Nintendo just doesn’t seem to understand the internet. Not long ago, Nintendo decided to take over Let’s Play videos of its games. They did this for who knows what reason, but mainly because no one there seems to understand how those videos are actually good for Nintendo. So it isn’t really a surprise to see this next move.
Kotaku is reporting that the new Smash Bros. game for the Wii U and 3DS will no longer feature a story mode complete with cutscenes. Why? Because of the internet.
“Unfortunately, the movie scenes we worked hard to create were uploaded onto the internet.” Sakurai lamented. “You can only truly wow a player the first time he sees [a cutscene]. I felt if players saw the cutscenes outside of the game, they would no longer serve as rewards for playing the game, so I’ve decided against having them.”
Yes. There is a certain value in having cutscenes act as a reward for the player. As such, many let’s play video producers have gone as far as removing cut scenes from their videos. However, there is also value in allowing such cutscenes to be uploaded to video sharing sites. In the case of Smash Bros, perhaps some people don’t want to have to play all the characters to see all the content. Perhaps they just want to play as the handful of characters they actually care about. Having those videos online allows those players to enjoy the content they either can’t or don’t want to work to get.
Of course this does not mean that Nintendo is going to go and take down existing videos. It just means they just won’t produce content they don’t want posted.
I really wish Nintendo understood the internet more. People don’t post these videos in order to spoil these games. They do it because they love the game and want to show others what they found to be great about it. This is one of the reasons why both Sony and Microsoft have added both streaming and recording features to their new consoles. They recognize that the internet and video sharing is as much a part of gaming as playing games are. Nintendo needs to learn that lesson.
