Over the weekend, both Nintendo and YouTube itself announced changes for video content creators looking to turn a profit from their work. YouTube restricted the inclusion of external links in videos to members of its Partner Program only, while Nintendo decided its content was not to be live streamed under the Creators Program.
Both announcements have shaken the community to its core, particularly gaming channels and the people who run them. Many of these users rely on third-party sites like Patreon to get sponsored for their work, and most of that same population doesn’t meet the requirements to opt for a YouTube partnership.
Nintendo’s decision is restrictive and confusing as it can be for video game fans that feature game content by the Japanese giant. This effectively leaves them without a feasible path to neither stream footage legally nor get some revenue out of it.
Only YouTube partners can link to their Patreon accounts
According to YouTube’s most recent regulation changes, only channels and creators who are subscribed to the YouTube Partner Program can access linking features that enable them to put up links to their Patreon accounts and personal websites in videos.
There would be no problem with that if just anyone could join, but there are a few hurdles to overcome for Google and YouTube to approve your subscription. The most significant of them all is, of course, having at least 10,000 public views, which just isn’t realistic to many small channels trying to make it online.
If that wasn’t enough, your channel is still up for review by YouTube, who is the ultimate entity that decided whether or not you become a partner based on some platform criteria. To content creators who are just starting to rise, this is a huge slap in the face.
Not even YouTube partners can stream Nintendo games
But it gets worse if you happen to be an avid gamer that puts content out on YouTube and like Nintendo. Up until March, you had no way to perceive earnings from those videos, as the video game empire took all of them but allowed you to keep the video up.
Now, with the Nintendo Creators Program, people have to be both a YouTube partner and an affiliate to the program so the company gives you up to 70% of the revenue your video makes. That is, of course, if you are not live streaming anything.
“You cannot broadcast content on YouTube Live from the account you have registered to the Nintendo Creators,” according to Nintendo, which would force you to do it from another account and register that video individually if you wanted to get revenue out of it. Of course, that’s likely not going to happen either.