Gamers of all types love recording game play videos, and sharing them with fans on YouTube. This practice is known as making ‘Let’s Play’ videos, and is very popular with virtually all game types. Last year, Nintendo began claiming ad revenue from these videos which were made with games released by their company. They also shut down some YouTube channels that were showing videos of game play of Nintendo games. Gamers were extremely upset at this, claiming that they paid for the games and they should be able to use them in whatever way they wanted.
In what Nintendo likely hopes will be a nice compromise, they are launching an affiliate program where ad money from Let’s Play videos of Nintendo games will be split between the gamer and Nintendo. Of course, Google will also take a cut, since the ad revenue is coming through Google ads.
Nintendo released a comment on this to gamasutra.com which said, “Nintendo has been permitting the use of Nintendo copyrighted material in videos on YouTube under appropriate circumstances. Advertisements may accompany those videos, and in keeping with previous policy that revenue is shared between YouTube and Nintendo.”
They went on to mention the new affiliate program, saying “In addition, for those who wish to use the material more proactively, we are preparing an affiliate program in which a portion of the advertising profit is given to the creator. Details about this affiliate program will be announced in the future.”
While there is no word on when the official launch will take place, it will be interesting to see how gamers and affiliates react to this announcement. They may appreciate the formalized option for monetizing their Let’s Play videos, but more likely they will be upset that Nintendo is taking a portion of the earnings.
This formal program may also attract experienced marketers who can either create the game play videos themselves, or hire on experienced gamers to create high-quality videos. With Nintendo being the first major gaming company to launch a program like this, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft, Sony or other games follow suit.
