News Nintendo chasing after 'Lets Play' YouTube ad revenue

Gaming giant Nintendo is redirecting ad revenue from Lets Play videos away from the original creators and back to itself.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/05/18/nintendo-chasing-lets-play-youtube-ad-reven/1

 

Meh. Everyone else does it, so why shouldn't Nintendo? The fact they do not issue C&D's on stuff means they are not totally heartless.

 

I didn't realise other companies did it as well?

I don't think it will do them any favours, the money can't be THAT much, and the publicity will be bad overall I feel.

 

Mojang commented on this in the week, it seems to be that Google is encouraging companies to claim the ad revenue away from the users.
It seems an odd decision by Nintendo, they run the risk of everyone just erasing the videos and leaving Nintendo claiming all of nothing. Nintendo of all people need good publicity right now, not to be burning bridges they might need when those Wii U first party game arrive.

 

Well, mainly music companies. If you post a video and use an artists music then any revenue from your video goes to the record company.

 

Ah I thought you meant other game companies.

Does that happen with someone doing a cover of a song?

 

Not sure, but I wouldn't put it past them. One of the reason Psy's Gangnam style made so much money on Youtube was because he did not issue C&D's to all the spoof's and copies. He took the ad money from them.

 

Nintendo still make games?

The SNES must have a larger fanbase than I thought. Y'know, because nobody makes games for the Wii U.

 

This isn't going to do Nintendo any favours. A lot of my youtubing friends have now quit any LPs they had going on Nintendo games. If you see any partners stopping these LPs remember it's not them being greedy and wanting the ad money for themselves. You don't really get that much per video, but the copyright strikes on your channel can cause you a lot of grief. It isn't worth it.

I think this is a completely backwards move by Nintendo. Gameplay videos are not like someone uploading a film, TV show or song. Watching someone else play the game isn't the same as playing it yourself so is rarely a substitute. A lot of people find out about new/'underground' games through LP channels. Silly move Nintendo...

 

You guys should watch this:

 

Dont understand the reasons behind this, If a games company ever needed good public relations more so than Nintendo does now im not sure i can name it.

 

sony do it , MS do it , EA do it..... you ARE telling everyone about them arnt you??

 

Sometimes.

One of my side projects is a mobile sound system for large group rides, and due to the wide audience I typically see the majority of what is played is either indie stuff or covers. Where this becomes a problem is when I try to upload a video of the event to YT wherein several songs get "flagged" for copyright infringement despite the songs being horribly distorted (thanks to the GoPro's terrible microphone), or just being covers (they get attributed to an incorrect artist). From what I've observed the detection software that YT uses is quite robust but prone to false-positives leaving users faced with a hair-pulling, frustrating experience getting things set straight (the last video I uploaded "matched" three songs, but only one of them was correct, leaving me to either file a dispute knocking my video offline for an indefinite amount of time or just agreeing and giving money to those of whom it doesn't belong - last video I contested has been in dispute for over a year now with no updates from any party).

 

You should check the video I posted. But basically, Nintendo register to youTube, submit clips and sound of their content, and youTube computers scans all their videos and flag all matched content. Then the owner of the video is notified and can say yes it's copyrighted material, or not (fair use). Once it's fair use, Nintendo get notification and then Nintendo get to pick what to do: do nothing, puts ads, or pull the video. If pulling the video is selected, the youTube channel can appeal it, and then Nintendo can choose to the author of the video to court... so far, it hasn't happened to any company in the gaming industry.

Nintendo probably registered themselves to youTube, for ripped out content, like game music directly from the game, with no modification. But the side effect, is the Let's Play community gets effected. As for the ads in the video money going to Nintendo or pulled... this depends on what option you pick in the flagged video notification. It's an auto-pick if you will.

 

Okay, so I've had a think about this and I guess it really bothers me.


As someone who has recently embarked on a Lets Play channel, I can say that a lot of work goes into these videos, even the really basic ones.

Recording the play through is the easiest bit; capturing a video stream on the PC and vocals on the laptop. I guess the longest bit so far has been cleaning the vocal stream afterward, which is done in real time. The intro and outro plates are made in Photoshop, they don't take that long but there is an initial time-cost involved. The assembled parts are then dropped into the editing suite, synced, cut into episodes, saved then set to render overnight.

The last rendering session took 13 hours to complete.


So while I can understand that companies want to protect their copyright materials, it kind of sucks that they don't really get the Lets Play scene. What is essentially free advertising from an unbiased and reliable source ends up being legally strong-armed and milked for cash.

At that point video creation goes from being a fun little project to a pointless endeavour.


I can't see all companies following suit. CCP for one has never legally hot-dropped anyone for creating videos for YouTube. Which is good because I'm particularly fond of the Rooks and Kings Clarion Call and Clear Skies videos.

I guess we'll steer clear of anything released by the bigger publishing houses and focus instead on Indy titles or games from friendly publishers. Just hope nobody goes legal eagle on our butts because there's no real way of fighting it.

 

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying? You can do LPs of EA and MS games actually the whole thing with the MS T&Cs was cleared up and does not prevent anyone from uploading LPs of MS games and monetizing them. I don't know about Sony because I hate them and have nothing to do with them. But saying "They all do it" is completely false. A lot of my friends have gaming yt channels and are partnered, the reason this is a big deal is because the other companies DO NOT do this. They may have clauses allowing them to do so if they wanted, but the fact is they do not use Claim ID to auto claim gameplay. Normally it'll be the game music that is flagged and that's by the composer.

 

for people who dont think this is a lot of money when you think about the amount of letsplay vids out there with nintendo games(especially considering many people making these vids are quite popular) there is going to be quite a bit of stable revenue generated by it.

that being said what they are after is not helping the content be enjoyed in a "safe way" nintendo has and always will be a bunch of heartless money grubbing a holes... if people are still willing to buy/pay they could care less what you enjoy

 

The other things that strikes me as odd, is that a lot of the videos are of games that are no longer in production, so if the Let's play is robbing nintendo of money, because people don't buy the game (which is the only argument I can think of) It's not like it's a game nintendo are going to make any money from anyway.

 

If you are genuinely interested in this topic then Total Biscuit covers it very well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yX4io2O4EI

 

So if I play a game of checkers and record it the rights of the video belong to the company that made the checkers board!?