Nintendo Targets and Blocks Mario Kart Hack Videos From YouTube

This is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. These videos are clearly from passionate fans, and don't deserve to be taken down. Ugh Nintendo.

If it were shortcuts I would understand, but these are pretty harmless.

Good it is a current game.

But why? It seems rather harmless and what not.

@Collinhall
Eh not really. Nintendo has been taking down videos that "misrepresent" their games (hacked/tool-assisted). You might call it harmless but it's not, on a company's perspective.

Nintendo of Japan doesn't understand Youtube, Nintendo of America can't translate without spilling memes all over the place and Nintendo of Europe is later than a bus you showed up early for.

Complete Lorule Triforce there.

It's possible that it wasn't Nintendo. Youtube has a horrible automated copyright claim system. The problems it's creating have been getting on Youtubers' nerves lately.

Not many people like someone hacking their program.

@Clownshoes Yes, because their legal and copyright enforcement department knows how to make games. I don't think they have retro studios doing this.

@IceClimbers The copyright claim system works also on the videos I uploaded, and I didn't have any issue issue like this. In my opinion hacking videos are being manually targeted.

EDIT: less strong wording, as it is my opinion after all!

@Smash_kirby No, but they could hire more programmers instead of hiring even more money mongering trolls to uphold their patents and copyrights to a stupid degree. The fact that certain AAA game developers and publishers have been known to spend between two to three times their games development budget on legal teams is part of the reason why the industry is on the verge of collapsing...

@Nintendo_Ninja I think you mean unintended shortcuts because Mario Kart is known for having quite a few shortcuts that the developers intentionally put into the games.

It's probably just Nintendo being Nintendo, but it could also be just that they have to contest every IP violation.

@Guybrush20X6 Thank you for introducing me to the phrase "complete Lorule Triforce there"
I can't imagine where I'd ever use it, but whatever

Nintendo still being an old man about this i see...If this video shows anything at all, its that wow the developers really put a lot of effort into these backgrounds for a RACING game.

@MadAdam81

Many game publishers have realized that mods do not hurt their game sales or their reputation, and in many cases improves it. One of the major selling points of Bethesda games is the modding scene on PC.

Oh boy more Nintendo is evil dredge. The question is was he monetizing his hacks?

Hilarious. I can't wait until hackers show up online in Mario Kart 8. Maybe then, I'll find online more fun. Taking down these videos was a waste of time.

@Guybrush20X6 Can you name more examples of memes aside from the one in Triforce Heroes?

@Neko_Ichigofan For Nintendo hiring on more people can only do so much, they have to get people that can match the company culture otherwise Nintendo can rot from within after the people who paved the way for Nintendo leave or pass away. I would love to see mods for Nintendo games but Nintendo does have a right to try to block videos of unauthorized mods for their games. Bethseda could do the same but they don't.

@Smash_kirby I know they can, but considering the number of times their major releases are being delayed and the fact that Nintendo clearly struggles with releasing a steady stream of games on the Wii U, I think there are far more pressing matters to be dealt with...

@TingLz Dude they're everywhere, in fact the dialogue in Xenoblade Chronicles X is almost nothing, but a slew of memes.

@Neko_Ichigofan I am sure Nintendo is working on trying to streamline the development process but remember this is their first true HD system and one of the higher ups said that developing HD games take a bit more more than making a game for the Wii. I wouldn't be surprised if they got Tantalus helping out as well with Zelda U.

It's not like it ruined anyone's experience

@Clownshoes haha, yep. The developers working on those games are totally the same people working on stuff like this. "Guys, I know you're busy working on Zelda, but have you SEEN these Mario Kart videos on YouTube? Stop everything you're doing and get on it!"

@Neko_Ichigofan "The fact that the AAA game developers and publishers spend between two to three times their games development budget on legal teams is part of the reason why the industry is on the verge of collapsing."

This is so far from the truth that it's not even in the same universe as the truth. I would absolutely love to know where or how you came up with that. Please provide at least one credible source to back up this insane statement.

@TingLz
I don't particularly care one way or the one, but this has definitely been going on for years with Nintendo's core franchises. Here's some I remember:

2005 - 1337 Hammer Bros in Mario & Luigi
2007 - 90% of Francis' dialogue from Super Paper Mario / Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's "a winner is you" and "all your base are belong to us"
2013 - A number of villagers in Animal Crossing New Leaf, the trainers in Pokemon X/Y saying lines like "over 9000"
2014 - "One does not simply" in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
2015 - Splatoon's DJ Octavio

Heck, they even incorporate memes into marketing now. Fatal Frame, a serious game, was advertised with "Spoopy" in the title of a video.

@CHET_SWINGLINE Ubisoft and EA fall into the category, but yes not many do this. Sorry I fixed my earlier statement, I was incredibly tired at the time and posted that just before I took a nap. I apologize for that.

I'll try to find the article I read about that and post the link.

@Neko_Ichigofan I think you're confusing "legal" and "marketing." Some executive from EA or Activision (can't remember which) a while back said that they spend "two or three times as much" on marketing a game as they do on developing it, so perhaps that's what you're thinking of.

@DarkKirby four things Nintendo really seem to dislike - console modding, emulation, theft of their software and people profiting from their work.
These videos break at least two of those things, and usually three if they use PC emulation.
Plus in all terms of conditions for all software is the no hacking of software line, in whatever words they usually use, which is also the part that refuses to allow people to make copies.

First off, was he profiting from these videos?

Secondly, when you buy software and hardware, there is an agreement not to modify, hack, or try to back engineer it that you often don't even realize you've clicked on or agreed to.

Sorry, but this is well within their rights for Nintendo to want to put a stop to this, like it or not.

and Nintendo continues to lead themselves further into irrelevancy.

@MadAdam81
emulation is fine if they created the Rom/ISO/copy they are using from their own disc (s).

Wait... what? This is one of the dumbest things Nintendo could have done. Nothing is perfect; every game has glitches. This is just Nintendo, once again, limiting the amount of free publicity for their products. I love Nintendo, but damn, what a dumb thing to do. Also, instead of spending the time taking down these videos, how about Nintendo spends the time fixing these exploits?

Aside from the fact that all of this is dumb, there is also no legal basis for it. That is not to say the take-downs are illegal, because YouTube can decide to take down whatever they want and they don't need a reason, but it's important to note that there is no reason these videos would be Nintendo's copyright, meaning YouTube is just arbitrarily (or more likely monetarily) siding with Nintendo on these.

@Clownshoes Lolz you're super fun. I did read your comment. That's why I made fun of it. And I understood it perfectly well. Do YOU understand what you wrote? Because it seems like you don't, since you apparently think that replacing the word "effort" with "people" in this comment: "You know, if nintendo took all the effort they're spending on preventing people from marketing their stuff for free, they could've had zelda u, star fox, and a new metroid completed." would actually make sense. Please tell me how you think my reply to your comment could possibly be due to my mistaking the word "effort" for the word "people" in the context of what you wrote.

Or, don't worry about it and go on with your life instead. I can't imagine why you would waste your precious time replying to someone you think is "simple." Then again, you think Mario Kart hack videos by random YouTubers that no one watches outside of a very small segment of the public that probably already owns Mario Kart are a valid form of marketing, and that Nintendo's efforts to proactively protect their properties somehow detracts from game development, so maybe you're just simple yourself and lack the ability to determine when a given activity would be a waste of your time. It's sad to think that we could both be wasting our time because we're too simple to accurately assess the situation

I'm getting a little fed up of Nintendo doing this. Things need to change.

Oh f**k off, Nintendo, and f**k off YouTube for allowing douche companies like Nintendo to abuse the service like this.

Someone needs to file a class-action lawsuit against YouTube and or a whole bunch of the companies abusing the service. The whole thing is broken and corrupt, ripe for abuse by these companies, and it needs to be addressed.

Also, I'll just post the link here again in case anyone missed it the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI

And again, don't spew out the same old, tired bullsh*t that Nintendo is well within its rights to stop someone posting footage of them playing a version of the game that has been hacked to allow for some cool effects or whatever. That is something that companies have only recently been allowed to abuse to their advantage. In the not too distant past it was possible to hack and modify your PURCHASED and WHOLLY OWNED games pretty much in any way you wanted and there was basically nothing Nintendo could say or do about because it was entirely YOUR game at that point and you had complete ownership and control over it (other than invalidating warranties if you fiddled around with it), not just some temporarily granted license to use it until Nintendo decides otherwise.

The real problem here is that YouTube's claim and takedown system is broken and companies like Nintendo are totally abusing it.

One more time, just in case you still don't get it: http://www.inceptional.com/2016/02/20/wheres-the-fair-use/

@Kirk I think you just contradicted yourself with what you put in your brackets at the end there.

Fact of the matter is that YouTube, Nintendo and Mr Hacker guy are only looking out for themselves and YouTube is set up in favour of the bigger companies. If you read the fine print there's almost certainly in there somewhere about not being able to profit from a hacked copy of Mario Kart 8 or something along those lines, if Square-Enix can impose restrictions on streaming and uploading videos of their games before launch (as they did last year with Dragon Quest Heroes) then thing like this are obviously going to get caught, Mr Hacker guy must have expected this but did it anyway.

If you have problem at this point then you should look at the law rather than the people using it to their advantage, which is just the way the world works.

He wasn't making any money off the videos, though.

Nintendo showcasing again that they have no idea how to handle the internet.
Man i wish they would finally adapt.

Nintendo claim to be all about fun.....until they see someone else having it!

FU Nintendo >_< This is just sad as f*ck.

@TheLastLugia are you dumb? his videos aren't monetized.

@AyeHaley wow OK dude no need to go straight to insults. Kinda says a lot about you, so I'm not gonna bother asking for there to be proof that this particular YT channel does not benefit from views it receives.

@Clownshoes Nintendo has a right to enforce its EULA.

@wiggleronacid Well, the exploits are in the Operating System (because the hacks weren't glitches, they were modifying the game code), and Nintendo sometimes updates the Wii U operating system in order to make the exploits less useful (until the hacker figure out how to remove the new protection measures). I think this is the reason why we see some updates that only "increase stability".

@TheLastLugia I guess they'll just keep changing that fine print even more in their favour and you'll just keep lapping it up and regurgitating it out again like that's how it's always been and it's the consumers who are in the wrong for breaking the rules of the company's fine print.

PS. "Invalidating your warranty" in the past ultimately didn't really mean sh*t to consumers in the grand scheme of things. It just meant you couldn't get a refund on a damaged game/product if you'd modified it yourself. No biggie and totally fair. What's going on now with these end user agreements, however, is a whole other ballpark of f'd up.

@Rockmin And that's why homebrew was so cool.

@90sRetroGaming why would you start finding online more fun when you can never be 1st?

@Neko_Ichigofan

You shouldn't be ignorant as to the kinds of legal claims that are brought against Nintendo, probably on an almost weekly basis.

Unfortunately there is a kind of arms war being fought at all times against copyright poachers, and the only way to combat that is to keep a large army of lawyers on staff. Doing any less would be naive.

Are we even sure this is Nintendo's doing? A lot of channels have been getting the ax for dubious reasons.

Don't believe me? Check out the hashtag #WTFU (where's the fair use?) on any social media platform.

@Kirk you make good points, though I think YouTube entire copyright system is just complete anarchy at this point that there's little to be gained nit-picking individual examples like this, big change needs to happen to the whole system. If people get copyright strikes for just uploading videos of a game in cases such as Warner Bros handling of Shadow of Mordor or because they're not part of Nintendo's Creators Program, or even spurious claims and censorship of criticism from smaller indie devs then you know the system is out of control.

Nintendo yet again dumps on its core fanbase. Such resolute confusion on their part bodes ill for the company's future.

@TheLastLugia I totally agree. The whole thing needs overhauled.

I've about had it with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company.
They're so full of it.
Nintendorth Korea.
Trying to control every aspect of their IP's being so out of F'n touch that they don't get that it actually F's it up by acting that way.

People who do this stuff do it because they're really into Nintendo games. They are so consumed in it that this is how they use their time, to put up any kind of crazy video on the internet. They could choose any game, but no, they choose Nintendos games.
So the people who watch this become constantly reminded of the brand which translates to more people that are aware of it, and care about it, and sit and spend their time with it.

So instead of embrassing this, Nintendo is encouraging ALL these video makers and viewers to not care about their product.
Nintendo is seriousely communist/dictator/authoritharians of video games, it is embarrasing how out of touch they are.

I was really excited about the NX, but I've had it now.
There's been too much shit like this now.
I hope it flops so that they are forced to rethink their strategy.
I even more so hope it flops so bad they go bankrupt(probably not likely) or at least have to move away from consoles.
Because if looking at how out of touch they are with the world today, they deserve it, that is capitalism, if you can't run your company and right and follow the trends of people around the world, then usually that will cost you, it should be no different for them.

Either ways, I'm not buying the NX, since like I said, I've had it with them.

@Mijzelffan What does the place I come in, have to do with anything? And why would you assume that I never place 1st? Do you even race with me online?

Also, yeah, I'm finding online boring. Have for quite some time now. If anything, hackers would spice things up a bit. Online needs more chaos.

@Clownshoes High five to that.

@90sRetroGaming if hackers were allowed online you'd never get first because hackers just hack their top speed beyond anything you can ever get. Or they'll get a blue shell with the tap of a button to kick you out of first place whenever you get it. You must be deluded to think hackers online would make racing more fun.

@Mijzelffan Never get to first? With FTW hackers, sure. With FTL hackers, not unless they're trying to stop FTW's from deliberately cheating their way to first. They usually always came in last on purpose.

I've been playing Mario Kart Wii since 2009, and have come across dozens of awsome, and super fair hackers, who had actually made the online more fun, and worth playing for hours on end.

I came in first quite a bit while racing with hackers, so I'm not sure what problems you were having there. You can think I'm deluded for feeling this way all you want, but they genuinely made the game more fun for me, and others as well. If they return, I certainly won't cry about it.