Nintendo Doesn’t Understand Let’s Plays, Tries To Control Them Anyway
The ambivalent reaction a lot of video game companies have had to the Let’s Play phenomenon is baffling to me. From a business standpoint, nothing is better than free advertising, and a lot of Let’s Plays are just that. Five Nights At Freddy’s would not be the huge hit it is today if YouTube was not blanketed with videos of shrieking players trying to beat the thing. Some companies, like Sega, have simply swatted Let’s Plays off servers wherever they can find them. (See the news report after this one for how well Sega’s doing saleswise.) Other companies have been chill about it. Nintendo has hovered in the middle, unsure what to think. At first they banned all streams of their games, then they allowed them all, and now they’re taking a halfway position by introducing the “Nintendo Creator’s Program.” It’s their attempt at putting Let’s Plays on their terms, which isn’t based on any form of reality. Nintendo wants a 30% cut of all revenue a Let’s Play of