Nintendo Creator’s Program Announced

Nintendo’s relationship with the YouTube community has been tenuous at best. The company often refuses to allow video creators to use its content, so it recently announced a new affiliate program called the Nintendo Creator’s Program to remedy this issue. Unfortunately, the plan may cause more problems than it solves.

The Creator’s Program serves as a way for YouTubers to share ad revenue with Nintendo in exchange for the company legally allowing those people to use their content. Here’s how it works: in order to use footage of Nintendo games, YouTube users must partner with the company and submit videos for approval. If approved, Nintendo would then take that video’s ad revenue and dispense it back to the user in one of two ways. If a user’s entire channel is registered with the Creator’s Program, the user will receive 70% of the ad revenue; if registration is performed on a video-by-video basis, the user receives 60% instead.

At first glance, the program might sound pretty cool. It gives YouTubers a legal way to use Nintendo’s games, and it helps both users and Nintendo itself make some money. However, gamers and media outlets have been quick to point out some serious issues with the company’s plan. For starters, Nintendo reserves the right to change the percentages listed above at any time. Also, if someone registers their entire channel, Nintendo would receive ad money from all of that channel’s videos, even those that have nothing to do with the company’s IP. Additionally, Nintendo must approve each video a Creator’s Program partner wishes to post, and it can reject any video it finds objectionable for any reason. This includes everything from walkthroughs and strategy illustrations to legitimate reviews and critique videos. It’s not difficult to imagine how the company could leverage this program to curate how it and its games are presented and discussed on YouTube.

Many popular YouTube personalities have already spoken out about Nintendo’s new policy, and they’re not happy. PewDiePie openly expressed his dissatisfaction on his Tumblr page, calling the program “a slap in the face to the YouTube channels that focus on Nintendo games exclusively.” Geek Remix also expressed frustration at the curated nature of the plan, saying that “not only do you have to essentially pay Nintendo to review their game, you have to review their game by their rules.” However, reaction to the program has not been universally negative; International Data Corporation research director Lewis Ward expressed some excitement for the future of the Creator’s Program:

I like the direction in which Nintendo is headed. I’m a fan of crowdsourced marketing pushes, and so this sort of arrangement seems inevitable for game developers and publishers. The devil will be in the details, but I suspect that Nintendo isn’t going to come out after the program launches and start smacking down smaller YouTube channels like Mario landing on a bunch of Goombas. A careful ‘fair use’ balance needs to be struck here…but over time, this program could be replicated by many other developers and publishers if it proves to be a win-win for Nintendo and YouTubers by late 2015.

So what do you think? Do you agree that the Nintendo Creator’s Program holds potential, or is it unfair to those who use the company’s content to produce their own videos? Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comment section below.