Editorial: Why does Nintendo get a free pass?

A popular YouTube reviewer just uploaded his play session of EA’s newest game, Battlefield Hardline. However, the company does not want anybody monetizing their game footage, and has slapped a copyright strike against this person. The reviewer makes a living doing this, and are now out a ton of cash.

How does that make you feel? Pretty angry right? They are America’s worst company several years running.

Well, EA didn’t do this. Nintendo did, to Angry Joe, again.

I will call out the big elephant in the room here. Joe Vargas is an idiot for thinking Nintendo wouldn’t flag his footage of Mario Party 10. They’ve done it before with his other videos. Why he thought they’d change their mind, I don’t know.

To counterpoint that, nobody else has a problem with what he does. Joe makes a living off his videos. If he doesn’t get the ad revenue, it’s a lot of time and work down the drain. Unjustified copyright claims can be devastating for legitimate video producers. Joe seems like a pretty decent guy and he’s certainly passionate about what he does.

If it were EA pulling these shenanigans, the gaming community would be outraged. Yet for some reason, Nintendo always gets a free pass.

Yes, their games are good. Yes, they’ve done a lot for the gaming industry. However, regressive policies like their attitude towards Let’s Play are hurting real people. They’re out an income. It’s not like when EA goofs up and you’ve lost $60 because their game sucked.

Even if you agree with their stance, they are one of the few companies that do not allow monetization of their game footage. Most of which seem to be Japanese publishers.

Western developers view Let’s Play as cheap advertising and a great boon to the hype machine. Rival consoles openly encourage people to stream. It just further paints Big N as a dinosaur, perpetually stuck in the 90s.

While we all have many fond memories of Nintendo growing up, they shouldn’t be excused when they do things that hurt the gaming community.