Nintendo Announces New Youtube Content Creators Guidelines

Ever seen Youtubers play a classic Nintendo game like Super Mario Brothers 3 or Kid Icarus? Well, Nintendo has officially announced a new content creators program, which will allow users to make videos based on the content of Nintendo’s published work, in a revenue sharing model with Nintendo. Now please note, this would be separate from YouTube’s share that are taken from those content creators. Compared to other models such as Bethesda’s for example, Nintendo is taking a reasonable chunk of revenue for a video that may be advertising for their content, but is a step in the right direction compared to the companies past experiences with YouTube.

You want to play some Metroid: Other M on Youtube? It may cost you.

The program is in a beta, and has a list of games that the program has identified to fall into the realm of being protected under their copyright. Now note, while several large games published by Nintendo are on there, there are exceptions that have not made the list, such as Super Smash Brothers for the Wii U, and Bayonetta 2. But some big hitters are of course on there, as well as a collection of very old and retro titles.

There are two modes in which one can choose to partner. A channel mode means that is 70% for channels, and 60% for individual videos. For the channel portion, note that it’s for ALL the channel. For the channel method, your channel can NOT have content in that case that is copyright claimable by other sources, it has to be all Nintendo related work. It is also noted that the percentage could change arbitrarily. Revenue shares are calculated at the end of each month, and could take up to 2 months to be paid out to a PayPal account. You will have to give disclosure of the fact that you are part of the channel partnership, as they provided the following that has to be added to videos either audibly or written out in some clear way, whether it be the description or written on screen.

“I have a license to use Nintendo’s content in this video through the Nintendo Creators Program. This video is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, but any advertising revenue from this video will be shared with Nintendo.”

It is unknown whether or not older content that has been already created will be affected by this. Do you think Nintendo is starting to understand the appeal of YouTube, or do you think that this policy is still behind the times, in what could be an advertisement to the game? What’s more interesting in terms of this is that it seemingly applies to all content Nintendo related, possibly including critical reviews. There have been some YouTubers who have already spoken out indicating that the policy is going to hurt things, such as CinnamonToastKen and jackspeticeye.