On Nintendo and YouTube

There is a lot of controversy surrounding "let's play" (LP) videos on YouTube. In a "let's play" video, someone records themselves playing a video game - sometimes edited, sometimes not. Sometimes with commentary, sometimes not. Frequently an LP video will be part of a series the usually involves that user completing an entire video game. Some game companies are completely cool with the idea of  LP videos, seeing them as free advertising. Others claim that LP videos displaying a game in its entirety violates copyright law and issues take-down notices by the thousands.

Who am I kidding. I'm talking about Nintendo. Nintendo, famous issuing a take-down notice if so much as a sneeze sounds like Mario, has created a revenue-sharing platform that will enable them to receive the advertising monies generated by a YouTube video of their game. They will potentially share some of this revenue with the YouTube uploader, but only if the video is properly licensed and registered with them. A lot of users have cried foul (like they have for years with Nintendo-based LP videos). At the moment there is no indication of any change from the game company.

LP videos are incredibly useful for people contemplating purchasing a game, or who are stuck in a game at a certain point. I don't own a Playstation, nor will I in the immediate future, so I am happy to watch The Last of Us via an LP video. But on the other hand, the core part of any video game is the experience the game provides. YouTube "let's play" videos share that experience. Is the experience copyrighted? No, it is not. Because not everyone will have the same experience, even in a linear first-person shooter. The game that generates the experience is copyrighted, but not the experience of playing it. And this is what is shared via YouTube LP videos: one version of the experience of playing a game. There is no interaction with an LP video, aside from clicking Play. Nintendo's attempt to receive money from users' recorded gaming experiences is greedy, grasping, and controlling in the extreme. 

The issue goes further. "Let's play" videos are not reviews of the game, but in Nintendo's over-reaching desire to be in control of everything that mentions their products, they frequently lump Review channels in with LP channels (and hit all of them with take-down notices). Whether you're talking about an LP from PewDiePie or a review from AngryJoe (or even, in that later's case, a preview video that he had Nintendo's permission to make!), Nintendo wants to control the dialogues on YouTube that people have about their games. 

If I see a game via an LP and like it, my first step will be to go out and see where I can purchase it for myself (because pirating is for, well, pirates). I'm not thinking I experienced a game because I watched a "let's play." I shared someone else's experience, but it was not MY experience. This is how LP videos drive sales. On the other hand, what if someone watches an LP and decides they don't want to buy the game? Shortsighted companies see this as a lost sale. Which it is, but take the thought one step further. What comes after someone is disappointed in a game? The negative review. LPs actually help filter out people who would otherwise provide negative reviews of a game, helping it keep a positive reputation. So yes, a sale is lost, but so is the bad press.

As someone who was thinking of doing a few LPs and streams (seriously, though, do Twitch and YouTube need another LPer?), this story gave me pause. I'd rather I could just share experiences of my gaming without the need for all this legal mud, but unfortunately that's not the way the world (or YouTube) works. I genuinely believe that people do "let's plays" because they love the games they play. When a company like Nintendo starts acting like an evil dictator, they spit on that love and do their best to tear it down, to cover it up. Almost like they are saying, "We don't care how you feel, so long as you don't share it with anybody."

Surely we as a society are better than that.