Tumblr post: http://jackmcslaycritic.tumblr.com/post/109483215396/i-applaud-you-nintendo

https://r.ncp.nintendo.net/

You know how people usually looks at big companies going after the small guy and you try to look at how evil the company is. This is one such case I think these people are wrong.

Here’s the breakdown, to those who don’t know: For the longest time Nintendo has been flagging content that contains footage from their games, and now they launched the Nintendo Creators Program (link above) to share the advertisement revenue with people making videos with Nintendo content on them.

Now of course this upset several let’s players who won’t be able to make as much money from their let’s play videos. And the usual justification is something in the lines of “we’re giving them free advertisement”. Ok now where did I see that before?… Oh yes that’s the exact same excuse artists advise other artists not to accept when someone wants to make money off their work and not give them a share. I doubt these people would agree with a company taking an artist’s works and selling t-shirts without compensation nor permission, so why should it be acceptable to make money off let’s play videos and not give anything to the creators of the content the video is based on without their consent?

“Oh, but it takes effort to make let’s plays”

Yes, and it also takes effort to set up and operate the manufacturing machinery, promotion and logistics to mass produce and sell t-shirts based on stolen art.

That’s not to say there aren’t good let’s players. For instance, Scott Manley does great videos, and that’s because he puts real production values in form of intelligent commentary and looking for unusual yet interesting games to play. And seeing he’s an astrophysicist who focus in space games, you can tell he has a lot of baggage to offer, unlike several popular let’s players who record themselves playing a game while screaming and cracking penis jokes for an hour and call it a video.

Justifications often cite how games such as Minecraft became successful thanks to let’s plays, but here’s the difference: Mojang was a bunch of nobodys, they were put on the map by the let’s plays. Nintendo on the other hand has had some of the most recognizable gaming franchises for over 20 years. Say that some random person make a video of a let’s play of Mario Kart 8. How many people are really going to watch it because it’s made by some random person rather than being about Mario Kart 8?

Mojang may not have opposed people monetizing videos with their content without conset but Nintendo did, so people should respect their decision not to allow people to make money off their work without permission. Some people fear other large companies following suit, and I honestly hope they do, since for the most part it’s their content making let’s players popular, not the other way around. Hopefully this will decrease interest in people trying to cash in the popularity of games and allow actually good let’s players to shine, as well as giving obscure gems the limelight.

Popular let’s players are making a ton of money already, several of them make way more than they deserve in my opinion. Let the revenue flow to people working hard to make original content, such as animators and people doing ultra-low budget films who are starving in their unfulfilled dreams and more often than not cannot live with their hard/work in content creation.

So, to all those annoying idiots doing let’s plays: I look forward to the day your audience grows up and your popularity dies in a fire.