Several big YouTube gaming personalities have railed against the revenue sharing plan Nintendo revealed late last week.

Called the Nintendo Creators Program, the plan has Nintendo taking a 30-40 percent cut of the ad revenue gathered from any videos featuring its games – a figure Nintendo said "may be changed arbitrarily".

Moreover, the revenue sharing is limited to a list of approved games.

Although the plan is a step up from the current situation wherein Nintendo doesn’t allow anyone to monetise videos that feature its games, many video creators are up in arms.

“What they are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTube / YouTubers,” wrote Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (AKA PewDiePie) in a post on Tumblr.

“What better way to sell / 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 / 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.

“I also think this is a slap in the face to the YouTube channels that does focus on Nintendo game exclusively. The people who have helped and showed passion for Nintendo’s community are the ones left in the dirt the most.”

Kjellberg said he would still play Nintendo games on his channel, but only because losing ad revenue on a few videos doesn’t really affect him.

“Everyone loses in this scenario that Nintendo has created, that’s why I’m against it,” he said.

Jim Sterling was similarly unimpressed:

The program was also criticised by Stephen “Boogie2988” Williams and Zack Scott.

"I encourage all video creators and video game developers to really consider the impact if everyone adopted Nintendo's model," said Scott.

"Do we want game coverage to be based upon who pays the most or perhaps takes the smallest cut? The biggest YouTubers and developers can benefit from a model like that, but it'll be at the expense of the smallest."

Game publishers have the exclusive legal right to decide how video makers use their copyrighted content.