Monitzation of Let's Plays

[Xeno]

Cross posting from the Xbox One thread so as to not further derail it:

Nintendo's too busy stealing money from youtube let's players to make games. Sony would have to seriously screw up right now to loose this round in the console war. Maybe ship their first set of consoles out with live hornets in the box or something.

Legitimately not clear on how Nintendo is stealing money from people who do let's plays on youtube. Can you explain that?

On Youtube, if you make videos, you might be eligible to receive a cut of the ad money that comes in from your videos, and this is called monetization. One of the things that makes a video ineligible for monetization is if it contains copyrighted material. Lately, Nintendo's been registering its newer games with the system YT uses to detect whether something's from a copyrigted song or a movie. This means that a recording someone playing through that game can no longer monetize those videos, because they're piggybacking on Nintendo's content. The argument against this is that in Let's Plays, playthrough videos with some sort of running commentary, the creator's commentary is a form of unique content that should be eligible for monetization. Make of all that what you will.

Davidizer hit it pretty much on the head. The rest I have to add has mostly already said better by this guy. I don't know how much money you make from ads on youtube but I know on Twitch its pretty negligible. Youtube might be different since they don't have a subscription system but even then, the money Nintendo will be making off of ads is probably less then the money they perceive they have lost because of this.

Okay, and I think this is starting to get a bit off topic, but is Nintendo monetizing on Let's Plays really that huge of a deal? I mean, are people making a living by doing those on YouTube? And if they are, is it going to crush them that badly that they can't do it for all of the 12 titles Nintendo has for the Wii U?"

I don't see a problem with what Nintendo's doing. Let's say they make a linear, story-driven game: you can experience what the game has to offer through watching a video of someone playing through it, and therefore you don't have to buy it because you've seen it all. Nintendo loses a sale, but the player who posted it on Youtube gets paid for it. That's really what I think Nintendo's trying to stop; it's probably less of a problem with more freeform games like Minecraft, where a player makes their own experience unique every time they play.

Here's what Youtube has to say about this whole thing:

What can't I monetize?

Without the appropriate license from the publisher, use of video game or software user interface must be minimal. Video game content may be monetized if the associated step-by-step commentary is strictly tied to the live action being shown and provides instructional or educational value.

Videos simply showing a user playing a video game or the use of software for extended periods of time may not be accepted for monetization.

(They used to say that any video game footage is ineligible for monetization, though I don't know how long ago the rule was changed.)

Last comment cause yeah, we're getting off topic. Yes, there are people who make a living doing this. I do not know enough about Youtube partnerships to talk about how they make money or how much comes from ads, but ad revenue is a part of their livelihood. They are relying on this money to pay bills and other things. Will it crush them? Probably not. In the end they will just move on to other games. On top of this, I don't think Nintendo can ever hope to prove that they are loosing a significant amount of sales as a result of Let's Players. The bigger issue is the principle behind this and its unforeseen effects. We are talking about companies that are trying to make money and if they can get free money from the work of other people and if Nintendo gets away with this I see no reason why other companies won't try to do the same. If that starts happening, then it could very well be crushing for them. I also have to wonder if this will push over to twitch as well which gets a considerable number of views (not youtube level but still very high) and operates similarly to Youtube. I know all of this sounds like making a big deal about people who basically play video games for a living but what's actually going on here is that Nintendo is (hopefully unintentionally) hurting an industry that has only recently come into being and is expanding at an impressive rate. It is an industry that is highly built on personality. People like ManvsGame don't get close to 2000 views per stream because they are playing the latest greatest game, they get that number because they are engaging, enjoyable personalities who go out of their way to interact with their fans. In many ways, they are providing a form of free advertisement (in fact a number of companies have taken advantage of this and used them to hype their big games on release day). It's an industry that is still in a sort of state of infancy and it wouldn't take too much to really wreck it since it is mostly comprised of people working independently to create their own names. They don't have a union or some mass employer who can stand up against a company like Nintendo. They, at best, are teamed up with a group of like minded people who, given time could become a force but right now are nothing more then a blip on the radar. Hopefully things won't go down this route but its a possibility that has to be considered.

I know next to nothing about console and Let's Play issues, but isn't this

get free money from the work of other people

what the Let's Players are doing too? Obviously they don't rake in millions but still. I see it as similar to how the Rifftrax guys can only sell their commentary without the movie footage (unless it's a public domain film). They can't capitalise on the content they haven't created themselves and it goes both ways.

So lets talk about talk about this. It seems to me that Nintendo is fully in their right to do this. It is their content that is being shown on screen and being commented on. As GeneD said, it really is no different than with Rifftrax, unless the commenters have a pre-existing deal with Nintendo then there is no reason they should be making any money off of this.

[Nate]

I wanted to say that I don't see how this is any different from say, gaming magazines in the 80s and 90s and them having screenshots and the like, and making money off that, but the more I thought about it the more it fell apart. Even video game magazines and strategy guides (unofficial ones) aren't meant to fully replace playing a game. In fact, especially in the case of strategy guides, they're meant as complimentary to the game. Pretty much nobody would buy a strategy guide without buying the game, as strategy guides usually avoid story spoilers and explanation. They're meant to help you actually play the game.

LPs are a bit different. I'm doing an LP (though it is on hiatus until my eye heals) and I give out strategy info because yes, it would be awesome if someone started playing FFV because of my LP. However, I know that the majority of people who were reading my LP while it was going weren't playing the game, and probably never would. They would see all the relevant story bits and the interesting parts without having to pick up a controller.

And for a game that's as old as FFV, that's fine, since Nintendo isn't going to lose any sales on that, as the GBA is no longer a concern of theirs. For a brand-new game, it's a bit different.

But, I think that this may be a problem exclusive only to story-driven games. LPs of say, World of Warcraft wouldn't be quite the same, as the experience in a game like that is in playing it, not experiencing the story (although one would say who would care about a WoW LP as if you're not already into the game it'd be boring, but that's beside the point). Same with something like Super Mario Galaxy, sure it might be cool to watch someone play it but the big draw of a game like that is experiencing it for yourself.

Now I'm sort of rambling and getting off-topic. In the end I think I agree with Xeno. Nintendo has every right to do this. It's not as if they're advocating for the removal of the videos completely, so it's not a censorship issue...but as far as I'm concerned a fair use defense would fail completely if the person is making money off of it.

[Peanut]

I looked into partnerships on Youtube and when you monetize your videos your revenue is entirely ad based. Here's the FAQ in case you are curious.http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2548877

I know next to nothing about console and Let's Play issues, but isn't this

get free money from the work of other people

what the Let's Players are doing too? Obviously they don't rake in millions but still. I see it as similar to how the Rifftrax guys can only sell their commentary without the movie footage (unless it's a public domain film). They can't capitalise on the content they haven't created themselves and it goes both ways.

So lets talk about talk about this. It seems to me that Nintendo is fully in their right to do this. It is their content that is being shown on screen and being commented on. As GeneD said, it really is no different than with Rifftrax, unless the commenters have a pre-existing deal with Nintendo then there is no reason they should be making any money off of this.

I'm going to link Totalbiscuit's take on this again because he actually talks about this very point and does a way better job then I could. Please watch it if you want a different take on this. It should also be noted that you don't get partnership on either Twitch or Youtube until you get to a certain number of views for your stream/video. In the case of Let's Players, you don't build up to that by playing the latest, greatest video games. Everyone is doing Let's Play's of those games. You get there by building a community around yourself usually by being incredibly entertaining and doing a good job of advertising. People do not watch their videos for the games, they watch them for the person playing the games. Let's Plays on youtube really are cults of personality more then anything else.

As to Nate's point, yes and no. It is definitely a bigger issue with more story driven games and if we see more games become essentially interactive movies, then probably at that point this would be justifiable. Part of the issue with this argument is the question of proving whether sales are really being lost because of someone let's playing their game. I recall back when Persona 4 came out that on the CAA gamecast Omega Amen mentioned that he bought Persona 4 because he got frustrated with how it was being played in the Giant Bomb endurance run. I mention this because Persona 4 is a relatively story driven game and I'm pretty sure for every example Nintendo or another video game company could give of a lost sale because of an LP someone can give an example of a made sale because of an LP. You have to remember that LPs of even really story given games are going to still end up being played differently by different people. On top of this Let's Players don't tend to release an entire playthrough in one or two days. They stretch it out over a period of time, chopping up the game into 20 minute increments. Its possible that they could start an LP of a game when its released and finish it 6 months or more later. In that time, it is completely possible for someone to get impatient wanting to see how the story ends and go out and buy the game for themselves and in fact this does happen. I myself have bought several games for this reason. For other games like WoW or Torchlight 2, yeah, this isn't an issue at all because its guaranteed to be different every time you play it. With that being said, most of Nintendo's recent games seem to fall into the WoW or Torchlight 2 type category. I mean, who plays New Super Mario Brothers WiiU for the story?

[Xeno]

TotalBiscuit raised some very good points, especially the method in which Nintendo is using to identify the content and flag it. That said, it didn't change my opinion of the over all situation. As interactive as games may be, and as different as your play through might be from mine, the overall content was developed and created by another entity and using that content (the voice acting, the graphics, the game engine, everything) to generate revenue for yourself without providing at least some kind of guaranteed revenue to the entity that created it is wrong. You, and TotalBiscuit also did, called this a new industry, but I'm going to have to fall back on the argument that this is just guys playing video games. I'm not jealous of them, as TB implied, that they're making money for playing video games all day. Maybe I've not seen any good LPs outside of SA, which have all been done on the forum, because every one that I've seen has been pretty low quality with the person doing it have no clue what they're doing and the commentary being awful.

That all said, I think Nintendo deserves revenue for it's content when uploaded to sites like YouTube and Twitch without it's consent, but if additional commentary is added, then the creator of that commentary should share revenue.