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Taking a leaf out of Microsoft's "180" strategy, Nintendo may be doing its own backtracking on a contentious copyright issue.
Last month, Nintendo stunned the gaming community by claiming copyright on YouTube "Let's Play" videos. Let's Play videos are popular videos produced by Nintendo fans for Nintendo fans, and a great natural way for games to be promoted, so when Nintendo decided to claim the ad revenue earned by these videos, it left the "Let's Play" community fuming. In one move, Nintendo has denied video producers the financial rewards that keeps them going, all without any real perceivable benefit to the gaming company, who surely do not need to comparatively minuscule revenue generated by these videos.
The bad PR move backfired even more when Zack Scott of the ZackScottGames channel started a boycott of Nintendo games from his Let's Play series, out of disgust for Nintendo's move, and out of financial necessity.
But just recently, Zack discovered that revenue from his old Nintendo videos started to reappear. Zack has not received any response from Nintendo during this whole affair, and Nintendo were unable or unwilling to comment on the possible reversal at the time of writing.
Regardless, the possible return to normality will mean Zack can continue to produce Let's Play videos for Nintendo's latest games, games that will surely benefit from the free promotion offered by people like Zack.
"I hope that Nintendo allows players, reviewers, and other professionals to utilize their content on YouTube without Nintendo making claims to the advertising revenue. A lot of big and small developers see the value of coverage by the YouTube community. Faced with the potential for ad revenue loss, a lot of reviewers would rather devote their time to other games and properties," warned Zack.
Last month, Nintendo stunned the gaming community by claiming copyright on YouTube "Let's Play" videos. Let's Play videos are popular videos produced by Nintendo fans for Nintendo fans, and a great natural way for games to be promoted, so when Nintendo decided to claim the ad revenue earned by these videos, it left the "Let's Play" community fuming. In one move, Nintendo has denied video producers the financial rewards that keeps them going, all without any real perceivable benefit to the gaming company, who surely do not need to comparatively minuscule revenue generated by these videos.
The bad PR move backfired even more when Zack Scott of the ZackScottGames channel started a boycott of Nintendo games from his Let's Play series, out of disgust for Nintendo's move, and out of financial necessity.
But just recently, Zack discovered that revenue from his old Nintendo videos started to reappear. Zack has not received any response from Nintendo during this whole affair, and Nintendo were unable or unwilling to comment on the possible reversal at the time of writing.
Regardless, the possible return to normality will mean Zack can continue to produce Let's Play videos for Nintendo's latest games, games that will surely benefit from the free promotion offered by people like Zack.
"I hope that Nintendo allows players, reviewers, and other professionals to utilize their content on YouTube without Nintendo making claims to the advertising revenue. A lot of big and small developers see the value of coverage by the YouTube community. Faced with the potential for ad revenue loss, a lot of reviewers would rather devote their time to other games and properties," warned Zack.