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Nintendo cracks down on fan-made games

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-09-02-nintendo-cracks-down-on-fan-made-games

A little word of warning to people making games using other peoples' assets, like ripped sprite sheets. Even if you're doing it with no profit motive, be careful about sharing it. Nintendo apparently didn't go after the game makers, only against the site. But they certainly could, just to teach a lesson.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-09-02-nintendo-cracks-down-on-fan-made-games

FRI 02 SEP 2016 2:27PM GMT / 10:27AM EDT / 7:27AM PDT

DMCA takedown notice prompts closure of more than 500 projects on GameJolt

It's not uncommon for fan-made games using big-name IP to get shut down as soon as they draw some interest online. It's less common for rights-holders to aggressively and indiscriminately squash those projects by the hundreds.

Freeware site GameJolt yesterday announced that it received a DMCA takedown notice from Nintendo for 562 projects infringing on its rights to the Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon franchises.

"These web pages display images of Nintendo's video game characters in connection with unauthorized online games that copy the characters, music, and other features of Nintendo's video games," Nintendo's representatives wrote in the takedown notice. "The web site at gamejolt.com generates revenue from advertising banners displayed on the site and advertisements played while users wait for the games to load."

GameJolt has removed public access to those games, but their creators can still access them "for historical purposes."

Nintendo has been cracking down on fan-made projects recently. Last month it squashed Pokemon Uranium, a PC version of the franchise nine years in the making that was pulled down less than a week after launch, but not before it was downloaded 1.5 million times. That was just a week after it had a free fan-made remake of Metroid 2 pulled.

Interestingly, Nintendo's GameJolt requests were limited to those three main properties. As of this writing, the site still hosted numerous projects based on franchises like Metroid, Donkey Kong, Earthbound, and Yoshi.

Replies

  • Synaesthesia
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    Synaesthesia polycounter
    AM2R was a fantastic remake of Metroid 2 - it's a shame that it got pulled. I was hoping Nintendo would have taken the Valve approach and bought it out instead.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 11
    They are well within their rights but I always view this as poor taste on Nintendo part
  • fdfxd2
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    fdfxd2 interpolator
    Well.. it's not for non profit, you can monetize the games so..

    Nintendo is well within their rights to do this,
    I'd even go as far as to say,
    Nintendo should do this.
  • Fuiosg
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    Fuiosg polycounter lvl 5
    at this point anything belonging to Nintendo, Square Enix or Disney is guaranteed to be suffocated. At least these guys were smart or lucky enough to finish their projects first.
  • Tekoppar
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    Tekoppar polycounter lvl 10
    AM2R was a fantastic remake of Metroid 2 - it's a shame that it got pulled. I was hoping Nintendo would have taken the Valve approach and bought it out instead.
    Why would Nintendo ever buy it out? - Hey man you made a game with our IP, let's give you a fat check
  • Biomag
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    Biomag sublime tool
    Tekoppar said:
    AM2R was a fantastic remake of Metroid 2 - it's a shame that it got pulled. I was hoping Nintendo would have taken the Valve approach and bought it out instead.
    Why would Nintendo ever buy it out? - Hey man you made a game with our IP, let's give you a fat check

    Because they have the right to shut it down, but not to use it themselves. So if they like the game and don't want to re-do it again, they might simply buy the developed game for a not so fat check (since the competition to buy it will be non existent, but still without the devs consent Nitendo won't be able to make profit with it either).
  • Tekoppar
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    Tekoppar polycounter lvl 10
    Biomag said:
    Because they have the right to shut it down, but not to use it themselves. So if they like the game and don't want to re-do it again, they might simply buy the developed game for a not so fat check (since the competition to buy it will be non existent, but still without the devs consent Nitendo won't be able to make profit with it either).
    But the game isn't some kind of masterpiece, even without the Metroid IP it's a mediocre game. And even if they somehow bought they would still have had to port it to either 3Ds or Wii U.
  • Aabel
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    Aabel polycounter lvl 6
    They have to aggressively defend their IP. Everybody should know this.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    a company defending IP's that they have millions of dollars invested in and earns them money? woah :surprised:

  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    They are well within their rights but I always view this as poor taste on Nintendo part
    I agree with this completely. Just because they can doesn't mean they should; and they're only hurting their fanbase and reputation by cracking down on fan projects.
  • Fuiosg
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    Fuiosg polycounter lvl 5
    Nintendo's jumping into mobile, so it's not like they're being completely obtuse. They don't want their IPs diluted.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Joopson said:
    They are well within their rights but I always view this as poor taste on Nintendo part
    I agree with this completely. Just because they can doesn't mean they should; and they're only hurting their fanbase and reputation by cracking down on fan projects.
    They kinda have to since they need to show that they are defending their Ip's or it will get weaker,
    since there are so many doing fan made games based on nintendos games they just seem a lot worse then others.

    But also this is a japanese company. Rules are followed no matter how old or how little sense they make, even if it's positive for the company itself they will always follow the rule and probably never change it, which is why I need to run to the post  office every time I deal with SquareEnix  O.o
  • GrevSev
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    GrevSev polycounter lvl 9
    I love that the few Metroid projects out there are taken down quicker than the Zelda ones but Zelda gets about as much love as Pikachu itself.

    CryZenx updates the ooT stuff pretty frequently and hes still not roasted on a spit. 
  • leilei
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    leilei polycounter lvl 14
    GameJolt's been profiting off ad revenue though, and unauthorized Nintendo trademarks bringing in the hits for them, despite the fan's intentions for non-commercial fan games

    Pokemon Uranium had a patreon.

    AM2R was a direct clone of a currenlly commercially sold copyrighted product

    and yet I still don't know why and how Zelda Classic is still existing after 16 years of being available, but after all this, its days are numbered for sure

    I think this can have an adverse effect of making  nintendo "hentai" being the only thing easily findable on the fan side, which arguably tarnishes their childhood-friendly brand more than fan games, and it's allowed to exist by parody law.  which is terrible to begin with. Thanks Newgrounds :/
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Fuiosg said:
    at this point anything belonging to Nintendo, Square Enix or Disney is guaranteed to be suffocated. At least these guys were smart or lucky enough to finish their projects first.
    Disney is the only one I have issues with because they've stopped their old IPs from entering public domain (through new laws), but frequently take advantage of characters and stories that are part of public domain.
  • Fullofsith
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    Fullofsith polycounter lvl 9
    Can't blame Nintendo for cracking down now. With them branching out into other platforms, it makes a bit of sense for them to suddenly become extra protective. Sucks for the fan community, but I get it.
  • stickadtroja
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    stickadtroja polycounter lvl 11
    fdfxd2 said:
    Well.. it's not for non profit, you can monetize the games so..

    Nintendo is well within their rights to do this,
    I'd even go as far as to say,
    Nintendo should do this.
    this mentality is the reason we cant have nice things.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    People always say that companies need "to show they are defending their IPs", and I'm curious about what exactly this means.

    Can't a company show they are defending their IPs by shooting down projects attempting to make money on their designs, or people selling fanart, as opposed to shutting down these fan passion projects that actually do the IP justice, and that aren't out to profit?
  • Biomag
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    Biomag sublime tool
    If you are not enforcing your copyrights and trademarks your position gets legally weakend.

    Also often enough those things get actually settled without anything major happening except the project being taken down - so they don't push for money they could actually get from such infringements.

    But lets not forget 2 things:
    1. The company would be allowing competition from their own IP. That's actually also an arguement against mods - see how EA for example has stopped creating NHL games for PC, as it simply doesn't pay off for them. Fans being able to exchange rosters, jerseys, arenas with ease in older versions of the game probably didn't help on an already small market.

    2. Its one project for the fan, thousands of fan-projects for the company to keep track of. If you are establishing an IP you sometimes don't want it distorted by fan-visions/version of it (see R.R. Martin complaining about fan fiction). So its easier to shut them down or get a consent with the bigger ones.


    In the end most companies are not doing much against fans. It happens like in this case, but we see a lot of mods, fan art, fanfiction all over the place. It's not like they are harassing their fans all the time.
  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    Joopson said:
    People always say that companies need "to show they are defending their IPs", and I'm curious about what exactly this means.

    Can't a company show they are defending their IPs by shooting down projects attempting to make money on their designs, or people selling fanart, as opposed to shutting down these fan passion projects that actually do the IP justice, and that aren't out to profit?
    I'd like to hear more about this as well, because I'm pretty sure it's bullshit.

     According to the government (P7, "Copyright Registration), as long as you register a copyright, it "will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright." Sounds clear enough to me. Definitely doesn't say you need to show ongoing defense of the copyright after that point.

    The real reason they're doing this is almost definitely for marketing reasons, not legal. They want to control how their brands are presented to the world.
  • Tekoppar
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    Tekoppar polycounter lvl 10
    @Amsterdam Hilton Hotel You should look up trademark, at the moment Nintendo has Metroid trademarked. I highly doubt they would like to loose that.
  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    Tekoppar said:
    @Amsterdam Hilton Hotel You should look up trademark, at the moment Nintendo has Metroid trademarked. I highly doubt they would like to loose that.
    Interesting. For those interested in what Tekoppar is referring to, since he didn't link to anything:

    Trademark rights can also be lost unintentionally. For example, in some countries, it is possible to lose rights in a mark by allowing third parties to use the mark without controlling how it is used.

  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    Yeah, there tends to be confusion about Trademark and Copyright, you have to defend your Trademark or it will become generic, not so with copyright.  An example of a trademarked name that became generic is Thermos.  Kleenex is a trademark that is in danger of becoming generic.

    FYI, April of next year will be the 20th anniversary of Fox shutting down the Alien Quake mod.  I was planning on making a "why you should know better" post around that time.
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