide swaths of Let's Players but that doesn't meant they shouldn't be able to keep making their content or should be subjected to unfair terms.

Besides, whether or not we like them, Let's Players have an undeniable presence right now; PewDiePie, of all things, is one of (if not the) most viewed channels in Youtube. In terms of marketing and promotion, they can be huge (and in the case of smaller titles, they can be everything). In the end, Nintendo is only hurting itself; while there's plenty of other titles in the market for Let's Players to choose from, Nintendo is chasing away a free source of promotion. Mario might not need the extra push, though it certainly wouldn't hurt, but there's plenty of smaller e-shop titles on the Wii U languishing in obscurity, and every little bit could help.

 

[Vipera]

Wow, I really do not care for most let's play types I have seen, the concept as a whole (largely unscripted and unrefined footage of gameplay without much in the way of salient commentary if most things I have seen are anything to go by), would agree that legally they have basically no leg to stand on and would not especially care if it all went away tomorrow but that still sounds incredibly harsh.

I just find very irritating how these people act like they are entitled to money for riding a fad and get pissed when the original creators demand a part of their unfair earnings. It's toxic how someone who makes a fool of himself on camera/a hot chick playing games can learn much more than the developers who made that game. It's a big "fuck you" to the market, and unless it's regulated, or unless people learn to fucking PLAY a game instead of watching it, we will soon have less people who get interested into a developer career because hey, why would I want to study to make my 3D model when some teenager can make 10x more money just by mocking it?

The internet is filled with people trying to make money easily out of nothing. Before YouTube partnership and Android, people used to do stuff because they ENJOYED it. How many homebrews do we have for the 3DS and how many we used to have on the DS? But now people demand to be paid, even for half-assed crap on Android that's filled with ads. When I had an Android phone, I wanted to download a shitty Tic-Tac-Toe game. You know what I found? SHAREWARE TIC-TAC-TOE GAMES LOL! And one guy who offered it for free. So I downloaded it and... ads on the homescreen. Nice, fucking nice. People got greedy.

So yes, pardon my harshness, but I feel incredibly angry by this situation. My gaming and porno tastes are the same: homemade is better. But how would you feel if homemade stuff nowadays is full of fakers who do it just for the money? I can't even find good hackroms anymore because you can't really make money out of it.

 

[FAST6191]

I just find very irritating how these people act like they are entitled to money for riding a fad and get pissed when the original creators demand a part of their unfair earnings. It's toxic how someone who makes a fool of himself on camera/a hot chick playing games can learn much more than the developers who made that game. It's a big "fuck you" to the market, and unless it's regulated, or unless people learn to fucking PLAY a game instead of watching it, we will soon have less people who get interested into a developer career because hey, why would I want to study to make my 3D model when some teenager can make 10x more money just by mocking it?

The internet is filled with people trying to make money easily out of nothing. Before YouTube partnership and Android, people used to do stuff because they ENJOYED it. How many homebrews do we have for the 3DS and how many we used to have on the DS? But now people demand to be paid, even for half-assed crap on Android that's filled with ads. When I had an Android phone, I wanted to download a shitty Tic-Tac-Toe game. You know what I found? SHAREWARE TIC-TAC-TOE GAMES LOL! And one guy who offered it for free. So I downloaded it and... ads on the homescreen. Nice, fucking nice. People got greedy.

So yes, pardon my harshness, but I feel incredibly angry by this situation. My gaming and porno tastes are the same: homemade is better. But how would you feel if homemade stuff nowadays is full of fakers who do it just for the money? I can't even find good hackroms anymore because you can't really make money out of it.

"I just find very irritating how these people act like they are entitled to money for riding a fad and get pissed when the original creators demand a part of their unfair earnings"
I have always operated under the idea that nobody owes you a living and would agree in principle there. Equally many of those whining seem to have no clue how this stuff works in the real world but I can not get anywhere near finding it intolerable to earn from it. Later you say about regulation and that is very much not the key to solving whatever problems that are faced here, or at least not additional regulation over what already exists.

"It's toxic how someone who makes a fool of himself on camera/a hot chick playing games can learn [sic?] much more than the developers who made that game"

I think that is very much the exception rather than the rule. Equally I do not want to go too far down this path but I am sure there are some reviewers, satirists and the like doing far better than some of the people that made the works they are looking at. Now review/criticism and satire are two big exceptions to copyright's protections and I have previously argued a simple let's play is not likely to fall under that but it is not worlds apart.

"The internet is filled with people trying to make money easily out of nothing"

There have always been vanity presses, there have always been kit magazines, there have always been rebundlers, there have always been those willing to lean on an import hookup or some capital to buy in bulk, the whole android as whatever thing to me is just the return of bedroom coders -- the C64, amstrad, amiga... era had no end of bedroom/garage based companies, when that went away there was the whole premium rate phone number shareware thing (and you better believe there was endless amounts of tat that was attempting to be sold, screensavers were always popular for some reason) and now we are back somewhere between the two. Most of those are considered legitimate businesses/enterprise.

"we will soon have less people who get interested into a developer career because hey, why would I want to study to make my 3D model when some teenager can make 10x more money just by mocking it"

I could go back to the exception thing but that might be more of a symptom of other issues -- as every kid that wanted to make games would jump at the chance to do it the equivalent salaries in the games industry, though I do not have the greatest respect for most modern game coder types, is far lower than the equivalents elsewhere, to say nothing of the lack of career progression options.

"I can't even find good hackroms anymore"
I would then say you are not looking hard enough. It has been a while since we have seen the likes of Dragoon X Omega II but there are still those doing very good work. Likewise I do not see an especially big distinction between hackers and many mod makers for PC games.

"or unless people learn to fucking PLAY a game instead of watching it"
Watching gameplay is not what floats my boat* but neither is listening to opera and plenty of people seem to enjoy that. To that end I do not have a problem with it.

*I have tried to find it a few times and have thus far failed but there was a Simpsons episode once where Bart went round their god squad neighbours and hogged their games machine, he said they could watch as they were "playing as a team", at which point the other kids said "yay". That sums up the whole let's play thing to me.

Edit Found it.

http://download.lardlad.com/sounds/season11/maude14.mp3
Rod & todd- Can we play now?
Bart- you are playing, we're a team!
*they look at each other*
Rod & Todd- YAY!

 

[TemplarGR]

The truth is, Nintendo is right on this issue. Which is astonishing, since they are usually wrong in everything lately.

Gameplay footage is still copyrighted material. Nintendo owns it, whether you like it or not. You never purchase the game itself, you are purchasing a licence to play it. In private. When you share the game in public, and you gain money from it, you are breaching the EULA. And the law...

It is not legal for Pewdiepie and company to make millions of ad revenue simply by playing a game other sweated to create. Sorry. It is not right either. It is not moral.

You may argue as much as you want that viewers like the people and not the games, but try to remove gameplay footage and see how many views they will have left...

All this revenue they make, should go to the devs of said games, in order for them to make better games in the future. Not some moron with plenty of free time and a camera.