Nintendo Decides To Shut Down Creators Program

Nintendo’s Creators Program is a scheme through which the platform holder could approve the use of game footage in YouTube videos and similar content which would, subsequently, allow the approved creators to receive 60% of the video’s ad revenue.

It was a controversial move which had quite an impact on the YouTube gamers who reviewed Nintendo games back when the program was implemented.

Felix Kjellberg, best known as PewDiePie wrote about it on his blog, stating that “what Nintendo are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTube. What better way to sell or market a game, than from watching someone else (that you like) playing it and enjoying themselves?”

Now, three years after the program’s debut, Nintendo finally decided to shut down the program with an official announcement. The Creators Program will be replaced by a set of guidelines but they will still impact the way people watch Nintendo games online.

The guidelines can be found here and they’re pretty straightforward but they also make it clear that Nintendo still has the right to take down any videos that the company believes is breaking the guidelines. That includes videos that reupload existing trailers, gameplay footage or try to monetise the content via third-party sites.

Obviously, creating content from early copies of the games or illegally downloaded ones is out of the question.

The Nintendo Creators Program will be shutting down in December and Nintendo will not be reviewing any previously submitted requests until then.

The Creators Program website will be officially closing down on March 20th, 2019.