On his YouTube channel, Joe “Angry Joe” Vargas posts video game reviews, previews, and play sessions for his nearly two million subscribers. Previously, Vargas’ library occasionally included footage from games published by Nintendo, but the company’s recent actions have changed his mind. After a copyright claim prevented Vargas from monetizing a Mario Party 10 video, he has sworn off the company’s games and delivered a fiery rant about its “greedy” actions.
Compared to many other game companies, Nintendo takes a strict approach when it comes to YouTube content. Once upon a time, it didn’t allow any creators to monetize videos that feature its games, but it has since softened this policy with the launch of its Creators Program, which allows members to share revenue with the gaming giant. Shortly after the program’s launch, YouTube gamers flooded Nintendo with requests to join. At the same time, other creators, including PewDiePie
, complained about the company’s perceived greed.Vargas was one of the gamers who fell into the latter camp, and when a Nintendo copyright claim struck down his recent (and since removed) Mario Party 10 video, he vowed never to share the company’s games again. In delivering his anti-Nintendo rant, he echoed many of the complaints other critics have lodged against the gaming giant. Specifically, Vargas believes the free promotion he provided for Nintendo games (and the $900 he spent on its products) more than compensated for the fact that he used unlicensed game footage.
“Any time you share your content with anybody else, they must have that money as well,” he says. “That’s how f**king greedy Nintendo Japan is, and I have not seen this behavior from any other modern web 3.0 company or gamer-friendly company out there.”
Judging by its popularity, Nintendo’s Creators Program works for many of the site’s users. To Vargas, though, the gaming giant is still far away from the pro-YouTuber stance taken by other developers. He’s not alone in this sentiment; since he published his rant, he’s received support from other members of YouTube’s gaming community. Whether this backlash affects Nintendo’s YouTube policy remains to be seen, but don’t count on any changes to the Creators Program anytime soon.
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