Thomas Was Alone Creator Responds To Nintendo Claiming "Let's Play" Video Revenue
Posted Thu, 16 May 2013 | 22:40 BST by Damien McFerran

"Nintendo. You're doing it wrong"
Earlier today we reported on Nintendo's move to gain revenue from user-created "Let's Play" videos on YouTube. The company has apparently been filing content ID claims against certain users, a move which stops short of blocking accounts but means that Nintendo is able to make cash off advertisements which play during the clip, thereby depriving the creator of valuable cash.

This move has generated quite a stir on the internet, and Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell has added his voice to the chatter. Speaking in a piece on Develop, Bithell was highly critical of Nintendo's move, stating that it was ultimately counter-productive and would hurt the company in the long run:

Nintendo seems to be taking a very literal approach to the scene. "This guy is making money from videos of Mario, that should be our money". That is phenomenally silly.

The guy in question is most likely not making much; even the big guys only get a tiny amount of money by international hardware company standards. Nintendo really, really doesn't need their cash. By taking these sums away, they are massively dissuading them from continuing to make content from their game.

But why should they care about losing an LPer? Well, put bluntly, marketing. The audience of these videos are an excitable, tribal group that go out and spend a great deal of money on the games talked about.

I'll close with an example from Thomas Was Alone's sale history. The game launched in July on direct sales, and in November on Steam. The following Christmas I ran a 50 per cent off sale, which was doing rather well.

And then, on January 1st, Total Biscuit did a WTF video about the game. Thomas sold eight times more units than on launch day. In a matter of hours. I was outselling Assassin's Creed 3 on Steam.

Bithell ends his piece with the comment ""Nintendo. You're doing it wrong". Given his experience on the topic, it's hard to disagree; this seems like a very backwards thing to do, and could potentially impact Nintendo's presence on YouTube — and ultimately harm its commercial fortunes as a result.

Do you agree with Bithell viewpoint? Or should Nintendo be allowed to claim revenue on videos which are based entirely around its IP? Post a comment to tell us.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/05/thomas_was_alone_creator_responds_to_nintendo_claiming_lets_play_video_revenue

Nintendo targeting YouTube content under 10 minutes, Nintendo music as well
May 16, 2013 by RawmeatCowboy
It seems that Nintendo is going after videos on YouTube that are less than 10 minutes as well. We originally thought Nintendo was targeting content 10 minutes or longer that more fell into the 'Let's Play' category, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

NiNTENDOMiNATiON @TiLMEN

#Nintendo isn´t only claiming "Let´s Players". I´m not a Let´s Player and several of my under "10 min" vids R claimed pic.twitter.com/C8ZxyXqYQh
2:05 PM - 16 May 2013 from Cologne, Germany

Reader GilvaSunner also let us know that Nintendo is targeting videos that contain music from Nintendo games. If you have a video that features music from Nintendo titles, Nintendo will then get the ad revenue. With that said, it's not clear what happens to those that upload original versions of Nintendo music.

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=202796

Honestly I don't get why game companies do that. It's free advertisement. It's not like music for example which does hurt the publishers.

Thomas Was Alone is an indie game... of course he gets huge sales bumps from that kind of exposure.

Nintendo is a big company that pays for their own marketing. Not saying this definitely won't impact sales in a negative way, but this is Nintendo's mistake to make if it does.

Damn good luck Nintendo you git your work cutt out for you, anyways how much are they asking by the way.

Either way, I was never contributing. I guess I'm part of the problem. 

The way people are reacting to this, you'd think Let's Plays are the NUMBER ONE source of advertising for Nintendo games. If people stop doing Let's Plays of Nintendo games, everyone will suddenly stop buying Mario Kart!

Should they be able to do this? Absolutely. Should they do it? No. The amount of revenue they miss out on is more than worth the price of positive publicity and player goodwill.

Yeah, it doesn't matter much but it doesn't hurt either. But like the article says the money that these youtubers are making is really not that significant for Nintendo to go after. Anyway it's their choice, but I feel that a move like that will do more harm than good.

Imagine EA would have done that.

They'd be voted "worst company in universe since big bang"
the shit storm would become a shit hurricane
they"d be clubbed to death and revived just to be clubbed to death again