The recently released Metroid fan remake has not entirely surprisingly been hit with a DMCA notice, enraging numerous fans online and immediately causing them to point out that hundreds of other (albeit less polished) Metroid fan games have been unfairly left untouched.
The fan project supposedly took an entire decade to reach its finished state, with such hard work being all for nothing it seems as Nintendo have mercilessly attempted to keep the game from seeing the light of day – though the fan game’s developer has mentioned that he has yet to actually receive a cease and desist.
Why Nintendo would bother to stop non-profit fan creations like this which only serve to further boost the notoriety of their franchise has naturally bewildered many, though the event itself is none too shocking considering the company has previously gone to great lengths to prevent people from unofficially “monetizing” their property.
The devoted developer has yet to give up on his project of course, as he has mentioned that he will continue to create bug fixes and updates, though it seems acquiring a “legal” means of distribution will be quite the challenge…
People who do this stuff should just ignore such notices. Don’t even reply to it just delete it and say you never got it. If by some chance you are using something that insists you send a receipt like Microsoft office before closing the email just curl alt delete it and force it closed. They can’t do anything if you never got noticed.
should have stopped it earlier it’s been known for years but at least he got to finish it and it’s every where on the internet now
f♥♥k Nintendo. This is how they celebrate Metroid’s 30th Anniversary?
Oh, right. And the release of the shitty game that is Federation Force.
No, due to how copyright law works, Nintendo would have no choice in the matter. Blame bullshit laws, not Nintendo.
Yes, if you do not defend your copyright at least in some form officially, you do have the chance to lose it. What should have been done was Nintendo backed this with support officially in a similar way to Square Enix TRIES to do with their community voting system. Not entirely hands on, but with support and helping with assets while even charging a for it a bit. There’s nothing really stopping them from working in tandem. It would allow them to shut down projects they deem unworthy of the franchise and support ones that show promise and integrate fandom to a greater degree.
The issue still remains legal implications, but Red vs Blue basically partnered just fine with Bungie, so it’s not that hard a hurdle to overcome.
Not like they give a flying f♥♥k about the franchise anyway.
Morality is for the weak.
At this point, anyone who wants to become famous and work with a company on their IP, can just fucking take some of that IP without permission, and make a new game with it, and the company will have no choice but to hire that person or face the wrath of the internet for shutting down the project.
f♥♥k that. It is immoral.
Everyone attacking Nintendo over this is an ignorant selfish piece of s♥♥t.
What about Mother 4?
Just play Undertale…
nintendo does in fact make IP more famous shutting down fan-made content, the developer of this remake is just a collateral Nintendo could not care less about, anyplace he uploads it, will have clicks and clicks are money, if not him, it will be mirrored to exhaustion and somebody will make a buck out of it. The more of a fight he puts, the bigger <metroid gets, the less chances he will come out a winner, and the more pumped up fans are for an official release. Now, is it fair, or morally adequate, etc, who knows. who cares at this point.
Dunno about that. I stopped buying Nintendo’s s♥♥t over 10 years ago. Not because I hate them or anything, but because they stopped making s♥♥t that I want.
“nintendo does in fact make IP more famous shutting down fan-made content”
Actually, the word is “infamous”.
It sounds like you should work for Nintendo (or any other company that shuts down fan projects like these). You only see fan projects as a threat to the company’s IP because you would ‘lose’ revenue, which is a fallacy (you aren’t -losing- money, you just fucked up and aren’t -making- any).
Here’s a thought: buy the damn fan group and sell it as an official property, everybody wins. If you simply shut them down, then all you do is make yourself look like the bad guy who hates the fans.
Nintendo shut down Metroid because they want to re-release the original as-is for another 30 years.
CBS wants to shut down a Star Trek fan film because they know their reboots are losing steam fast and want to milk them for as long as possible.
EA shut down the Battlefront fan project because they made a shitty game and refuse to admit it.
Konami shut down a Metal Gear project because they’re pure evil.
Other companies have been relatively okay with fan efforts.
Capcom was keen with supporting Street Fighter x Megaman in a official capacity for the 25th anniversary of both Street Fighter AND Megaman.
SEGA has a system in place on steam where as long as you’ve bought the base game there, you can download any mod that uses it straight from that site and implemented a system that incorporates it from the frontend.
I’m sure methods existed for Nintendo to have permitted the project yet still have maintained the IP. It would’ve been a no-brainer to do so since it would’ve mitigated a lot of the negative fan-reaction towards the upcoming 3ds title. They could have even worked together to port it to the Wii U as an eshop title which could be cross-promoted with the 3ds title.
It depends on the company. Some (ie. Konami) are huge fucking assholes.
dude shut the f♥♥k up – blogspot barely pays ad money and there’s not enough interest to buy a big mac from what little there would be