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Nintendo’s latest attempt to reach out to YouTubers has been ill received.
Fuck you Nintendo,” PewDiePie said of the latest proposal, in which Nintendo would offer video creators between 60-70 per cent of their ad revenues in return for permission to create videos featuring its products.
What they are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTubers. What better way to sell/market a game, than from watching someone else (that you like) playing it and enjoying themselves?
If I played a Nintendo game on my channel most likely most of the views/ad revenue would come from the fact that my viewers are subscribed to me. Not necessarily because they want to watch a Nintendo game in particular.
When there’s just so many games out there to play. Nintendo games just went to the bottom of that list.”
Fellow YouTuber Zack Scott was equally as critical.
I’ve never dealt with a game company that didn’t want the exposure that video creators bring to their games,” Scott said. This week, Evolve and Dying Light, two of the biggest games right now, are being heavily pushed in the YouTube and Twitch communities.
Large companies like Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Rovio, and others allow gameplay monetization. Countless indie developers are vocal about allowing it too. Taking it further, EA even has the Ronku program that pays YouTubers extra as an incentive to cover their games.
Due to the openness of other developers, I find Nintendo’s approach odd. When comparing other developers’ policies, I see no appeal for established YouTubers. This program further drives a wedge between video creators and game developers.
I cringed when I heard about certain YouTubers demanding a percentage of game sales revenue in exchange for coverage. I feared that developers would adopt the same sentiment and demand a percentage of video ad revenue. With Nintendo’s latest move, that time has come.
I encourage all video creators and video game developers to really consider the impact if everyone adopted Nintendo’s model. Do we want game coverage to be based upon who pays the most or perhaps takes the smallest cut? The biggest YouTubers and developers can benefit from a model like that, but it’ll be at the expense of the smallest.”
The more I read about Nintendo’s “Creators Program” the more it looks like we’re no longer going to upload Nintendo coverage to YouTube.
— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) January 29, 2015
