Hello again… here we are. This week, it was exceptionally easy to find a topic to discuss a bit with myself. I would now like to present the fruits of this more or less exciting discussion. Let the stage be free for the boldest or dumbest company of the week: Nintendo!
What happened?
If you do a bit more on YouTube than just listening to music videos, you have probably heard about this. Nintendo is asking all Let’s Players to pay up who play games from the Japanese corporation in their videos.
Starting in May, all YouTubers who want to continue monetizing a “Let’s Play” with Nintendo content (i.e., displaying ads) will have to give up 40% of their earnings. And as if that weren’t bad enough, they have to sign up for an official “Nintendo Partner Program.” All financial gains from the video will first go to Nintendo before the “rest” is sent to the creators of the videos. How transparent this whole thing is, or whether we can even speak of transparency at all, remains to be seen.
Why am I getting upset?
Looking at it soberly: It doesn’t affect me. I don’t create videos and I rarely watch Nintendo games on YouTube. But I still believe that the implications of this approach can have serious consequences for the entire internet. If Nintendo gets away with this, it is only a matter of time before other developers (yes, I’m looking at you, EA!) will follow suit to take their share of the big pie of advertising revenues.
On one side, one could say that Nintendo has every right to do so. And fundamentally, that is true. Every game is first protected as intellectual property, and anyone wanting to make money from that property has to ask for permission or obtain corresponding licenses. This applies to music, films, and pretty much all other media.
So why do I see things differently when it comes to Let’s Plays?
The best advertisement in the world – and still paid!
All of the above doesn’t apply to Let’s Plays for this simple reason: They are the best, free advertising in the world. Many successful games, like Minecraft or Hearthstone, would probably never have become so prominent if we hadn’t been able to watch the well-known stars and celebrities of the internet hosting streams or uploading videos on YouTube. I don’t want to know how much money Mojang would have had to spend to achieve a similar PR effect as the “Let’s Plays” have accomplished.
Of course, there are exceptions to this regulation. If games, for example, rely heavily on a dense story and offer little in terms of gameplay, I can certainly understand criticism of the videos – because then there’s no incentive to buy the game after viewing it once. However, this is not the case for ALL other games.
The worst part is actually that Nintendo is hitting the strongest supporters the hardest, if not in the stomach. Those who primarily produce videos of their games will naturally suffer the most from the drop in profits. It is also still unclear how the various networks to which YouTubers often belong will react to this announcement and how they will account for it. In any case, it’s a black day for the Let’s Play scene – and with a bit of luck, it’s the beginning of its downfall.
How do you see the matter? Is it Nintendo’s right, or a step in the wrong direction? Let me know in the comments!
