actually, the ads were used to give money to those LPers, and now it gives to Nintendo instead.

this way, those who share videos for money won't be able to get money, while those who share videos for pure entertainment / enjoyment, will still be able to share it without fear it will be blocked or removed...

Most of the good, professional lets players won't be making those videos if this keeps on. One of the larger ones already dropped support for Nintendo.



"Would you prefer if a school of children would burn down instead of that box of kittens? Wouldn't that be worse?". Sorry but one evil does not excuse another.




Actually Google will transfer the money automatically.

Somewhere between copyright suits El Goog lost her balls.



It is only public for a while now and it will take sometime before lets players will be willing to surrender a part of their fan base to take the risk of it being reversed and drop support.

A game isn't a movie or a book. True it has set rules and guidelines, it enables you to do things otherwise impossible. But so does a set of ski's. When you create unique content in someone elses world, surely you can be rewarded for that as long as it benefits and does not harm said world?

Lets plays are a very functional piece of free advertisement. On the publication of Nintendo's policies several companies spoke up against Nintendo and gave formal permission to make lets plays using their game. Nintendo is stabbing one of their most loyal and beneficial communities in the back out of greed. On the long term it'l bite them back there.




Professional Lets Plays cost money to build. Thousands for the equipment sometimes. Plus a huge amount of time. Further don't expect just lets plays to be hit by this decision. Voice overs or parodies like Gamer Poop will be in trouble too.

And none of the would have, it the videos had just been outright banned.


Except this isn't just a random act of evil, this is Nintendo protecting their intellectual property. There are two ways they could have done this, and in my opinion, the chose the lesser of two evils.





No, but it's a hell of a lot more similar to them, that to a pair of skis.
And it's because you can do lots of things in games, that they are more of a risk to the developers (e.g. I some kid got some skis, and skied off a cliff. no one would blame the ski manufacturers, but some kid playing sims makes two sims have s**, and their parents catch them, the company will be blamed).

Your argument is flawed in that lets plays have existed for years without a ban of any form.

Someone else using your product is not your property. The game and assets are, but this can be seen as reporting of some form which would make it fall under "Fair Use". I doubt Nintendo's claim would stick for a second in court - unfortunately there isn't anyone with enough money amongst the duped parties to test this. It is bullying at its finest. Something Nintendo has grown particulary skilled at since its innovation dropped.


Games are merely the tools and ingredients for an experience. Just like anything you'll pick up in real life. No two gameplays are the same, so how can a gameplay be owned by Nintendo? Does the inventor of paint have claim to paintings? Nintendo wasn't losing any money from lets plays - it was gaining from them. Hence so many developers gift their games to lets players. It is a welcome boost of one of the more zealous groups of gamers.

Nintendo simply figured it might be able to AND gain free advertisement AND gain money. And while at it, set a precedent. It's greedy, it's bureaucratic and it shows Nintendo is completely alienated from its fans now.

First they started killing free sequels to games they said many years ago would never be made sequels too and now this. Seriously - screw Nintendo.

No, but they still hold the copyrite, so if someone is recreating a significant amount of the game play experience, and distributing it to others for money, that's copyrite infringement.


Because a game is more than just the gameplay, there's also the story, cut-scenes, etc, which are the same for every player.


It's their product, they're entitled to make money off of it.

Also, I've read up a bit more on this, and nowhere does it actually say that Nintendo are taking money from LPers, all they're doing is adding adverts to certain lengthy videos.