Nintendo mass-claims revenue from Youtubers' Let's Plays

[Chishio Kunrin]

Exactly as the title says. Nintendo has decided to target Youtube videos containing gameplay from their new and upcoming games, according to Joystiq.com. So, why is this a problem?

Consider the fact that there are people on Youtube who have partnerships that let them earn money from having ads on their videos. The majority of the videos that some of these Youtubers make are Let's Play series. Some of the Let's Players pay their bills with money earned from their Let's Plays. Youtube became a career for them. Suddenly, Nintendo has decided to take 100% of the ad revenue from videos that feature their new and upcoming games, especially Let's Plays.

The people posting the videos get nothing because Nintendo gets all of it.

What I'm wondering is, what if other video game producing companies decide to start doing this as well? Why don't more game companies have the attitude that Ubisoft has? Ubisoft has not touched any of the Assassin's Creed videos on Tobuscus and TobyGames because they see it as free advertisement. They love Toby's videos. Meanwhile, Nintendo wants direct profit from Let's Players, without letting them get anything out of it.

Tobuscus is lucky; he has more than just his Let's Play channel TobyGames. He has his general entertainment channel Tobuscus, his vlog channel, and his acting career. Even if he ceases to be able to earn money from Let's Plays, he won't have to rely solely on his online store to make a living.

On the other hand, we have people like PewDiePie who mainly make money from their Let's Play videos and online stores, but their online stores rely on the success of their Let's Plays. The Yogscast has a website where they get money from ads, but even then, their website and online store success rely on their Let's Play success. I haven't really paid much attention to other Let's Play channels like GameGrumps, but I imagine that the case there is the same or similar.

I'm not sure how well they can make a living relying solely on their online stores.

To be honest, Nintendo was the last company I'd expect to do something like this.

[Edit]: Another article with more info: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/05/16/nintendo-opts-to-earn-youtube-ad-revenue-on-videos-featuring-its-games.aspx

[Pipkin]

In the end all companies act the same way.  If there's a way to tap into money somewhere and they have the legal leverage to pull it off they'll pursue it.

I'm surprised it's taken them this long to be honest, and other gaming companies will soon follow

[Rissian]

It annoys me mainly because they aren't making money off of Nintendo's games. They are making money off of their own commentary I wouldn't watch the videos if it weren't for the LPers. Because I'd rather get the game myself at that point than just watch someone play it with no commentary at all and just the games music and dialog. The game plays a minor role in the LP as the person talking often is where the real entertainment comes from. 

[Chishio Kunrin]

It annoys me mainly because they aren't making money off of Nintendo's games. They are making money off of their own commentary I wouldn't watch the videos if it weren't for the LPers. Because I'd rather get the game myself at that point than just watch someone play it with no commentary at all and just the games music and dialog. The game plays a minor role in the LP as the person talking often is where the real entertainment comes from. 

Exactly. If a person loves Amnesia: The Dark Descent but hates PewDiePie, they're not going to watch his Let's Play of it. They'll go watch someone else's.

And most people who're only interested in the game often don't watch Let's Plays because they get annoyed about the player talking over the game.

[Sea Foam]

   As a company, Nintendo is well within their right to do this as the game itself is their content.
   Yes, you could argue that the commentary is the Let's player's content, but that's not enough to warrant them much of an argument against this. Effectively, they make money from talking over video games. This feels like a ridiculous concept, but when you think of how much money other people who don't really deserve it make, Let's plays may as well be part of the Entertainment Industry, which is fair enough.

   I see this as a positive. Too many people start making Let's Plays with the idea that they'll make money in mind. The whole thing has turned into a business and it's disgusting to see how little most people care about what they do as long as they get their money from it. Let's plays are supposed to be something fun and inspired, not a business. I do not have a problem with a Let's player making money, but I have a problem when money is the primary motive behind making a Let's play.

   I honestly hope that other companies follow this example, because then the people who want to make Let's plays for the enjoyment of it will become prevalent over those who just want to make money. If this is the case, then the quality of Let's plays should rise drastically from the bottom-of-the-barrel standard we have now.

[Book Smarts]

What if there was a way to compromised on this dilemma? Like a 50/50 split on overall ad revenue? 50 goes to the game makers, 50 goes to the LPer

[Chishio Kunrin]

   As a company, Nintendo is well within their right to do this as the game itself is their content.
   Yes, you could argue that the commentary is the Let's player's content, but that's not enough to warrant them much of an argument against this. Effectively, they make money from talking over video games. This feels like a ridiculous concept, but when you think of how much money other people who don't really deserve it make, Let's plays may as well be part of the Entertainment Industry, which is fair enough.

   I see this as a positive. Too many people start making Let's Plays with the idea that they'll make money in mind. The whole thing has turned into a business and it's disgusting to see how little most people care about what they do as long as they get their money from it. Let's plays are supposed to be something fun and inspired, not a business. I do not have a problem with a Let's player making money, but I have a problem when money is the primary motive behind making a Let's play.

   I honestly hope that other companies follow this example, because then the people who want to make Let's plays for the enjoyment of it will become prevalent over those who just want to make money. If this is the case, then the quality of Let's plays should rise drastically from the bottom-of-the-barrel standard we have now.

Generally, the people who only do it for money often don't make very good commentary because they're not allowing themselves to relax and have fun. They're just thinking of how to make people like the video.

There's also the fact that, if every company does this, it will hurt the current good Let's Players who do Let's Plays both for fun and to pay their bills. Whether we like it or not, money is necessary to live. The Let's Players who do this as a job will end up having to get real jobs, leaving less time for Let's Plays.

Consider the fact that they usually play for at least a couple hours, then edit and cut the video into episodes, compress it, make sure that the quality is good, it's not corrupted, there's no audio missing, that it's not out of sync, and then schedule dates for the episodes to be uploaded and released.

The more successful Let's Players generally tend to run multiple series at once to have some variety, which is very helpful because they're more likely to keep the interest of more of their fans. Not every fan is going to like a certain series, so it's good to keep multiple series going so that more likely everyone has something to watch.

So, if Let's Players don't get money from their Let's Plays, thus having to take up a real job and having less time, their Let's Plays are likely gonna slow down dramatically and/or stop.


I'm fairly sure it's more work than many people think it is.

[CyanideInsanity]

On this subject, I agree with TB and TGS that nintendo doesn't fully understand what they're doing.

And in regards to those making money from this, are there that many even making THAT much to make a difference? If someone does this and can JUST get by financially, is it a big deal?

Contrary to what may be popular belief(not completely sure about that though), let's plays do take a considerable amount of time and effort to do and maintain in high quality. How ever much time you have of video recordings should also be spent watching before uploading to edit, and make sure there is nothing wrong with the base video file. Just imagine how much time and effort chuggaaconroy had to put into his okamiden LP, constantly switching the positions of the top and touch screens. If you have a corrupted video, and don't have previous saves to load, there are those LPers who would go and replay the game on another file to show what they lost. Its almost always immediately obvious to understand those who are only about the money, and those who are about quality content.

Honestly, they shouldn't take 100% of revenue from the videos. I don't think LPs are purely about the games. If I search for an LP of a game, I generally go watch several first episodes until I find someone I like. Its a culmination of the game, and the commentator. I've also seen plenty of times were someone commented saying they were going to be the game.

The biggest issue with this, is that it is a giant grey area. Nobody is completely sure of everything in this situation. Then there's also the problem of youtube's poorly designed content match, and robot-powered appeal systems.

[Chishio Kunrin]

And in regards to those making money from this, are there that many even making THAT much to make a difference? If someone does this and can JUST get by financially, is it a big deal?

There are quite a few LPers who make enough to live comfortably. Youtube Partners earn money for every 1,000 views, and the more popular LPers tend to get hundreds of thousands of views per video, so that's hundreds of payments per video.

TobyGames has 1,141,776,048 video views, so he has been paid about 1,141,776 times for his videos on that channel alone.
PewDiePie has 1,617,303,958 video views, so that's about 1,617,303 times.
The Yogscast's BlueXephos channel has 1,924,053,644 video views.
RoosterTeeth has 2,082,151,584 video views.

The Yogscast even actually ended up renting an office building, which they call Yogtowers. Several of them work in that building and help pay for it. I think RoosterTeeth apparently has their own offices, as well.

Plus, there's the fact that popular LPers (popular Youtubers in general) live well enough that the money they make covers more than just their bills and groceries. They have money to spend leisurely, or on video games and new consoles. Those who make a career out of it, at least.

[McSleuthburger]

Roosterteeth have their own offices (2 buildings I think) in Austin TX
and I know recently they started the Let's play channel on youtube (which has all of their lets play videos instead of having them on their normal Roosterteeth channel)

[CyanideInsanity]

Spoiler: show

And in regards to those making money from this, are there that many even making THAT much to make a difference? If someone does this and can JUST get by financially, is it a big deal?

There are quite a few LPers who make enough to live comfortably. Youtube Partners earn money for every 1,000 views, and the more popular LPers tend to get hundreds of thousands of views per video, so that's hundreds of payments per video.

TobyGames has 1,141,776,048 video views, so he has been paid about 1,141,776 times for his videos on that channel alone.
PewDiePie has 1,617,303,958 video views, so that's about 1,617,303 times.
The Yogscast's BlueXephos channel has 1,924,053,644 video views.
RoosterTeeth has 2,082,151,584 video views.

The Yogscast even actually ended up renting an office building, which they call Yogtowers. Several of them work in that building and help pay for it. I think RoosterTeeth apparently has their own offices, as well.

Plus, there's the fact that popular LPers (popular Youtubers in general) live well enough that the money they make covers more than just their bills and groceries. They have money to spend leisurely, or on video games and new consoles. Those who make a career out of it, at least.

And that is where another problem lies; nobody but youtube and the partners legally know how much money is being tossed around, and those you specifically mentioned are the 1%. I'm fairly certain their popularity is for their personalities, not purely because of games they play. Some of them do original content, and that is what got them hugely popular; Roosterteeth and tobuscus for example.

I'm not saying nintendo is wrong for jumping on the concept, but taking all money gained isn't right.

[Rissian]

The game really only plays a minor role in the LP at least for me. I'd watch almost any game Yogscast and Tobuscus play. And if the LPer isn't very good at commentary I'd probably get bored of it and just play the game myself or watch a gameplay video then buy it like usual. Most of their views are because of their LPing commentary rather than the game played. In how the game plays the minor role I watched an LP of Dark Souls because I love playing that game and already bought it and it was nice seeing it played by LPers. But even then certain LPers make almost any game fun to watch regardless of what it is.

[Chishio Kunrin]

Spoiler: show

And in regards to those making money from this, are there that many even making THAT much to make a difference? If someone does this and can JUST get by financially, is it a big deal?

There are quite a few LPers who make enough to live comfortably. Youtube Partners earn money for every 1,000 views, and the more popular LPers tend to get hundreds of thousands of views per video, so that's hundreds of payments per video.

TobyGames has 1,141,776,048 video views, so he has been paid about 1,141,776 times for his videos on that channel alone.
PewDiePie has 1,617,303,958 video views, so that's about 1,617,303 times.
The Yogscast's BlueXephos channel has 1,924,053,644 video views.
RoosterTeeth has 2,082,151,584 video views.

The Yogscast even actually ended up renting an office building, which they call Yogtowers. Several of them work in that building and help pay for it. I think RoosterTeeth apparently has their own offices, as well.

Plus, there's the fact that popular LPers (popular Youtubers in general) live well enough that the money they make covers more than just their bills and groceries. They have money to spend leisurely, or on video games and new consoles. Those who make a career out of it, at least.

And that is where another problem lies; nobody but youtube and the partners legally know how much money is being tossed around, and those you specifically mentioned are the 1%. I'm fairly certain their popularity is for their personalities, not purely because of games they play. Some of them do original content, and that is what got them hugely popular; Roosterteeth and tobuscus for example.

I'm not saying nintendo is wrong for jumping on the concept, but taking all money gained isn't right.

Very true. People wouldn't be as mad if they were only taking a portion of the money, but taking all the money is just plain rude.

I still wish they'd regard the LPs as free advertising. I mean, I didn't even know I wanted the DmC reboot until I watched the first 30 minutes of the game being played by Toby. The game looks awesome, and the story does as well.
I also wasn't interested in Bioshock Infinite until I saw some of Toby's Let's Play of it, and when my mom mentioned she wants to get it, I was like "YEAH!"
I didn't completely settle on whether or not I wanted Dishonored until I watched Toby's Let's Play of it.

Sometimes, people need to see some of the game itself before they decide if they want it.

When I heard that they're making an HD remake of LoZ: Wind Waker for Wii U, I was like "PFFFT, that may be my favorite Legend of Zelda game, but I can just buy the GameCube version and play it on my Wii." Then, I saw a screenshot comparison, and the HD was glorious. More people's minds will be changed like that if Inthelittlewood does a Let's Play of it this fall. But will he do a Let's Play if Nintendo is just going to take all the money from his series?

By all means, I'm not saying that Inthelittlewood is only in it for the money. Far from it, in fact. He's a great guy. But... even he needs money. He may still do a Let's Play, who knows? But it would help if he could still earn money from it to pay bills and such.