Wow, what a dick move. Nice job harvesting hatered from your fans you idiots.

This is incredibly short sighted... I've bought many games because I saw people playing them on youtube, games I would never even heard of or even considered buying and I'm sure I can't be the only one.

Youtube is basically free marketing but now Nintendo actually wants to be PAID for the privilege of doing marketing for them? Fuck 'em

I'm glad their games are of virtually no interest to me.

If I was a let's player, I would simply replace all my commentary on nintendo-related videos with unrelated swears of the highest order, completely irrelevant to the game and gamplay an play some really annoying music over it to top it of.

Or just delete the damn videos from youtube...

People have been doing gameplay commentaries with Nintendo's games for years, but just now they're doing this? I think there might be something more going on here. They've been losing money on the WiiU and until recently, the 3DS. I think this is more along the lines of desperation on the execs' part than anything else. When in the red, Nintendo traditionally fights in the dirtiest manner possible. I expect more of this behavior, especially if the WiiU continues to perform as it is right now.

Apparently Nintendo doesn't think that it's losing fans fast enough.

Ever since they came up with the Wii it seems that they're trying to alienate core gamers as much as possible.

Also, YouTube has become very unfriendly to small content creators. Changes to YouTube's search algorithm prioritize corporate-owned content and makes the visibility of small content creators much smaller than in the past.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
It's also worth noting that for every person who says "I bought ___ because of an LP I watched" there's another person who admits "I ended up not buying ____ because I watched an LP instead."

For every trailer a company puts out the same equal reactions are met.

I have done both from lets plays, one has made me a steady customer of a game series I had no idea even existed until I saw a lets play. Another turned me off a game entirely.

(Let me break this down for you, if you make GOOD GAMES. This kind of thing is extremely beneficial to you when someone is talking it up while playing it. If you're a hollow company with nothing of worth to consumers at the moment, you're covering your ass by screaming copyright!! and preventing people from seeing how mediocre your product is as much as possible. This is the real reason. Nothing else)

Lets plays are something entertaining to put on when I am drawing.
If Nintendo wants out of that. Fine. Pay for all your advertising, no skin off our noses when no one cares when you put out yet another shitty mario game. I would hope this causes a wider boycott of Nintendo coverage on the popular YTers. We don't need to give them attention when they clearly don't want it.

i hope this will backfire.
either by boycott, "voting with your wallet" approach or just by drop in their sales thanks to lower advertisement of their products/trademark (IMO let's plays are free ads).
f*^& them, no money from me

PS actually LP creator should sue Nintendo for not paying for advertisement of their games

Right or not, the LP'ers will simply drop all their Nintendo based videos and look elsewhere... I am 100% certain there are other publishers / developers that will welcome more fans and attention.
I am pretty sure this move will bite Nintendo in the butt, and Nintendo will end up backing out and trying to encourage fans back into the fold.

This move is as bright PR wise as playing Russian roulette with a magazine fed pistol.

Well I do suppose it would be a lot safer not to create review videos with game footage, screenshots or to even write about any nintendo product then if they even think about just claiming copyright ownership that way because "be glad we don't just get you blocked".

Right?

I mean this site IS your livelihood and they just scraped on the foundation of it all.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
It's also worth noting that for every person who says "I bought ___ because of an LP I watched" there's another person who admits "I ended up not buying ____ because I watched an LP instead." On the Reddit thread on the topic, there are people who admit not buying The Walking Dead, 2012's GOTY just to remind you, because they watched an LP online instead, and didn't feel the need to then buy it having seen the story play out.

There are very real issues regarding copyright when it comes to LPs and how they affect sales, and I can't blame Nintendo for this when all they're doing is stopping profiting from their games, not stopping people posting videos altogether. If someone is dependent on LPs for their livelihood, I'd ask why they're not making original game video content as well?

wile i agree with your point on the walking dead i belive it would be, if not a unique issue, not as common as you imply to counter the argument. it might have lost sales as a direct result of LPs however it is heavily story driven and wile other games have strong story elements they have gameplay as well to back that up. so even if part or all of a story has been revealed you can still derive enjoyment from the action of playing out the story.

the other losses games could incure due to this is if a game is bad, getting a bad reaction from the LPer or not looking fun. in that regard youtube is very much like the playground. one kid gets a game over the weekend and then on monday at school they tell their friends if its worth playing or not. if its a handheld game maybe they take it in and show others a bit of them playing it. if its a popular game or they start doing it a lot then maybe they start charging their friends 20p to watch.

as has been said it seems more akin to free advertising than anything else thought i imagin as ever my viewpoint is skewed in favour of the little guy. i would have thought a more prudent move would have been to find the larger LPers and request certain limits on their work. say only so much game footage, more than fair use but not half the game, or limit the playthrough to early stages rather than the ending.

all this seems to do is alienate a section of their user base, not just the LPers but the people who watch and like them and so feel compassion towards the people negativly affected and lowers your games exposure after release they might still play the game but no longer make a video of it.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

There are very real issues regarding copyright when it comes to LPs and how they affect sales, and I can't blame Nintendo for this when all they're doing is stopping profiting from their games, not stopping people posting videos altogether. If someone is dependent on LPs for their livelihood, I'd ask why they're not making original game video content as well?

1. This isn't about LPers profiting off Nintendo's games, it's about Nintendo doing this SOLELY so that THEY can profit of let's plays. They aren't doing this to "protect" anything, they're doing this out of greed.

2. People apparently like to watch Let's Plays. What's wrong with giving people what they want and letting Youtube put some ads on it and making some cash for themselves?
It's like you're saying "Oh you work in an office? Well why don't you start your OWN business? Unless you do you don't deserve to get paid".

OT: It's like they're trying to make up for EA's conscience acting out this week.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
*snip*

I agree with this. People can still make Let's Plays, they just can't make money off of them, and I don't see what's wrong with that.

This false sense of entitlement to making money off of other peoples intellectual property is quite sickening to be honest. If Nintendo had said that they couldn't do them at all, that'd be another matter entirely.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

Charli:

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
It's also worth noting that for every person who says "I bought ___ because of an LP I watched" there's another person who admits "I ended up not buying ____ because I watched an LP instead."

For every trailer a company puts out the same equal reactions are met.

I have done both from lets plays, one has made me a steady customer of a game series I had no idea even existed until I saw a lets play. Another turned me off a game entirely.

(Let me break this down for you, if you make GOOD GAMES.

Yeah, stop right there. There is no such thiing as objectively good or objectively bad. Those things are subjective, and subject to differ among individual gamers. You can't claim 'good games' as some kind of objective standard to be applied in copyright cases, for the same reason film copyright isn't based on which films got the best reviews. When gamers cannot agree whether something is unanimously good or not, then any claim of using 'good games' as some kind of decider in copyright is just silly.

Congratulations you've just responded yourself into a corner. If this entire affair is subjective to the individual than what detriment is MORE exposure to the game? If they've nothing to hide, what difference is it to someone staring over their friends shoulder at the game, or expecting 'paid companies' to exhibition gameplay. Films and Games no longer sit in the same categories anymore, this comparison is moot. One is a 20+ hour interactive time sink, very small percentages are going to sit through the entire playthrough. Movies are designed to be one time sit throughs and observed only. Games are an interactive media and cannot be experienced merely through watching, tell any person watching their friend play a game and you'll know for a FACT the fun is in the commentary and discussion, all the 'gaming enjoyment' is achieved by the person playing.

All of this is free advertising. End of. The person player may have a subjective opinion that sways watchers over the quality of the content in the game, but at the end of it, you are STILL merely snuffing out free exposure. The watchers are not playing the game, they are merely observing and listening, the same thing that the companies themselves do at e3 but on a grander and more efficient scale.

Do you wanna know how many of my brothers friends (aged 9) have gone back to play the old sonic games MERELY because they saw a lets play of it online. All of them. Every single one, begged me to point it out to them on Steam so they could all play it and try all the fun hidden secrets and glitches they'd seen demonstrated online.

Forgive me if your comparisons fall short on me, because I still believe this is a stupid stupid stupid move. And nothing will convince me otherwise when I've seen it work to such availment as a positive for these idiotic companies.

If your entire game experience IS only credible in the 'watching it' then congrats, you've made a shitty 'game'. And that my friend, is anything but subjective. For some it might be, but they they should know what kind of 'games' they enjoy anyway. If all they feel like doing is watching them, then I must question why the movie or tv industry has failed to cater to their needs and exploit that niche somehow...

well it's their game. In any other market this would be standard practice.

Buttt when all your more successful competitors with more market share are not doing it then this is pretty stupid

But then comes the argument that some people do not go to certain Let's Players not for the video they are showing but for the person who is talking. By nintendo doing this, they are saying that "No. You only care about our games that are playing", which is not always true. They are profiting off other people's personalities.

This is pretty common actually. For most of the game commentators who are really getting a lot of money from it are only allowed to do it because the organisation they work for (I.E The Game Station, Machinima) can get them permission. Jesse Cox talked about how the reason he's allowed to make any money from LP's is because TGS got him permission to do it. Otherwise, his videos would be shut down if he monetized them.

Some companies and games (Minecraft, FTL, and valve games off the top of my head) will let anyone make videos and use it for money. However most of the time, if you're making money of LP's and you don't have permission, companies will get pissed.

Still a dick move, but it's not the "OMG NINTENDO ARE EVIL SONS OF BITCHES" that I've seen going around. This isn't very uncommon. I'm pretty sure youtubers like Chuggaaconroy who are part of a company are still able to get money off it, aren't they? That's my understanding of it, and that's really no different from most companies. If I started making Guild Wars 2 footage and monetizing it for instance, I'd be shut down or told to not monetize.

If people working for TGS and Machinima can't monetize, then this is a terrible decision, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. As it stands, they are acting the same as most companies.

Steven Bogos:
although it is true that Scott is uploading gameplay from its games, his viewers watch his gameplay videos to hear his commentary and review, and it seems unfair that Nintendo should simply take all the ad revenue when he's the one putting in the hard-yards maintaining a fanbase.

Yeah...no. He's using their stuff. Just because someone works hard to get a fanbase using someone else's stuff doesn't mean they are entitled to it. You can't say the fans are just interested in his ramblings, otherwise he could just as easily make them without gameplay footage.

Oh, FFS, guys. Why do you have to read malice into everything Nintendo does when it isn't even there?

1. Remember 343 Industries? Halo 4? How you're not allowed to make money off of their game? Any of that ring a bell? Why is Nintendo suddenly the Antichrist for being the "first" company to do a thing like this?

2. Remember Sega? Shining Force? Taking down everything to do with it with no plans to actually work on the series? Any of that ring a bell? Nintendo isn't taking down the videos. Heck, they outright said that they were avoiding it. So what's the big deal?

3. You can't swing a cat in Youtube without hitting an advert - and most of that money goes to Google anyway. If ads matter that much to you, use Adblock or something.

4. As much as I hate current copyright law, this sort of thing is an acceptable use of it to me. Nintendo does actually own the images being used, and it's their right to do something like this, particularly if people are making money off of it. If they were sending out DMCA notices for every little thing, then I'd be on your side. As it is, you guys are being completely irrational here.

Why is it that everyone else gets a bit of notice and then nothing, but Nintendo can't donate money to charity without being flamed about donating to the Red Cross rather than Child's Play? I know that's extreme, but so are your comments. Tone it down a little. Nintendo have done plenty of stuff that you don't have to work to find reasons to yell about.

They'll regret it when nobody is bothering to upload footage of their games in 12 months time. Being a dick will always come back to bite you in the ass, Nintendo.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

CpT_x_Killsteal:

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

There are very real issues regarding copyright when it comes to LPs and how they affect sales, and I can't blame Nintendo for this when all they're doing is stopping profiting from their games, not stopping people posting videos altogether. If someone is dependent on LPs for their livelihood, I'd ask why they're not making original game video content as well?

1. This isn't about LPers profiting off Nintendo's games, it's about Nintendo doing this SOLELY so that THEY can profit of let's plays. They aren't doing this to "protect" anything, they're doing this out of greed.

Except that its their game. Why shouldn't they profit from it? What is it that LPers add which is so original it turns the video from Nintendo's content into their own? I don't count stream-of-consciousness rambling, as that hardly counts as something you 'compose'.

2. People apparently like to watch Let's Plays. What's wrong with giving people what they want and letting Youtube put some ads on it and making some cash for themselves?

Why do people feel they should be paid for playing someone else's game in the first place? Game reviewers at least put the time into writing and filming reviews, which count as original composed content. Why should filming my average co-op session on a game with some friends all of a sudden entitle me to make money from a game? All I've done is hit 'Record' on an otherwise normal session of gaming. Since when does that entitle me to money?

They already do profit from their games. They SELL them for crying out loud. Let's Players are pretty much giving them free advertising!!! And in case you didn't already know, Nintendo isn't paying them ANYTHING. (Nor should they)

And why do you feel that people should not be paid for putting out content that there is a demand for? It's not about Reviewers being more original, never was, but you've brought it up for no apparent reason.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
I said this more or less in the other thread on the topic, but I'll say it again here- hitting 'record' on a gaming session and punctuating with with occasional swear words or "WTF!" does not equal the same as creating original content.

I wouldn't be able to post the entirety of the Hobbit online with my ramblings over the top, nor would I be able to post then entirety of Daft Punk's new album with me talking over the top. In both cases, I'd get hit with a takedown notice pretty damn quick.

When you're doing an LP of a Nintendo game, you're using Nintendo's content. Sorry, Fair Use doesn't apply to posting whole sections/the entire game up online. Fair Use is meant to apply to small snippets or excerpts used for a specific purpose. Posting the entirety of a game falls outside of Fair Use. And I'm sorry, but most LPs I've seen hardly had witty original commentary over the top.

Fair Use isn't, and never has been about quality. If it was, then we wouldn't have that Movie Movie franchise, and the world would probably be a better place, at least for that. Fair Use is about specific circumstances where copyright does not apply.

The catch is, as much as developers and publishers want them to be, games aren't movies. This falls under the transformative clause of Fair Use. If a game is nothing but a non-interactive ten hour movie, then sure, whatever, it's infringement, but the thing is, games aren't.

If we go back to your Daft Punk analogy, if you take the entire album and remix it, it is, or at least, should be, Fair Use. Of course, we live in an era when the RIAA and MPAA go fucking batshit at the very prospect of Fair Use existing as a concept.

Now, you might not like it. But your opinions don't render something as non-fair use.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
If you want to make money from gaming, but don't want to actually make games, then try your hardest to make original content worth watching, a la Jim Sterling, Yahtzee, Moviebob. Those guys use hardly any game footage at all, and what they do use easily falls under Fair Use. I enjoy Adam Sessler's videos, and all he does is stand in front of a camera and ramble. I think he's (mostly) informative and intelligent, and I hope he makes a good living from videos like that.

Someone hitting record on a regular game session and expecting to get paid? Sorry, you've got limited sympathy from me if you're trying to profit like that from someone else's game. Try actually creating something to make money from.

As it is, Nintendo are still supporting LPs, so it's not like they're hitting everyone with takedown notices. They're just not letting other people profit from using their stuff.

The problem is of course, LPs are a kind of performance art. Nintendo isn't actually playing the game, offering cometary, which, if anyone is actually watching, better be entertaining in its own right, cutting the video together, which is a hell of a lot more involved than you seem to understand. And, at the end of the day, Nintendo wanders in, claims everything for their work.

Not a cut of the ad revenue, all of it.

Oh, and remember, there's no prohibition against public performances of games. Because, again, as much as the developers would like them to be, games are not films.