PewDiePie attacks Nintendo for YouTube cash share plan

Leading YouTuber PewDiePie has hit out at Nintendo for its plan to take a cut of advertising revenue from "let's play" videos featuring its games.

Most game companies allow footage of their games to appear online without overt restrictions, viewing the content as useful and promotional. Back in 2013, Nintendo demanded advertising revenues from YouTubers who created content based on their games. Some decided to cease covering Nintendo games.

Now the company has rolled out a compromise, in which it shares revenue with the YouTubers. But PewDiePie isn't happy. Today, he posted a Tumblr update.

"They have every right to do this and any other developer and publisher have as well," began PewDiePie, who has over 35 million subscribers to his channel. "There'd be no let's play without the game to play. And we YouTubers are humble to this fact.

"But what they are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTubers. What better way to sell and market a game, than from watching someone else that you like playing it and enjoying themselves?

"If I played a Nintendo game on my channel, most likely most of the views and ad revenue would come from the fact that my viewers are subscribed to me. Not necessarily because they want to watch a Nintendo game in particular."

PewDiePie (real name Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg) said that many of today's most popular games have benefited immensely from exposure on YouTube, citing Minecraft as an example. He said that Nintendo's strictures would not make much of a difference to him, but are a "slap in the face" to smaller channels and Nintendo enthusiasts. Smaller companies are already offering a simple path to welcome YouTube personalities.

"When there's just so many games out there to play. Nintendo games just went to the bottom of that list. Even if more publishers starts implementing this idea of sharing revenue, then fine, there's always going to be plenty of games out there."