| Aeolus451 said: I'll agree with you about that on demos. Demos only show a tiny bit of a game and the demo itself can be bad while the game is actually good. I think that youtube and Let's Play type videos are mostly good for video game companies. Those vids are a form of free advertising for 'em and some vids might point out some things that are bad about a game but those vids are free. It's unwise for nintendo to piss off youtubers because they can make bad reviews on games or just say bad things about nintendo just to spite 'em. It's like political advertising where the majority of it is highly negative. |
Nintendo is a company that likes to have full control of their image (for better or worse.) It makes sense that they want to have control over who uploads what with their IP's on YouTube (especially if said person is making a profit.) I think Nintendo charging YouTubers is more to mitigate the implicit costs of the risks they must induce by allowing non-Nintendo persons to show content of the game that you'd otherwise not be able to see unless you purchase said game (or watched a review.) A standard in the industry is that reviewers must follow certain rules, for example. They can't spoil games. They are restricted by things like embargos. etc, etc. A Let's Player is not restricted in these ways and while you might view it as a net benefit to Nintendo if they had a laissez-faire stance on let's plays, Nintendo apparently views the risks so high they must cover the costs somehow, and a lot of their policies seem much more about controlling said content than being greedy and getting money. I don't know who has made the better assessment, but it is understandable why a company like Nintendo might rationally choose a deviant path from other publishers in the industry by managing let's plays how they see fit (all publishers do this to some extent or another.) Square-Enix, for example, regulates let's plays on a game to game basis (like Nintendo.) Square-Enix does this primarily because most of their games are story-centric, wheras other publishers like EA/Ubisoft have a variety of story-centric games and non-story centric games.
