Nintendo's Continued Misunderstandings

For a step forward, Nintendo goes two steps backwards. The stuff they have done in the last 10 years or so leaves a lot of question marks to what have accomplished. One of these is their stance on YouTube. It's Creator's Program was met with a lot of criticism a few years ago and was a black eye to anyone that either were monetizing or just showing the games they had. A few weeks back, they announced the end of the program.

You would think in theory this would be good. Nintendo would let loose with their policies. And you would be wrong. They have made some guidelines now with different policies. Most notably is that you can't do videos unless you have commentary put into it. Mainly for reviews and let's plays. Anything that has no commentary could be up for flagging. The same can be said for any hacks and homebrews of games that have Nintendo IP's in it. And I'll assume that it goes for every system they have ever made. Not just modern systems, but the NES and everything else in between.

I have only uploaded one Nintendo game with a number of videos and that was the original Super Mario Bros. My assumption at the time was that they were going after the Wii, Wii U, DS, and 3DS. I was wrong. My videos are still up, but I have never done another Nintendo game since. It's sad because I like some of their content and franchises. This new policy will hurt a number of channels. Cubex55 (World of Longplays) might not exist one day because of Nintendo. Even though they have an archive on their website, they would lose tons of Amiga videos, Sega, Atari, everything. Another is a user that goes by the name of packattack04082. His primary focus is Nintendo and Lego games. Maybe some other kids games, but they get tons of views. Millions to be exact. Losing a channel like that would frustrate a lot of video watchers.

I can understand if it was just anything from the Wii and DS up to the Switch. But why still have policies for NES up to GameCube if they are still doing that? I get they are within their rights, but Nintendo is still out of touch with reality. This isn't the mid 90s where the Internet is a new thing. Sure, there are other companies that have similar policies, but they make things a lot worse. This is only going to create a lot more backlash. And quite frankly, it's only going to turn off more people. Not everyone likes commentary. Having only those type of videos is a bad idea.

Nintendo's approaches to the Internet just screams trying to have strict control at times. I wouldn't mind doing reviews of some their games, but my views on them are not always that positive about them. We'll have to see how things go, but it's not going to be pretty. A step forward but two steps backwards.