Nintendo Opens Up New Front In War On Fans: ROM Mods
from the nintendo-hates-you dept
Let it never be forgotten that Nintendo hates you, Nintendo fans. The gaming giant has a long and decorated history both of anti-consumer practices, such as attempting to poison the roster of YouTuber game reviewers, bricking consoles if gamers don't agree to its post-release EULA updates, and attacking some of its biggest and most creative fans by issuing takedowns and threats for fan-made game levels, fan-made games that have barely anything to do with its IP, and shutting down fan-made remakes of games that are decades old.
Yet Nintendo has been notably lenient in some areas in enforcing its intellectual property as well. The most prominent of these would be what's referred to as "ROM hacks", in which the original Nintendo ROMs are modded to include new and original content. These ROM hacks abound and are readily available, requiring the original game (or a pirated version) in order to be used. Now, for the first time reported, one of these ROM hacks has fallen into the sights of Nintendo's lawyers.
A fan-made Pokémon ROM hack in the works for eight years was set to launch this Sunday. But a letter sent by Nintendo's Australian law firm on Wednesday has stopped those plans in their tracks. According to Adam "Koolboyman" Vierra, developer of the fan-made Pokémon Prism project, Nintendo's Australian law firm sent him a cease-and-desist letter, which he uploaded to Google Drive with identifying information redacted. (American representatives for Nintendo were not able to confirm the letter's authenticity as of press time.) The request alleges that Koolboyman's project, which alters the source ROM of the 1999 game Pokémon Gold to create an entirely new adventure, violates multiple Australian laws.
The location of all of this requires some explanation. Vierra lives in California and Nintendo's legal team is based out of the United States, but Vierra had been planning on releasing the game via Rijon.com, which is based in Australia. It was Nintendo's Australian legal team that sent the threat letter. That team has previously taken action against downloaders of pirated Nintendo games, but not on creative fans producing these kinds of ROM hacks. As noted before, the company worldwide has generally allowed these add-on mods to exist. Not so much in this case, for reasons not currently being offered by Nintendo.
But let's all not lose sight that this is a mod on a game nearly two decades old created by a fan to incorporate brand new gameplay and story elements into the existing game and engine, and was going to be offered free of charge. It's CounterStrike, in other words, except using a Nintendo product. And there are entire sites and fan-groups built around these sorts of mods. They're a boon to gaming companies by extending the life of the demand for a game for free, as fans take on the work of adding on to it in a way that still requires the original in order to play it at all.
And this isn't even Vierra's first go at this sort of thing.
Vierra himself might have assumed Nintendo would allow a Pokémon ROM hack, because his last one, Pokémon Brown, launched in 2004 with nothing in the way of dispute from Nintendo. That hack's new "Rijon" region would have been hugely expanded upon in Pokémon Prism. It would have contained other tweaks, such as Brown's special monster types (wood, gas, wind, abnormal, and sound), a tweak to the game's "clock" system, and new music compositions. (Other Pokémon ROM hack depositories are easy to find online.)
One could say that this all reeks of a legal team in a foreign country not being on the same page as the HQ back home. Except that it can also be said that expanding IP enforcement to this new front is perfectly in line with Nintendo's general heavy-handed approach to protectionism. Because Nintendo can't help itself. Because Nintendo hates you.
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Filed Under: adam vierra, australia, fans, koolboyman, mods, rom hacks
Companies: nintendo
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So what?
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Copyright Reform
If this sort of activity were legal, it would spawn an entire industry or developers, and distribution network, and who know what else!
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Re: Copyright Reform
Even if you want (& can afford) to pay to license the content, if the Author says NO, it's a NO.
This is what is really locking up culture. Again, copyright law, in its current form is antiquated. And the only updates have been a few amendments and exceptions (i.e. to deal with streaming).
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Re: Re: Copyright Reform
Or the author's children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or some third party who inherited it or bought it or is in temporary control of licensing, or somebody lying about owning the copyright in a frivolous DMCA takedown notice.
Also, sometimes the author is a corporation and not the human being(s) who actually authored the thing.
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Re:
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well
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Re: well
...or maybe not, just that someone has the upper hand for something that should be a nothingburger, but is made an issue by a ruthless transnational korporation who has all the rights, and you have NONE, you scummy citizen...
so, yeah, nintendo hates us all...
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Re: well
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the number of people who thought "Well, I would have bought the newest official pokemon game, but the pokemon I want is in the unofficial game so I guess I'll save my money" is likely a very small group, so even in that case I'm not seeing much damage from the rom.
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Doing
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dumped nintendo long ago
It's like walking down every dark alley you see but expecting to never get mugged!
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Re: dumped nintendo long ago
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Re: Re: dumped nintendo long ago
I can understand if a rom hack is a direct rip off of a game then there is no imagination on the part of the designer of that homebrew game.
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Re: dumped nintendo long ago
Oh Government please protect us from our stupid mistakes!
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The Switch will be, by all accounts, woefully under-powered. Apparently it will have a TegraX1 (a DOWNCLOCKED Tegra X1) after all.
From this article:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nintendo-switch-spec-analysis
Had this been a successor to the 3DS it would've been amazing. But this is also supposed to be Big N's home console? Blech...
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Create new open source games
2. Create against Nintendo icons, logos, banners and share them everywhere
3. Create new open source game call BINARY MON
• start with 128 monsters (tech dirt readers can help create them)
• 4 stage metamorphosis for each monster
• can play on personal computers, mobile device, watch
• can add custom monsters and trade them with other people
• cool characters like Tux or Big Buck Bunny, Sintel for trainers
4. Create new open game call SUPER MARIA SISTERS
• Two main character Maria and Mariana (from Mexicó)
• Live in Lotus Kingdom (think medieval East Asia), with lotus people
• Use spiral portals instead pipes
• Save prince from evil Shogun
• Enemy nunchaku warriors, ninjas, lizards, frogs, etc.
• Main characters kick, punch, jump, slide, and stomp attack
• Lotus power ups
Question, why have the Nintendo advertisement from Amazon with this news story for 8-Bit Entertaiment system?
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Re: Create new open source games
Look at Yokai Watch (closest thing to a Pokemon game): it's popular but not nearly as popular as Pokemon.
Not to mention the countless other clones that none ever bothered to even try.
As for point 4 that would be copyright infringement. IIRC someone already made this some years back.
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Re: Re: Create new open source games
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Re: Re: Create new open source games
As for point 4 that would be copyright infringement.
No. Otherwise "Avatar" would infringe upon "Pocahontas".
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Re: Re: Re: Create new open source games
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Nothing I've seen suggests it was KBM who did it.
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