(02-01-2015, 10:39 PM)Gwen Wrote:(02-01-2015, 09:30 PM)puggsoy Wrote: I don't watch PewDiePie, the only video on his channel I've actively watched is a songification by Schmoyoho. The only real reason him speaking out is significant is because he's a significant Youtuber.
But anyway. While Nintendo do have a right to do this, I think it's pretty stupid of them. I would think that the free advertising they get from this would be more than enough compensation for the money Youtubers make - which, as TotalBiscuit said in the video Helmo posted, is already usually around 30-20% of the actual revenue generated. It's really just a dumb and greedy thing that I personally think might even decrease their sales.
What exactly is greedy about Nintendo wanting to get some profit from people using their content to make money? Nintendo's still okay with them making money, they just stand to make some themselves.
From a corporate view, yes. In a perfect world, yes. In a world where every YouTuber has a part-tiime job to pay the bills, yes.
The problem is that a good number of monetizing YouTubers actually use the revenue they make to actually like...live, and put a roof over their head and food in their mouth (and sometimes, for multiple people - which, in PDP's case, is his hot-ass Italian girlfriend)
Nintendo, with their usual antiquated, draconian practices and the literal embodiment of the Pokemon Slowpoke, realize that so many people enjoy a lot of people playing Nintendo's games on video streaming sites. The other part of the problem, which people might not think about is the YouTuber who realizes all they need is a stream overlay and a folder full of ROMs. That folder is a folder full of lost sales, lost royalties, and lost revenue. Lost numbers for Nintendo.
Sure, there's word-of-mouth, but in 2015 when all you need to play Earthbound is an emulator - a game with absurdly high regard in both gaming communities and the secondhand market that insists on selling it up to four times its original shelf price - that's a potential Virtual Console purchase, lost.
I'm just talking about one person here. When we're talking about an entire community whose first exposure to Earthbound was long after it left the market due to the rise of emulation just years later, the numbers really add up. Furthermore, when you're watching LPs of Jimmy Streamer mentioned above with his folder full of ROMs, that's potential lost sales, multiplied, for every person who's viewed that video. Lots and lots of numbers, which at the end of the day is a lot of dollars that could have flown into Nintendo's pockets.
Anyone remember Nintendo's game help hotline? You know, the one they somehow still have that people don't really use anymore because of the existence of YouTube playthroughs - oops! We could have paid our helpline staffers we've still got employed with that!
All in all, I think I've kinda wrote a bunch of jumbled words in a post, but Nintendo looking to seek ad revenue in exchange to potential exposure makes sense from a business perspective - even if it's like 10 years too late. When it's cutting into your own profits and ultimately your living expenses and quality of life, then yeah, you're probably going to be against the policy.
As crybaby as "Oh no, with Nintendo's Youtube monetization program I'm going to have to get a part-time job to play the bills" might sound to the average person, there's a lot of people who feel this sentiment, especially when you've got a generation of millenials who can't get a job in a brick-and-mortar building and instead are looking for other opportunities to make money with little to no experience required. :/