-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Pokémon Essentials fangame creation kit taken down by Nintendo
- Thread starter Atheerios
- Start date
"The tool is distributed for free, though it requires a version of RPG Maker that costs $24.99, which is cheaper than a modern Pokémon game."
The people who made it aren't selling it.
If they aren't selling it, then how are they violating Nintendo's ip? Does it break fair use?
You can't just say since they are using Nintendo's IP or else your avatar is violating the IP
yup. it's the same reason Japan's game bars are struggling under legal pressure. super bunnyhop did a great video about on YouTube
More surpised that they're going after essentials instead of the myriad of rom editing tools that were specifically made for Pokémon. Either wah, this is an end of an era. I wonder what's going to happen with Pokecommunity forums, that place has so many memories for me.
Hmm you may be convincing me. The difference may be it is way too possible that ordinary consumer will think this tile set is a real Nintendo release when it's not, as well as the fan game coming out of it, but no one will think I'm posting as a representative of Luigiboshi Gin franchise.
Fans lose and Nintendo/TPC doesn't gain anything from it.
Yup, sounds like something their legal department would do.
Yup, sounds like something their legal department would do.
People can argue the semantics of fair use all they like, it fundamentally comes down to Nintendo looking worse than other developers by maintaining this strict, Disney-like stranglehold on their IP
Sega has fully endorsed fan game creations for years, with Sonic the Hedgehog in particular having well over a decade's worth of fan-games, leading to some prominent members of the community getting hired by Sega itself.
Bethesda is a-ok with modding to the extent they worked with Microsoft to bring it to consoles. Again, prominent mod-makers have been hired by the company.
If a fan-game isn't a recreation of an existing property that Nintendo actively sells, and isn't being sold for profit, then Nintendo just comes across as out-of-touch when clamping down like this.
If anything, it just makes them look less confident in their own products if they think a fan game made by a bunch of teenagers is going to cannibalize the sales of their mass-marketed juggernaut. Ironically it also pushes some creators to pursue their own indie projects that avoid using the Nintendo IP, selling them for profit in a way that's much more likely to compete financially. I really hope the game that was once-Mother 4 is commercial and does extremely well for itself to prove how dumb these moves are.
Sega has fully endorsed fan game creations for years, with Sonic the Hedgehog in particular having well over a decade's worth of fan-games, leading to some prominent members of the community getting hired by Sega itself.
Bethesda is a-ok with modding to the extent they worked with Microsoft to bring it to consoles. Again, prominent mod-makers have been hired by the company.
If a fan-game isn't a recreation of an existing property that Nintendo actively sells, and isn't being sold for profit, then Nintendo just comes across as out-of-touch when clamping down like this.
If anything, it just makes them look less confident in their own products if they think a fan game made by a bunch of teenagers is going to cannibalize the sales of their mass-marketed juggernaut. Ironically it also pushes some creators to pursue their own indie projects that avoid using the Nintendo IP, selling them for profit in a way that's much more likely to compete financially. I really hope the game that was once-Mother 4 is commercial and does extremely well for itself to prove how dumb these moves are.
People are making a big deal about this. Nintendo has every right to take down any fan game that uses their IP and assets. They're not being the bad guy or anything. They're simply protecting their IP and the value of it.
This a good point, I can't really make an argument for Pokémon essientials since every info about it seems to be gone but on the fangames I find it hard to believe. I searched each one in the op and the first couple of links said they were fangames/not asscoiated with Nintendo. I think it would be up to Nintendo to prove it(if it ever got to court).
Same thing happens, same ass garbage arguments as ever. It's stupid to even engage in those discussions which won't change anything.
This, people think they're entitled to do whatever they want with other people's IP as long as money isn't involved. Which is just absurd
That's not how IP laws work on America. Ip fair usage is decided on a case by case basis, which includes fan works.
It's up to Nintendo to argue why and for the fan works to argue too. But it's unlikely that one person could compete with a billion dollar company which is why it's never taken to court. We can make the arugments ourselves though.
So what are your feelings on fanart, fanfiction, fan games, or any sort of fan created work?
Never forget Blizzards attempt to get people to stop making Overwatch r34
Some creator are really iffy about fanarts and fanfic too.
If they're not selling or making any money from it, I don't see a single thing wrong with this.
This is just making Nintendo look bad.
This is just making Nintendo look bad.
Yea I believe this happened with that Halo project right? Microsoft legally had to pursue action or else they're at risk of losing trademarks/etc.
Of course those guys also hacked servers and stole game files but a lot of the community never brought that up.
Except for some people in the internet, no one cares for fangames being taken down. It's not like what Nintendo does actually change something for them regarding sales.
And Sonic Mania is made by a indie developer and produced/published by Sega. Way different than a fangame so it's not a good example.
Yeah, there's that too. Unlike copyright, trademark actually have this.
Show me the law/legislation that states this. This always gets brought up but it makes no sense when you think about. How can companies show fan art without losing their trademark.
I'm sure it's grounded in something but I believe it's heavily misrepresented.
Didn't the Sonic Mania team start as people doing fan games that were eventually hired by SEGA? I'm pretty sure that's what there referring too.
I'm perfectly fine with it, just as I am perfectly fine with fan games. I have no problem with people making fan games personally but people should realize that it comes with a risk of the IP owner shutting it down.
Also there's a difference between fanart and fan games, where a piece of artwork or a story is not the same product as a videogame. Fan games are products that compete directly against official works whether or not that is the intent because Nintendo is in the business of making games.
I would expect that Marvel/Disney would be unhappy if fans started making and distributing fan made Avengers comics because that would be directly competing with their business.
You're confusing trademark with copyright, and no, you don't "lose" copyright ownership if you don't defend it: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/sto...ism/your-copyrights-online/3-copyright-myths/
Fan games using official tile sets and code seems different from fan art which is just a character drawn in their own style.
Selling printouts of licensed artwork might get you in trouble, I dont know.
Selling printouts of licensed artwork might get you in trouble, I dont know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution
Fanart and fanfiction is in a very complicated legal grey area, but it's generally agreed that companies don't pursue them because they're "transformative," i.e. they take the existing IP and put a spin on it. My drawing of Pikachu is going to be different than the official artwork of Pikachu; as long as I'm not selling it, Nintendo probably won't care. But something like Pokemon Essentials and various Pokemon fangames are using actual assets ripped straight from the official Pokemon games, actual trademarked Pokemon sprites, characters, locations, and other IP, and putting them into a role-playing game that closely resembles the actual licensed Pokemon games. It's easy to argue in court that these games would directly compete with and dilute the official Pokemon brand.
No, Chris Whitehead was the one who did that but when Sonic Mania existed he was already a independent programmer and worked in ports of Sonic.
You're the one confused. Your very link states that Trademark needs to be defended which is what she said.
And trademark has to do with logos and symbols. Like how AM2R didn't actually say Metroid in the title. That's not a trademark violation.
No court in the planet would say that am2r isn't a metroid fan game.
Of course. Because it's a COPYRIGHT violation, not a trademark one.
And since companies don't lose copyrights because they don't take fan games down, doing just that seems ultimately petty.
That's not what generic trademarking is. Generic trademarking would be, based off your own sources, that Pokémon be shorthand for any video game with animals to the point that Pokémon has lost all meaning. Which isn't true of this example as this a transformative work. Nor would fighting transformative works stop genericifcation, it would be to stop encouraging people to stop calling all animal collecting games Pokémon.
This is what you are looking for
Wikipedia trademark. Maintaining rights.
Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally 5 years in most jurisdictions. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal from the register after a certain period of time on the grounds of "non-use".
It is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential.
Same because then they can own their own ip and make money.
You know, let them stand on their own merits rather than using the Mother brand name.
Freedom Planet is a good example:
More:
It bothers me that this makes it sound like the main thing about this kit was the assets that came with it. Tilesets, music and sprites are not a big thing to lose, those things exist a million times on the web and can always be recollected, even if it's a little inconvenient. The true loss of this kit is the Pokémon catching, training and battling system that was implemented, the one thing most people would have struggled with to get up and running in any decent form at all. Those crucial gameplay mechanics are essential for a PKMN fangame and the hardest to achieve and while I get that Nintendo and TPC want to protect their work and the mechanics they invented for their games, they are also destroying literally dozens or hundreds of manhours of work that went into this project in order to mimic them. To even take down the wiki, documentation and such seems very excessive and makes me wonder if they will eventually go after other wikis that detail how the battle mechanics and calculations in PKMN games work. I think this is kinda worrying, especially for the competetive scene.
I wonder when their legal teams are going to catch on to the decompilations of actual entire games that are currently hosted on public repositories for everyone to see.
Taking down a wiki which I presume had links, guides, updates, tutorials and whatnot seems exactly like something they should be able to take down if their rights are violated.