It is their IP and they have every right to protect it. That goes for anyone, any company who owns the rights of something they have created. Period.
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Clearing some misconceptions, or Nintendo should be as nice to their fans as SEGA and Capcom are
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The something was Samus Returns. They released it. There was never a situation where there was a nothing. Nintendo doesn't owe the AM2R developer anything.
Well that worked out for people that wanted to play AM2R yeah?
Why not just make your own Mario-inspired IP instead of making a fan game? Unless you wanted to reuse Mario game assets, in which case Nintendo has every right to protect their IP.
AM2R doesn't even begin to work on platform Nintendo is selling.
The port job doesn't look like it would be trivial either so even on a purely technical level I'm not even sure it would make sense.
It also makes no sense to include a fan project as a bonus in a professionally made project either.
I don't think Nintendo ever did anything close to similar to that so I have no idea why it should be expected here either.
And you got something, the game is basically finished and playable.
AM2R wasn't killed years before completion like a Chrono fan game.
The guy who spent years making it even managed to score a job in the industry with it and has this as a finished project as part of his portfolio.
You want them to license the IP without control and that's never happening.
Not true, actually. Sega has been pretty explicit in the past that they give the a-OK to all Sonic fan projects.
If they want to play it, it's on the internet.
the alternative being that Nintendo killed the project before and no one gets to play it at all.
I think you picked a pretty bad example. AM2R released in August 2016 and the development of Metroid: Samus Returns began somewhere in 2015 and was released in September of 2017.
Just one year apart, and even then at release the official remake could not escape comparisons to the fan-remake (another reason to not allow those games).
So Nintendo could have strook a deal with the developers of AM2R to release it offically, but AM2R wasn't ready at the time Metroid: Samus Returns already begun it's development and a release close to the official remake would confuse consumers and seem like actual competition, you want to avoid.
I am aware of that. It doesn't at all go against my point that they just don't care as much about their stuff, which is good for fan projects in the long run.
If Sega cared about how their IP were handled they would NEVER have allowed the comics with Archie to be done the way they did.
There's a reason not even Starfox got anything close to Penders latched on it.
That's another thing, a C&D after a project is finished is more of a gesture than a "this game no longer exists anywhere" type deal. It's like "we're the rights holder and this is what we should do, but ya'll know you can still find the game somewhere if you care"
This seems to be the case honestly. There are a ton of fan games and rom hacks with that haven't been shut down.
Capcom is nice to the Megaman community, they even promoted some fan games themselves as well as helping sponsore GDQ events that run many of them. There are a crazy amount of good Megaman fangames/rom hacks.
This is also true. Even though SoRR has been C&D years ago it's still easily available for anyone to play. It can't get updates though.
And better yet, the people who made the C&D projects can STILL take credit for the hard work they did.
Much easier to say "here's the next project from the game who made the finished port of MarioKart for Genesis" over "here's the next project of the guy who started a pokemon MMO that never went anywhere".
So where's the Mario Odyssey DLC to compete with the fan DLC that's been made? Where is an accessible way to play some of Nintendo's classic library (I do not consider Switch Online to be accessible for multiple reasons)? Where is something similar to Project M? Where are localization of decade+ old games that many have already translated for free?
What is the point of killing all of these projects that wouldn't even exist if there wasn't some kind of demand for them? Sure you could argue that some of those only got big because they were free, but we've seen how successful Nintendo's old library has been when they've made old titles available for sale and that people are willing to pay for DLC for popular games.
AM2R was in development for a decade. It's possible Nintendo was working on Samus Returns, but AM2R wasn't exactly a super secret project no one knew about.
nintendo doesn't get to participate in participatory fan culture if they don't let fans participate in participatory fan culture. fuck them.
"protecting their ip's" is corporate PR talk for "i think companies should have total control over how people use and think about their IPs" it's absolute total nonsense when you consider that once you release a product in the world, you don't have control over it anymore. It is now a cultural object to be reinterpreted by all parties.
How would these same people feel if say, Warner Brothers decided that fans could no longer write Harry Potter fanfiction because the fanfics might take away from book sales. Oh wait, they did try that way, way back and people freaked out and rallied against the decision.
Nintendo also is selective in how they allow fans to participate. Take for example, the Mother 3 fan translation. Has been up, without incident, for a decade now. And what I'll say is that we know that they knew about AM2R and Pokemon Quartz (i think that's what it's called) and that they let both of them get to the finishing stages. This is kind of a boon since it means you can still find the files, but it totally shafts the developers who were doing it pro-bono. It's ignorant and dismissive of fan labor and is indicative that the company takes its fandoms for granted.
"protecting their ip's" is corporate PR talk for "i think companies should have total control over how people use and think about their IPs" it's absolute total nonsense when you consider that once you release a product in the world, you don't have control over it anymore. It is now a cultural object to be reinterpreted by all parties.
How would these same people feel if say, Warner Brothers decided that fans could no longer write Harry Potter fanfiction because the fanfics might take away from book sales. Oh wait, they did try that way, way back and people freaked out and rallied against the decision.
Nintendo also is selective in how they allow fans to participate. Take for example, the Mother 3 fan translation. Has been up, without incident, for a decade now. And what I'll say is that we know that they knew about AM2R and Pokemon Quartz (i think that's what it's called) and that they let both of them get to the finishing stages. This is kind of a boon since it means you can still find the files, but it totally shafts the developers who were doing it pro-bono. It's ignorant and dismissive of fan labor and is indicative that the company takes its fandoms for granted.
Companies dont need to be nice to their fans because a lot of them will eat whatever shit they throw at them and defend every decision they take, sadly.
Try to release a Harry Potter movie without WB's consent and see how far you can go.
This cut both ways, if you change the framework so that any fan can use the IP however they see fit.
What's stopping Rockstar from using an indie's IP for their next project without compensating the original creator?
It's not a bad example because even though they released within a year of each other we've known about AM2R for almost 10 years prior to that with a public playable demo as early as 2011.
The public, and Nintendo, had known about this project for years before MercurySteam had pitched their first prototype for SR.
That's not what people were doing though. You're just changing the argument. A fan-game rendered in 2D for PCs is much different than a 3DS title or a title released for profit on consoles and Steam. And just because WB would send a C&D over a fan film does not mean they are right to do so. It's fucked up and shows how little companies value their consumers. We're cash cows to them.
Everyone in this thread should read Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins before they post in this thread.
Here is literally the entire book. For free. Check out the chapter "Why Heather Can Write"
I like how you can pre-emptively tell who's going to shill for Nintendo for free just by their avatar.
Even if Nintendo legally has this right to quash fan games, that doesn't make it justified. I can't think of a single world leader right now worth respecting, but they legally are allowed to do whatever atrocity they're doing. And other companies have proven you aren't required to be that awful, either. Heck, I'd say Nintendo's rivaled primarily just by Disney at this point.
Even if Nintendo legally has this right to quash fan games, that doesn't make it justified. I can't think of a single world leader right now worth respecting, but they legally are allowed to do whatever atrocity they're doing. And other companies have proven you aren't required to be that awful, either. Heck, I'd say Nintendo's rivaled primarily just by Disney at this point.
You'll get very capitalistic and pro-corporate takes about this on gaming side, OP. Generally the console audience here is very hostile towards emulation, preservation, fan games, abandonware, homebrew, public domain etc. People don't really care about whether it is moral, only whether it is legal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's the thing though, they didn't kill the project before release.
It exists, they just acted in a way so that the fan project wouldn't negatively impact their prospect.
It's a strategic move similar to releasing SMB3 on Virtual console in sync with NSMB2 for example.
The fan game still exists and is out there.
You or I is not entitled to play it for free or however.
If the AM2R author was serious in making sure that his project wouldn't get C&Ds he could have removed all traces of Nintendo's IP.
Indie do that and sell their games for a profit even.
That's how we got Axiom Verge and co.
AM2R isn't going anywhere and the guy who made it can still boast credit on his work, that's the important part.
e: nice Gish Gallop for an argument though.
"Go read a 400pages of a book to contribute to the argument"
I wonder if people would get as defensive over this if Nintendo started C&Ding fanart. It's basically the same principle, anyway. Would be a hell of a thread seeing Era members (the majority of which use fanart as their avatar) bending over backwards to defend Nintendo because they have to "protect their IP and it's their legal duty to do so".
I'd just like to point out that I don't think anyone, at least no informed person, is suggestion Nintendo doesn't have a right to protect their own IPs. That is within their rights. No one who has the slightest grasp on copyright law questions that. That is not what is being questioned here.
In my opinion, no gaming company benefits as much from fan produced content as Nintendo does. While at times Nintendo uses this for their benefit and aligns their community's wishes with their corporate interests (with Super Mario Maker as one example), they also have one of the most aggressive and regressive attitudes towards fan-produced content of any gaming company.
They shut down fan projects, until recently tried to control and monetize fan-produced videos on Youtube (under archaic regulations), took active steps to prevent fans or organizations from organizing certain events or tournaments and most of their consoles suffered, and continue to suffer, from measures or features that are decidedly anti-consumer such as: hardware-locked licenses, region locked hardware, DLC that is tied to physical products of very limited availability, etc.
I do not understand Nintendo as a company. I understand that they wish to be profitable. I understand that they make a lot of high quality software, some of which are some of my favorite games of all time, but at the same time they take active measures to undermine themselves or punish their fans for simply different ways of expressing their dedication and love for their IPs that, in most cases, have absolutely no effect on their bottom-line or would sooner have a positive one and possibly draw more fans in.
Even when their home console was in its most precarious state in terms of sales and they had excellent titles which would have benefited from word-of-mouth and Youtube or Twitch streaming, instead of embracing these forms of free advertisement they decided to act against their interests, while at the same time releasing software like Super Mario Maker that took what fans were doing with emulation and put it into a product they could sell.
As much as I love Nintendo, and despite their family-friendly image, they are one of the most aggressive companies towards their fans. While it is entirely their right to act the way they do, I find some of their actions appalling.
In my opinion, no gaming company benefits as much from fan produced content as Nintendo does. While at times Nintendo uses this for their benefit and aligns their community's wishes with their corporate interests (with Super Mario Maker as one example), they also have one of the most aggressive and regressive attitudes towards fan-produced content of any gaming company.
They shut down fan projects, until recently tried to control and monetize fan-produced videos on Youtube (under archaic regulations), took active steps to prevent fans or organizations from organizing certain events or tournaments and most of their consoles suffered, and continue to suffer, from measures or features that are decidedly anti-consumer such as: hardware-locked licenses, region locked hardware, DLC that is tied to physical products of very limited availability, etc.
I do not understand Nintendo as a company. I understand that they wish to be profitable. I understand that they make a lot of high quality software, some of which are some of my favorite games of all time, but at the same time they take active measures to undermine themselves or punish their fans for simply different ways of expressing their dedication and love for their IPs that, in most cases, have absolutely no effect on their bottom-line or would sooner have a positive one and possibly draw more fans in.
Even when their home console was in its most precarious state in terms of sales and they had excellent titles which would have benefited from word-of-mouth and Youtube or Twitch streaming, instead of embracing these forms of free advertisement they decided to act against their interests, while at the same time releasing software like Super Mario Maker that took what fans were doing with emulation and put it into a product they could sell.
As much as I love Nintendo, and despite their family-friendly image, they are one of the most aggressive companies towards their fans. While it is entirely their right to act the way they do, I find some of their actions appalling.
TPCi actually forbid fans from selling plushies of current gen pokemon.
Anything before is fair game.
Also you don't want to touch anything Disney if you're in that business.
That's pretty shitty. I've seen some kickass Scorbunny plushies floating around the internet already.
You literally don't understand what you're arguing against. Go read the one chapter I cited from the 250 page book I provided for free.
Fan projects have not and have never negatively impacted the existence of a product produced by the IP owner. That is nonsense. If done well, as AM2R was, it only helps awareness of the IP.
You'll have to explain to me how it benefited the release of Samus Returns though.
I'd like to see that argument.
How is the remake of Metroid II on Steam with no profit going whatsoever to Nintendo as a platform holder OR software publisher going to benefit the release of Samus Returns?
Is it exposure? I'm pretty sure that's kind of worthless when Nintendo presented the game at e3 to begin with.
And if you're trying to push that argument, you kind of have to defend it rather than just be vague about it or I'm gonna point to some piece of the Bible and let you find where the correct passage.
I can provide the bible for free if you want too.
You can make them, you can gift them, you can't sell them.
TPCi is literally trying to sell them to you right about now as part of their marketing push for GenVIII.
Could be better but it beats Disney and their blanket bans.
Yeah, you know the situation is being handled poorly when people are finishing sentences with "at least it's not as bad as Disney".
I don't know, it gives better exposure to older gens.
And with around 900 different designs it's not like there's no choice for anyone wanting to make pokemon plushies for money.
Again if you don't want to make money out of it, you're free to do so even with the latest designs.
People care, but they realize that after a certain point legality matters. The moment you want to go beyond shouting red faced into the ether.... the laws of the land matter. The same people I see losing their shit over this stuff, I rarely see in any of the threads discussing the primaries and choosing of our political leaders that actually are in a position to influence the laws that govern these things.
People want to link 50 different websites and fan projects and give me every reason in the world why the law should either be changed or doesn't matter but are nowhere to be found when it comes to the actual methods necessary to actually enact change. Whether you like it or not; what they are allowed to legally do here trumps how you feel about it. And if you don't like that, you are welcome to do something about it... Literally all of us are.
So people keep bringing the latter bit up without really examining what you actually said.
P-Tux7, when you say "I got refused", you're not actually talking about a C&D for a game you were making, right? Am I correct in thinking you were like 14 and you emailed Nintendo going "I want to make you a Mario game in Flash, please?", and they responded "Don't."?
Cause I'm not really sure what you expected to be told. There's a difference between not going after fan games, and telling any random kid who asks that it's totally ok to do it.
They released Mario Odyssey DLC, which is another reason why they shouldn't allow fan DLC. It's confusing, and could misrepresent their product in a myriad of ways.
You don't get to dictate how Nintendo releases their own games. The entitlement in this sentence is real.
It's called Super Smash Bros. You may have heard of it.
Again, Nintendo not releasing a game in the timeframe or manner in which you like doesn't invalidate their property rights. This is a nonsense argument.
It can be confused for their own product, it could compete with their own product, it could harm their brand, and ignoring them could result in having less credibility when they wish to assert their rights later.
Put it like that it feels like the Bob Game guy who felt like he was entitled a publishing contract for some reason
Yeah, you are right. It just doesn't sit well with me a company as loved as Nintendo being so agressive with fan-made content.
Well, we're actually talking about TPC and people actually profiting off of their IP so the conversation changes but anyway. Just want to say I agree with you rationally but not emotionally lol
Once again, you're changing the argument. It doesn't have to benefit the release of Samus Returns, it can do that but it is not required. What is important, and what corporations use as their excuse against fangames is that it could somehow take away from the sales and/or image of their IP. And if you can find proof that AM2R's existence took away from Samus Returns' sales numbers, I'd like to see that. As it stands, I think Samus Returns received more coverage than it would have had AM2R not existed because tons of gaming websites ran articles comparing the two games, boosting awareness of MercurySteam's game, boosting awareness of AM2R, and boosting awareness of Metroid in general. Because AM2R provided another text for the Metroid series, it means that the brand got more screentime on gaming websites. How much did Federation Force do for the series, comparatively?
And read the chapter. if you can mindlessly repeat a company's talking points about why it's a company's right to use their IP, you can spare some time to read a well-reasoned counter-argument. It's not my duty to tell you what the chapter is about. I've read the book twice, I know what it's about. Here, I'll give you an excerpt from the cited chapter.
"So far, we have seen that corporate media increasingly recognizes the value, and the threat, posed by fan participation. Media producers and advertisers now speak about "emotional capital" or "lovemarks" to refer to the importance of audience investment and participation in media content. Storytellers now think about storytelling in terms of creating openings for consumer participation. At the same time, con-sumers are using new media technologies to engage with old media content, seeing the Internet as a vehicle for collective problem solving, public deliberation, and grassroots creativity. Indeed, we have sug-gested that it is the interplay—and tension—between the top-down force of corporate convergence and the bottom-up force of grassroots convergence that is driving many of the changes we are observing in the media landscape.
On all sides and at every level, the term "participation" has emerged as a governing concept, albeit one surrounded by conflicting expecta-tions. Corporations imagine participation as something they can start and stop, channel and reroute, commodify and market. The prohibi-tionists are trying to shut down unauthorized participation; the col-laborationists are trying to win grassroots creators over to their side. Consumers, on the other side, are asserting a right to participate in the culture, on their own terms, when and where they wish. This empow-ered consumer faces a series of struggles to preserve and broaden this perceived right to participate." (Jenkins 169)
On all sides and at every level, the term "participation" has emerged as a governing concept, albeit one surrounded by conflicting expecta-tions. Corporations imagine participation as something they can start and stop, channel and reroute, commodify and market. The prohibi-tionists are trying to shut down unauthorized participation; the col-laborationists are trying to win grassroots creators over to their side. Consumers, on the other side, are asserting a right to participate in the culture, on their own terms, when and where they wish. This empow-ered consumer faces a series of struggles to preserve and broaden this perceived right to participate." (Jenkins 169)
and
"Many adults worry that these kids are "copying" preexisting media content rather than creating their own original works. Instead, one should think about their appropriations as a kind of apprenticeship. Historically, young artists learned from established masters, sometimes contributing to the older artists' works, often following their patterns, before they developed their own styles and techniques. Our modern expectations about original expression are a difficult burden for anyone at the start of a career. In this same way, these young artists learn what they can from the stories and images that are most familiar to them. Building their first efforts upon existing cultural materials allows them to focus their energies elsewhere, mastering their craft, perfecting their skills, and communicating their ideas. Like many of the other young writers, Sweeney said that Rowling's books provided her the scaffold-ing she needed to focus on other aspects of the writing process: "It's easier to develop a good sense of plot and characterization and other literary techniques if your reader already knows something of the world where the story takes place." (Jenkins 184-185)
Yes, if the law of the land was the only thing that mattered, we wouldn't have had Sonic Mania. We wouldn't have had Street Fighter X Mega Man. Both are fan games that the companies decided to promote instead of shutting down. So there's clearly some discussion to be had. If you're gonna give me that "facts not feelings" ben shapiro bullshit at least don't ignore facts.
Lol at capcom and sega being nice with their fans, how you can say that X company is better that Y company with their fans, are capcom and sega fans more happy that nintendo fans? what is the metric? how much fan-made content is made? are there more fans of sega and capcom that nintendo.
I believe SEGA C&D'd the SoR Remake because the developers were taking monetary donations for the development on their website, which is a round-about way of profiting from the product... Which obviously crosses the line.
There are many, many other SEGA fangames out there, including SoR hacks and fan games.
They released a free update that added no new levels or playable characters, something fans did for free.
I never said I did. It's not unreasonable at all to complain about the way a company chooses to make their products available. Switch Online's service is bad and makes accessing decades of gaming history impossible without resorting to sometimes difficult dumping processes, owning old dying hardware, or piracy.
Smash Ultimate and Smash 4 are not the same as Project M. Project M was an attempt by the community to return Brawl to the fast past paced game play that was seen in competitive Melee. Nintendo has somewhat recognized this by making 4 and Ultimate faster than Brawl, but to call them an adequate replacement is ignorant at best.
I never said Nintendo didn't have rights to their own property. Demand for these products exists, and with digital distribution releasing them is cheaper than ever like we've seen multiple times in the past.
Nintendo can say on and on about how this could hurt them, but aside from a few examples they keep killing these projects and nothing comes to fill their void. Instead they use the legal system like a club to intimidate the community for nothing while companies like Valve, Bethesda, and the others listed in the OP embrace their fan's creations and use it for good PR, to enhance their games, and in some cases create entire new games. Nintendo doesn't do any of this and as far as I know doesn't even make any money doing it. Just because they have the right to shut all of this stuff down doesn't mean it's right and it the community nor the company gain anything by shutting down these efforts. Careers have been built thanks to people's modding experience. the AM2R dev got a job working with the people who made Ori, the devs of Counter Strike got their mod turned into an entire game franchise, and Valve let's some people sell Half Life fan games on Steam.
Im not ignoring the facts. Looks like you cant get those kind of projects from Nintendo unless they allow you to. They have decades of history indicating that unless its made legal, they won't be doing so. Its not bullshit just because you don't want to hear it, its the truth. Just because Sega is doing it doesn't mean Nintendo ever will unless their hand is forced. A good way to do that would be adding a little reason and common sense to the laws surrounding these things. Im not surprised you responded with such anger though. For whatever reason this completely reasonable and attainable goal of taking part in the political process to have influence on the laws we find unfair always seems to draw ire from people in these discussions. As if its too much work to do anything other that throw a few keystrokes at a forum said billion dollar companies don't care about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ indeed.
It's their property and they can do whatever they want. Agree or disagree with the utility of sending out cease and desists, there is a methodology to what they are doing and it's perfectly legal for them to exercise their rights to protect whats theirs.
Facts.
Fastest way to get it changed it to change the way the laws work. There's a lot of room for doing so if people cared to. Not sure why it gets such a nasty reaction.
"Holy shit, you've spent the best part of your life together and he dumped you via text?!"
Nintendo Fans: "HE'S WELL WITHIN HIS RIGHT!"
Not that we could get a grassroots movement ever going when people are trying to shoot it down so fast because reasons. Any time someone even tries to discuss these issues people flood in with "it's their right so oh well, conversation ended" or "well if you wanna do something about it why are you complaining on forums go do some REAL action" or something, which are generally tactics that people who want to nip discussion in the bud about something they disagree with but for some reason don't want to openly state their disagreement.
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