Nintendo Killed Emulation Sites Then Released Garbage N64 Games For The Switch

from the Nintendon't dept

So, here's the thing: I get accused of picking on Nintendo a whole lot. But please know, it's not that I want to pick on them, it's just that they make it so damned easy to. I'm a golfer, okay? If I have a club in my hand and suddenly a ball on a tee appears before me, I'm going to hit that ball every time without hesitation. You will recall that a couple of years back, Nintendo opened up a new front on its constant IP wars by going after ROM and emulation sites. That caused plenty of sites to simply shut themselves down, but Nintendo also made a point of getting some scalps to hang on its belt, most famously in the form of RomUniverse. That site, which very clearly had infringing material not only on the site but promoted by the site's ownership, got slapped around in the courts to the tune of a huge judgement against, which the site owners simply cannot pay.

But all of those are details and don't answer the real question: why did Nintendo do this? Well, as many expected from the beginning, it did this because the company was planning to release a series of classic consoles, namely the NES mini and SNES mini. But, of course, what about later consoles? Such as the Nintendo 64?

Well, the answer to that is that Nintendo has offered a Nintendo Switch Online service uplift that includes some N64 games that you can play there instead.

After years of "N64 mini" rumors (which have yet to come to fruition), Nintendo announced plans to honor its first fully 3D gaming system late last month in the form of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Pay a bit extra, the company said, and you'd get a select library of N64 classics, emulated by the company that made them, on Switch consoles as part of an active NSO subscription.

One month later, however, Nintendo's sales proposition grew more sour. That "bit extra" ballooned to $30 more per year, on top of the existing $20/year fee—a 150 percent jump in annual price. Never mind that the price also included an Animal Crossing expansion pack (which retro gaming fans may not want) and Sega Genesis games (which have been mostly released ad nauseam on every gaming system of the past decade). For many interested fans, that price jump was about the N64 collection.

So, a bit of a big price tag and a bunch of extras that are mostly besides the point from the perspective of the buyer. Buy, hey, at least Nintendo fans will finally get some N64 games to play on their Switch consoles, right?

Well, it turns out that Nintendo's offering cannot come close to matching the quality of the very emulators and ROMs that Nintendo has worked so hard to disappear. The Ars Technica post linked above goes into excruciating details, some of which we'll discuss for the purpose of giving examples, but here are the categories that Nintendo's product does worse than an emulator on a PC.

• Game options, such as visual settings for resolution to fit modern screens
• Visuals, such as N64's famous blur settings, and visual changes that expose outdated graphical sprites
• Controller input lag
• Controller configuration options
• Multiplayer lag/stutter

If that seems like a lot of problems compared with emulators that have been around for quite a while, well, ding ding ding! We'll get into some examples briefly below, but I'll stipulate that none of the issues in the categories above are incredibly bad. But there are so many of them that they all add up to bad!

Let's take the problems around how N64's blur is used, or not used in this case.

This issue rears its head much more often in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which avid speedrunner ZFG1 detailed at length in a seven-hour stream shortly after the NSO Expansion Pack went live. The pack's issues with inaccurate blur become immediately evident in that classic game's opening zone of Kakariko Village. In that zone, the looming Deku Tree normally hides in a massive field of fog above hero Link's head. In the current NSO version, on the other hand, the blur is absent, revealing an unseemly low-resolution sprite. Worse, Nintendo originally used selective fog placement as a way to guide players' attention towards points of interest in the village, yet these fogs have now been erased.

Anyone who's looked into the NSO Expansion Pack's launch has almost certainly seen ZFG1's most glaring discovery, as well: the game's Water Temple battle against a "shadow" version of Link, which takes place in a foggy, open-air zone surrounded by reflective water. On Switch, this room pares back the fog effect almost entirely. Worse, it fails to properly cast reflections on the water's surface, which changes the aesthetic tone of the subsequent, harrowing battle.

This sort of thing breaks immersion and the overall feel and flow of a game. And the Legend of Zelda example is not isolated.

As to the way controls are handled, well...

In Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64, constant C-button access is imperative for proper control in ways that don't suit removing your fingers from the primary A and B action buttons. Yet instead of making those crucial C buttons available at all times, Nintendo bolts only two of them on the ABXY array. Players are then required to use an awkward shortcut system to access those buttons: hold the "ZR" button, which temporarily "shifts" the ABXY array to become the four C-button directions.

If this all strikes you as minor details not worth being upset over, I have two responses. First, you are probably not a huge fan of these classic Nintendo titles and systems, because these "minor" things represent a massive break from the experience you have in your head playing these games. Given that the sales pitch for this NSO uplift is all about nostalgia, that freaking matters!

And second, fans of these titles had a better product to give them what they wanted: the emulation sites Nintendo shut down. Granted, getting ROMs from those sites without owning the original certainly was/is infringing activity... but if Nintendo was going to slay the piracy dragon in favor of its own offering, that offering should at least be on par with the emulators, no?

Because in the end, here's the reality: Nintendo worked hard to prevent fans of antiquated games and systems from enjoying those games in order to get them to buy an inferior product. Love Nintendo, hate Nintendo, that's the stark reality. And it's a shitty look for a company.

Filed Under: emulation, n64, nintendo switch, retro games, video games
Companies: nintendo

Nintendo Shuts Down Another 'Smash' Tournament Due To Mod Use, With No Piracy As A Concern

from the nintendon't dept

Late last year, we discussed a predictably odd move by Nintendo to shut down a Smash Bros. tournament called The Big House over its use of a mod called "slippi." Slippi essentially unbreaks the 20 year old game when it comes to competitive online play. Otherwise, the whole thing basically doesn't work from a online play perspective. And, with all kinds of events going virtual, The Big House attempted to run its tournament virtually, meaning that participants would have to use a digitized version of the game they owned, along with the mod, in order to participate. After it nixed the tourney, Nintendo put out the following statement:

Unfortunately, the upcoming Big House tournament announced plans to host an online tournament for Super Smash Bros. Melee that requires use of illegally copied versions of the game in conjunction with a mod called ‘Slippi’ during their online event. Nintendo therefore contacted the tournament organizers to ask them to stop. They refused, leaving Nintendo no choice but to step in to protect its intellectual property and brands. Nintendo cannot condone or allow piracy of its intellectual property.

Many of us rolled our eyes at the statement. After all, digitizing your own owned game in order to participate in the tournament is not "piracy." The game was bought and paid for by participants. The use of slippi doesn't really factor into the equation and, yet, its use seemed to be the deciding factor in the shut down. In other words, the target seemed to be the mod and not piracy.

Well, that appears to be confirmed now that Nintendo has shut down a tournament called "Riptide", hosted at a waterpark in Ohio in-person, due to its use of a mod called "Project+".

The inaugural Riptide Smash Bros. event was supposed to happen last year but was postponed due to the pandemic. But 2021 has introduced another hitch. The three-day fighting game extravaganza at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio will now no longer feature Project+, a variant of the popular Project M mod for Smash Bros. Brawl that makes the 2008 Wii game fit for high-level competitive play.

“Riptide was contacted recently by a Nintendo of America, Inc. representative regarding our Project+ events,” the event’s organizers wrote on Twitter last Friday. “As a result of that conversation, there will be no Project+ tournaments or setups at Riptide.”

Note that the event was scheduled to go off on September 10th. Participants are getting refunds for their entry fees, given the last minute cancellation, but not for any money spent on transportation or accommodations needed to attend the event. Flights, hotels, etc. are all going unrefunded. And, understandably, people are pissed.

“Super cool of @NintendoAmerica to cancel an event that’s been planned for months just 2 weeks before it happens!” wrote Melee pro JoSniffy on Twitter. “It’s so considerate to all of the people that bought plane tickets and hotels months ago, which are now useless. Keep up the great work Nintendo!”

Notably, there are zero piracy concerns at play here. The event and mod require disc copies of the game to play. The entire competition was to be conducted in-person, with no online play. Nintendo has made no public statement at the time of this writing as to why the tourney was cancelled, leaving it completely open to confusion and speculation.

“This is unforgivable at this point,” wrote past Melee champion Hungrybox on Twitter. “There’s no legitimate reason for @Nintendo to do this that doesn’t include a complete disconnect with the current culture of their consumers. Insanity.”

And so the rest of the Riptide event will go on as scheduled, but this one tournament is shut down, leaving participants that paid for accommodations in the lurch. Why?

Control, obviously. With no piracy to be concerned about, all we're left with is the use of the Project+ mod. Nintendo quite famously hates modding communities and takes every opportunity to retain strict control over how its games are played. Why it wants to go to war with its own fans and customers in this way, meanwhile, has been an open question for years.

Filed Under: mods, smash bros, tournament, video games
Companies: nintendo

Court Orders Injunction Against RomUniverse To Permanently Shut Down, Destroy Nintendo ROMs

from the the-end dept

What a ride for RomUniverse and its owner, Matthew Storman. By way of background, 2019 saw Nintendo start an all out assault on ROM sites, websites where users could download ROMs of old Nintendo games to play on emulators. When the company set its eyes on RomUniverse, Storman attempted to crowdfund a legal defense, which failed, only to represent himself in court and make a lame argument that somehow first sale doctrine allowed him to commit mass copyright infringement. When that all failed miserably and RomUniverse lost in court, Storman was ordered to pay $2.1 million in damages in monthly $50 installments. He failed to make even those payments.

And so now this all comes to an unceremonious end, with Nintendo asking the court for a permanent injunction on RomUniverse and that injunction being granted.

A California court has ordered RomUniverse owner Matthew Storman to keep the website permanently offline and to destroy all illegal Nintendo ROMs.

As reported by TorrentFreak, he has until August 17 to comply with the order. The publisher had filed a request for a permanent injunction in May to keep the website offline, but the court at the time denied it. Nintendo however asked that the decision be reconsidered in June as Storman didn't specifically dispute that the website would be revived.

To be clear, everyone in this story is somewhere on the spectrum of dumb. Storman's defenses were laughable and the fight he attempted to put up in court pitiful. When Nintendo specifically brought evidence that Storman had been directly involved in some of the infringing content either appearing on his site, or with him pushing rewards for uploaders to induce them, his argument of first sale doctrine was incredibly weak.

Nintendo, for its part, has buried what mostly amounts to a current non-threat. Nintendo's sales of older consoles and older games, including on new consoles, has been wildly successful. It buried this site not because it acted as some major threat to Nintendo, but rather because it could. That is very much the Nintendo way, as is the total lack of acknowledgement as to how ROM sites like this, whatever you might want to say about their legality, certainly served for decades to keep interest in classic Nintendo games alive.

But instead, Nintendo has gone through this entire process, spending whatever money it had to and cannot extract from Storman, just so RomUniverse is no longer online. If that's how the company wants to spend its money, mission accomplished, I suppose.

Filed Under: classic video games, copyright, matthew storman, permanent injunction, rom sites, roms, video games
Companies: nintendo, romuniverse

Japanese Police Arrest Man For Selling Modded Save Files For Single-Player Nintendo Game

from the what-the-what? dept

We've already written a few times about how Japan's onerous Unfair Competition Prevention Law has created what looks from here like a massive overreach on the criminalization of copyright laws. Past examples include Japanese journalism executives being arrested over a book that tells people how to back up their own DVDs, along with more high-profile cases in which arrests occurred over the selling of cheats or exploits in online multiplayer video games. While these too seem like an overreach of copyright law, or at least an over-criminalization of relatively minor business problems facing electronic media companies, they are nothing compared with the idea that a person could be arrested and face jail time for the crime of selling modded save-game files for single player game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

A 27-year old man in Japan was arrested after he was caught attempting to sell modified Zelda: Breath of The Wild save files.

As reported by the Broadcasting System of Niigata (and spotted by Dextro) Ichimin Sho was arrested on July 8 after he posted about modified save files for the Nintendo Switch version of Breath of The Wild. He posted his services onto an unspecified auction site, describing it as “the strongest software.” He would provide modded save files that would give the player improved in-game abilities and also items that were difficult to obtain were made available as requested by the customer. In his original listing, he reportedly was charging folks 3,500 yen (around $31 USD) for his service.

Upon arrest, Sho admitted that he's made something like $90k over 18 months selling modded saves and software. Whatever his other ventures, the fact remains that Sho was arrested for selling modded saves for this one Zelda game to the public. And this game is fully a single-player game. In other words, there is not aspect of this arrest that involved staving off cheating in online multiplayer games, which is one of the concerns that has typically led to these arrests in Japan within the gaming industry. This is more like people getting mods for their owned games, along with save game files being traded, something that has existed in gaming for as long as the industry has existed.

As Kotaku notes, this isn't wholly new for Japan.

While this might seem wild, being arrested for selling save files, it’s not a new situation in Japan. Police in Japan have previously arrested folks for modifying video game software which violates the Unfair Competition Prevention Law in Japan. This same law was also used by Nintendo to sue a go-kart company in 2017. In 2015, another man in Japan was arrested after selling cheats in the popular online shooter Alliance of Valiant Arms.

Except, again, in most of those instances the police were arresting those selling mods and cheats for online multiplayer games. That's, frankly, bad enough, but we're now talking about the arrest of a person for selling save game files for a single-player game.

And the real question becomes: who is this arrest protecting? The selling of these files doesn't take any considerable money out of Nintendo's pocket. It doesn't harm other players of the game in the way cheating in online games does. So why is this arrest even happening? And, if there's no good answer to that question, why is such a poorly written law that allows for this arrest remaining in place?

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, japan, mods, save files, zelda
Companies: nintendo

After All That, Nintendo Can't Even Get $50 A Month Out Of RomUniverse

from the time-and-money-well-spent dept

The saga of how RomUniverse, a site dedicated to offering ROMs for classic Nintendo games, came to its end is both frustrating and very dumb. Back in 2019, Nintendo launched a massive war on ROM sites, coinciding with the release of a mini version of Nintendo's NES console. Eventually, the company's sights turned to RomUniverse. Run solely by Matthew Storman, the site first tried and failed to crowdfund its legal expenses, made the lame argument that somehow the first sale doctrine meant that Storman could legally offer up digital versions of bought Nintendo games, only to see Storman represent himself in court and eventually lose. While Nintendo always had the law on its side, it was also true that sites like RomUniverse existed for a long, long time and Nintendo wasn't injured enough by any of this for it to be on the radar prior to the ROM War of 2019. In fact, I would argue that ROM sites for a long, long time kept up the interest in these classic games that created a market for Nintendo's classic console releases.

I would also argue that the whole thing was a giant waste of time and money, an assertion backed up by the fact that the victorious Nintendo reportedly can't even get $50 a month out of Storman, despite court orders.

You can’t get blood from a stone, and you can’t squeeze a relatively measly $50 payment out of a guy whose primary source of income was the video game rom site you sued into oblivion. Earlier this year Nintendo’s 2019 lawsuit against website RomUniverse concluded with the site being shut down and Nintendo awarded $2.1 million dollars in damages. That’s $35,000 for each of the 49 Nintendo games found on the site plus $400,000 in trademark damages. The chances of Matthew Storman, who defended himself in court and whose only source of income was the now-defunct rom site, being able to pay those damages are incredibly slim. In a recent court filing obtained by Torrentfreak, Nintendo complains that Storman hasn’t made his court mandated monthly payment of $50.

As a result, Nintendo is seeking a permanent injunction against Storman to keep him from ever re-launching RomUniverse. That, frankly, may be what the company was after this entire time.

But that doesn't make the futility of this whole legal enterprise any more sensical. Nintendo managed to legally pummel a single man who was, admittedly, infringing their copyrights. But one is free to wonder aloud if this legal route was really the only method Nintendo had for getting the site shut down. If Storman truly cannot manage a $50/month sanctions payment to Nintendo, there is no hope of them recovering the $2.1 million awarded in court, an amount that Storman also appears by all accounts to be unable to pay.

And so Nintendo has a legal victory without any monetary award, Storman's own actions have resulted in his fiscal life likely being in shambles, and we all go on our merry way. Again, this is really how this had to happen?

Filed Under: classic video games, copyright, matthew storman, nes, old video games, roms, trademark, video games
Companies: nintendo, romuniverse

Sony Hates You: EarthBound Let's Plays Flagged For Copyright Infringement Due To Soundtrack

from the six-degrees-of-infringement dept

It's no secret that I don't care for the way that Nintendo treats its biggest fans when it comes to allowing them to view and use its IP in order to express their fandom. I have been known, after all, to create entire genres of posts with "Nintendo Hates You" in the title. And, so, when I noticed headlines about how YouTube videos for let's-plays featuring the classic SNES game Earthbound were being demonitized or taken down over copyright claims, I was sure I would be writing yet another of those headlines.

But, nope. Instead, this is a story about how Sony has issued copyright claims, and apparently rebutted counterclaims, against let's-plays for Earthbound not because it published the game, which it very much did not, but because Nintendo licensed the soundtrack for the game to Sony for an album release.

Over the past couple of weeks, reports have come flooding in from YouTube users who say that their EarthBound-based videos are being flagged for copyright by Sony. In some cases, it's reported that Sony has claimed the ad revenue for the video in question; in others, the videos appear to have been removed entirely.

As is often the case with YouTube, the reasoning for this lies with the game's music. While Nintendo still owns the EarthBound/Mother brand in terms of its video games and the franchise as a whole, the game's soundtrack was released as a studio album back in 1989 under Sony's then-named CBS/Sony music label, essentially meaning that any piece of music featured on that record can be claimed by the company.

Okay, if you really needed a more perfect example of how broken copyright laws have become in the modern era, this must certainly be that case. Nintendo releases a game called Earthbound in 1994. Nintendo composers created the music for the game. In 1994, and again in 2004, Sony licenses the music to release a studio album soundtrack. Fast forward nearly twenty years and suddenly people releasing videos of them playing the game that was created by Nintendo nearly thirty years ago are having those videos demonitized or taken down... over the album release. If you can seriously get through that and think that any of this makes sense, you have capacities that I simply do not.

Plenty of YouTube users have taken to social media to express their upset at Sony's decision to remove their content, hoping to find a way to restore their work. The videos will no doubt be getting flagged automatically, what with the soundtrack being part of Sony's catalogue, so unless Sony decides to manually excuse the affected videos going forward, it may be unwise to include music from the game in any future content.

Notably, some of these YouTubers are also indicating that they disputed the notices only to have Sony dig its heels in. If that's the case, this isn't just our stupid automated copyright notice systems creating chaos again.

But here's what this really all boils down to: if even Nintendo is allowing this content to remain up, it should probably stay up. Nintendo has arguably been one of the most aggressive enforcers and protectors of its IP on the planet. Sony is obviously no slouch in that respect, but there is literally nobody watching let's-plays in order to listen to the game soundtrack in the same manner they would an album version of it. In fact, one would think that it might serve as free advertising of Sony's albums, if nothing else.

Filed Under: copyright, earthbound, fans, lets play
Companies: nintendo, sony

Nintendo Continues To Make It Hard To Play Classic Games Legitimately

from the pew-pew dept

When it comes to being crazy restrictive on all things IP coupled with being amazingly combative with making lots of properties readily available for legitimate purchase, Nintendo barely needs an introduction. This is the company that has taken down ROM sites for classic games all over the internet, taken down fan-made games that use Nintendo properties, taken down all manner of fan-made ports of Nintendo properties onto other hardware, and has even taken down fan-made creations that involve putting Nintendo characters and the like into 3rd party creative games and software. Now, to be clear, Nintendo can do all of this. The open question has always been why it bothers to do so. What threat is a fan-game to legitimate Nintendo titles? Especially when Nintendo often times makes it quite difficult to legitimately get classic Nintendo games on its current hardware.

Case in point, Nintendo recently announced a new Metroid side-scroller that has Metroid fans very, very excited. So excited that some of them want to go back and play the classic Metroid games before playing the new title, only to find out that on the Nintendo Switch you just can't.

During E3 2021, Nintendo announced Metroid Dread, the first 2D classic style Metroid game in nearly 20 years. As you might expect, lots of fans got excited. Many of them wanted to play the older Metroid games as they waited for Dread to release in October. However, if you go looking for old Metroid titles on the Switch, you’ll quickly discover that Nintendo has done a poor job of supporting the series and its catalog of beloved games. In fact, you’ll need to boot up a Wii U if you’re looking to enjoy games like Metroid Fusion or Metroid: Zero Mission.

A quick search for Metroid on Nintendo’s eShop returns a selection of classic titles. But after toggling on a filter to only show Switch content, you’ll quickly see that none of those games are currently available on Nintendo’s super-popular console/handheld hybrid. In fact, the only two items that show up for Switch are a pre-order page for Dread and for some reason a random game called Wunderling.

It would be one thing if Nintendo wanted its stance to be that the public can only play legitimately purchased classic games on its hardware, thereby nixing things like ROMs, ports, etc. That would be, oh, let's just call it annoying but expected. But to remove the ability for fans to play those classic games out of excitement for the new title and to fail to make those classic games available on its most current and popular hardware? Well, that's just callous and ultimately unproductive.

We have said for a long time that in many instances piracy, especially in the retro-gaming space, can actually be a boon to sales of new releases of franchises like Metroid. That's the case because of exact circumstances like this. Nintendo announces a 2D Metroid side-scroller, leading fans to want to revisit previous 2D side-scroller Metroid games. When they cannot do so on their Nintendo hardware, well, we've just injected a massive negative perception into what should be a totally positive fan experience.

That is, of course, unless they turn to copyright infringement instead.

Meanwhile, fans and pirates have done the hard work and continue to be better than Nintendo at supporting old games. In the case of Metroid, this is incredibly useful for anyone looking to play the past games without relying on Nintendo’s official stores or consoles. You are, right now, a quick Google search and a few files away from having hundreds of NES and SNES games available to play on whatever device you are using to read these words. Many of these fan-created emulators rival anything Nintendo has officially created and often support more features, fan translations, and mods. These emulators and their communities have done incredible work preserving Nintendo’s history and have no doubt helped introduce folks to older games from the company.

Yet Nintendo continues to fight emulators and ROM sites while offering no real legal equivalents. Imagine an alternate universe where fans excited for Metroid Dread could head over to a giant online Nintendo store on their PC or phone, where nearly every classic Nintendo game was waiting for them. Nintendo would make a ton of money and would, in the process, help support classic games for decades to come. But instead, it’s just lawsuits and disappointment.

It feels like we have a new Nintendo corporate tagline for the brand.

"Nintendo: it's just lawsuits and disappointment."

Filed Under: metroid, restrictions, switch, wii u
Companies: nintendo

Nintendo Hates You And The Company Most Certainly Does Not Want You To Co-Stream 'Nintendo Direct'

from the direct-as-in-direct dept

If you're a fan of gaming giant Nintendo, you really should know by now that Nintendo hates you. More specifically, when Nintendo is presented with a choice to either allow its rabid fans to express their fandom in new and interesting ways or attempt to exert iron-fisted control over every last thing, the company will always, always, always choose control. From taking down fan-games, DMCAing let's plays and much-loved video game music from its properties, or shutting down fan-projects for fiction or movies, the company behaves as though it just can't help itself. To be clear, Nintendo is typically within its rights in taking these actions, but it doesn't have to. This is a choice, not a necessity.

And now, on the cusp of this year's Nintendo Direct, the company's E3 presentation that serves essentially as one giant commercial for what's coming out from Nintendo in the near future, the company has put out a statement in Japan insisting that nobody co-stream the event.

Leading up to the event, the Kyoto-based game company has issued a request on its Japanese Twitter account: Do not co-stream our presentation.

“Please refrain from mirroring Nintendo Direct footage and sound during the Nintendo Direct livestream,” the tweet reads. Nintendo will allow simultaneous viewing (reactions, basically) without mirroring—and thus, without streaming sound or footage.

Nobody seems to be sure if this applies in other countries, such as America, as well. Even if this is limited to just Japan, or perhaps especially if this is limited to just Japan, this makes little sense. The very idea behind big productions like Nintendo Direct is to generate massive amounts of interest in future Nintendo projects. Why in the actual hell would the company not want that production disseminated as far and wide as possible? Why limit the avenues by which people can watch what is essentially a commercialized hype-video for its own products?

This is something akin to when companies have on occasion DMCA'd their own commercials on sites like YouTube, except those are typically done in error. I guess some should take this as a sign that maybe Nintendo doesn't actually want you to watch Nintendo Direct this year.

Filed Under: control, fans, streaming
Companies: nintendo

Unofficial Amiibo Guidebook Will Be Released With Changes To Appease Nintendo

from the officially-unofficial dept

Just a couple of weeks ago, we discussed a Kickstarter project for an unofficial guidebook to Nintendo's Amiibo product line. While no regular Techdirt reader could have possibly have been surprised that Nintendo issued threats and a DMCA on the project, it was a bit odd for two main reasons. First, Nintendo's main gripe appeared to be the use of some of the corporate iconography and other "design marks" proposed for use in the publication, rather than any wholesale copyright or trademark claim to literally everything in the book. Nuance of that kind is not the norm for the notably litigious and protective Nintendo. Second, this whole fight looked to be something of Nintendo shooting itself in the foot, as the project is essentially one giant advertisement for Amiibo products. Why in the world, we wondered at the time, would Nintendo not want such a book to be released to the public?

Well, it seems that perhaps the company does in fact understand all of this. Reports now indicate that the author of the project and Nintendo have resolved all issues the company had and the book will in fact get its release as an "unofficial" guidebook.

The webpage for the Kickstarter project led by Paul Murphy and Ninty Media that was previously entangled in a legal dispute with Nintendo has finally been reinstated. Murphy sent an e-mail to backers of the project, explaining that Nintendo had taken issue with the use of copyrighted materials. While there was some uncertainty about whether the project which had raised over £36,000 GBP would see the light of day, Murphy had reassured backers that they would be refunded if he was forced to halt the project completely.

It seems as though fans no longer need to worry, as changes have been made to the project, with the name of the book being transformed into "The Unofficial amiibook", so as to prevent potential readers from confusing the fan project with official Nintendo merchandise. Though Murphy stated that he could not go into the specifics of the legal dispute, he confirmed that it was a copyright strike focused on "the use of a design too close to a trademark owned and registered by Nintendo."

Here we need to employ a bit of nuance ourselves as we analyze what this all means to the Techdirt community. On the one hand, it's nice to see Nintendo appear to have worked relatively amicably with the project author so that this project could still get a release at all. Again, Nintendo has a reputation for employing every possible avenue to exert as strict a level of control over all references to its properties as possible. I'll be frank: a week ago I would have told you there is a near-zero chance this project ever sees the light of day. Nintendo appears to have proved me wrong on that. Good on them.

On the other hand, does anyone really believe that any changes the author agreed to make at Nintendo's request will have an actual material impact on whether buyers of the book confuse it with some kind of official Nintendo release? Of the roughly 15,000 backers of the Kickstarter project, how many previously thought that Nintendo was now crowdsourcing guidebooks like this?

The answer is, for all statistically relevant purposes, "no" and "none." So, sure, it's good that this project is allowed to exist at all, but it sort of sucks that this question ever had to be asked.

Filed Under: amiibo, copyright, design marks, fan creations, guidebook, trademark
Companies: nintendo, ninty media

Unofficial Amiibo Guidebook That Was Essentially Advertising Nintendo Products Gets Nintendo'd

from the nintendon't dept

Nintendo really can't help itself. With the company's storied reputation for valuing strict control of all things intellectual property over literally everything else, we have detailed plenty of occasions where this restrictive attitude seems to work directly against the company actually selling things. From DMCAing fan-made ports of Nintendo's games to antiquated game systems, to getting fan-made expressions of Nintendo fandom taken down from 3rd party creation games like Dreams, to just DMCA carpet-bombing a wide range of fan-made games that serve as homages to Nintendo properties, the company has made it very clear that it will choose strict control over being good to its fans at every opportunity. Even, as is so often the case, when that means getting content taken down that essentially serves as an advertisement for Nintendo products.

Perhaps this has never been more evident than when Nintendo recently got a Kickstarter project shut down, as that project was for a guidebook to Nintendo Amiibo products.

Made by Ninty Media, the unofficial amiibo handbook was designed as a guidebook that catalogued every single amiibo available at the time of the book’s release. Not only does this compendium show off every amiibo, it also gives fun facts about each character listed, and even has estimated prices to help those trying to purchase these desired figures today. The Kickstarter for the book launched last month and has long surpassed its initial goal of £3,000 with £36,172 at the time of its being taken down.

However, that Kickstarter has now come to a halt thanks to this new dispute from Nintendo. Viewing the copyright notification on the Kickstarter page reveals that it is under dispute due to the use of the amiibo logo on the cover of the book, along with some of Nintendo’s other design marks. Paul Murphy, the man behind the amiibo handbook, along with other projects from Ninty Media, has posted on Twitter that he would respond shortly to this claim, demonstrating that the book isn’t cancelled yet. But he did offer refunds to anyone who contributed to the Kickstarter in the event that he loses the dispute.

Now, a couple of things I should stipulate right up front. First, Nintendo is well within its rights to take this action. Use of Nintendo's branding and imagery certainly runs afoul of copyright and trademark laws. Second, it was fairly silly of the makers of this book to use that branding and imagery, including font-types, without ever having reached out to Nintendo for any kind of approval. That would be the case if this were a book about the products of "Company X", but when it's Nintendo? C'mon, guys.

So, with those stipulations out of the way, we can now get into just how stupid this all is on Nintendo's part as well. First, again, Nintendo doesn't have to spit directly in the faces of its fans.

Given Nintendo’s history, it’s unsurprising that what have been dubbed by many as the “Nintendo Ninjas” are at it again. Similar to Nintendo’s past cases, it’s a dispute where Nintendo is legally in the right, but dubious in its morality. The more of these projects Nintendo cancels, the clearer the message that Nintendo is against these types of fan projects. It’s not a good message to send to the community, and it harms the relationship Nintendo has with its consumers.

And then let's add to all of that that this book would essentially serve as a giant advertisement for Nintendo's Amiibo products. There are a zillion ways the company could have worked amicably with this Kickstarter project so as to both protect its IP, say with a cheap or free license to use the assets in question, while also ensuring that a book for Amiibo enthusiasts still got released. By all accounts, such possibilities were never even explored by Nintendo.

That's not surprising any longer, but it remains quite disappointing. If we acknowledge that this book generally didn't serve any real threat to the monetary income of Nintendo, and likely would have been a boon instead, there was literally nothing to lose and everything to gain if Nintendo had chosen to be human and cool in this instance.

Instead, it takes a hit on the relationship front with its fans and loses out on the free advertising for Amiibo products. Great job.

Filed Under: amiibo, copyright, trademark, unofficial amiibo handbook
Companies: kickstarter, nintendo, ninty media