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Pokémon Essentials fangame creation kit taken down by Nintendo

Atheerios

Atheerios

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Oct 27, 2017
7,095
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Nintendo of America has taken down Pokémon Essentials, a Pokémon fangame creation kit, including its wiki and official download links.

Explanation of what Pokémon Essentials was via Kotaku:
A crucial revolution for the popularity of Pokémon fan games came with the 2007 creation of Pokémon Essentials, a RPG Maker XP game that allows people to create new adventures with ease.

Pokémon Essentials provides full tilesets, maps, music, and sprites that players can drag and drop onto a canvas. All the classic mechanics necessary to collect and battle Pokémon come packed-in, too. While the tool has a learning curve, for the most part, fans are able to focus more on the plot of their games. Accordingly, some cool recent projects I've spotted include narrative concepts like telling battle stories around a camp fire, and staging an attack against the notorious Silph Co. corporation.

"I cannot emphasize this enough: without Pokémon Essentials, it would have been impossible to make Pokémon Uranium, or almost any of the other Pokémon fan games that are out there," said Voluntary Twitch, the creative director behind Pokémon Uranium, a shuttered fan game that was reportedly downloaded over a million times.
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Pokémon Essentials was widely used by fangame developers and thanks to it projects like Pokémon Uranium, Phoenix Rising, Ethereal Gates and Pokémon Sage exist. This will definetly have a big impact on Pokémon fangames moving forward.

Edit: Ars Technica article about the takedown:

Fans of the tool congregated around the PokeCommunity forums and a dedicated Pokémon Essentials wiki to download files, share creations, and discuss the scene. Earlier this week, however, PokéCommunity forum moderator Marin announced that "the Pokémon Essentials wikia and all downloads for it have been taken down due to a copyright claim by Nintendo of America." That means "we will not allow Pokémon Essentials or any of its assets to be hosted or distributed on PokéCommunity," the announcement reads. "We sincerely apologise that we have to do this, but there is no going around it."

A representative for Fandom, the company that hosts the wiki, confirmed to the Verge that it had "received a DMCA notice on behalf of Nintendo notifying us of content that was in violation of its copyright holdings. After carefully assessing the violations in regards to the Pokémon Essentials wiki, we came to a decision to take it down."
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https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/nintendo-shuts-down-tool-used-to-build-pokemon-fan-games/
 
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Becks'

Becks'

Member
Dec 7, 2017
7,398
Canada
It had a Pokemon name and used Pokemon assets. Still fuck you, Nintendo. I like your games but the way you treat your fangame devs is bullshit. They act like fangame devs are going to ruin their brands.
 
Hydrus

Hydrus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,298
I get Nintendo wants to protect their properties, but holy shit, this isn't hurting anyone, especially them. These assets are over 14 years old for fucks sake.
 
TreeMePls

TreeMePls

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,258
What's stopping others from just re-uploading this on file sharing sites since its been out in the wild for a long time?
 
Kiddo Cabbusses

Kiddo Cabbusses

Member
Nov 3, 2017
376
BS-X
Since 2007? Using RPG Maker XP?

Nintendo is slow as mollasses here, the tech is already way obsolete and anyone who had wanted to use it has probably had it for years. NoA lawyers having a slow work day much?
 
steviestar3

steviestar3

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jul 3, 2018
4,427
I really hope they don't fuck with the battle simulators. Pokemon Showdown is way more fun than the actual games.
 
MegaManTrigger

MegaManTrigger

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,734
Enter the Dragon Punch said:
yes, that big terrifying 11 year old rpg maker xp toolkit was really at risk of compromising their brand
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Not sure why bringing up the fact that it's 11 years old is any relevant. The article clearly mentions that the toolkit was used to develop games like Pokemon Uranium, which ended up getting released in 2016.

So Nintendo probably sees the fact that it exists as a potential problem in terms of being responsible for fangames being brought into existence. And then there are other problems like asset rips.

steviestar3 said:
I really hope they don't fuck with the battle simulators. Pokemon Showdown is way more fun than the actual games.
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Good chance it'll happen too as that site is using the 3D Models and BW sprites.
 
Lyon N. Laap

Lyon N. Laap

Member
Oct 27, 2017
364
Please stay the hell away from Showdown. I'm not active as much nowadays but it's absolutely the best way for some good singles format action.
 
RoyLee

RoyLee

Member
Aug 19, 2018
387
I understand both sides of the argument. I get that Nintendo doesn't like it when people mess with something that they have probably put countless hours into. I also get the fact that they just don't appreciate what others want to do with their products, and as far as I know, they weren't breaking any laws... so shame on you Nintendo.
 
E.T.

E.T.

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Oct 25, 2017
4,035
Nintendo are scum. Over charging on old software, killing software preservation websites.
 
Flame Flamey

Flame Flamey

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Feb 8, 2018
4,624
Man, I'm playing a Fire Emblem fangame right now, and I'm wondering why Nintendo has never tried to shut any of that scene down. Fire Emblem's much less popular, but still, I wonder if they'll ever get to it.
 
lovecatt

lovecatt

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Nov 12, 2017
2,427
Thales Targaryen said:
I mean, you could say that... But you could also look at Sega and see how they've embraced creative fans. Then Nintendo just comes off as a bully.
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I doubt Sega would have been as friendly if the Sonic franchise wasn't at a steep decline (sry Sonic not a personal dig) before Mania came along. They could have used all the help they could get.
 
Rikucrafter

Rikucrafter

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 28, 2017
900
Australia
I've not used Pokemon Essentials in a long time. I must have been in early high school the last time I dabbled in it and that was probably 2012-2014. But man, this project birthed a big part of who I am (and my love for the greater design aspects of media). Sad to see it go, even if it's not something I use anymore.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

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Nov 11, 2017
4,913
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Nintendo wouldn't go to such lengths to shut down such a minuscule project, unless they were creating something similar of their own, like AM2R and Metroid: Samus Returns...

Does this mean Pokemon Maker for the Switch is happening?!?!
 

Deleted member 5127

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,584
lovecatt said:
I doubt Sega would have been as friendly if the Sonic franchise wasn't at a steep decline (sry Sonic not a personal dig) before Mania came along. They could have used all the help they could get.
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The point is it would benefit us all. Creative fans have a lot of passion and a lot of work out there has shown that they can handle the work, put some budget into it and you get something amazing like Sonic Mania.

Imagine a new 2D Mario game with lovely sprites and passionate level design/new concepts instead of that tired NSMB series. Imagine a 2D Metroid for the eshop.

Things like that would only benefit us fans.
 
Risq

Risq

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account.
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
479
Brand protection and maybe a little scared these fan games will show how easy it is to do something innovative with the franchise instead of water it down over decades of stagnation.
 
massoluk

massoluk

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Oct 25, 2017
6,573
Thailand
Guys, are we seriously debating if Nintendo should let someone sell something this product blatantly violating their IP? This isn't even about preservation and what not.
 
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