Nintendo Shuts Down Another Pokémon Fan Project

Word on youtube is he's already leaked it.

I'm really worried about the future of "Metroid Rogue Dawn" after this.

Not to play devil's advocate, but in all likelihood, it was probably shut down because of the name alone. After all, Necrozma is the Prism Pokemon. Whether or not Game Freak is actually developing a third version for Sun and Moon, it does make sense that they wouldn't want a fan game sharing what could likely be the game's name.

Plus it's leaked at this point anyway.

On the one hand, these are non-profit fan projects that pay tribute to Pokemon, but on the other hand, these people are using the intellectual property without The Pokemon Company's permission. Ultimately, it's better off to go in a Freedom Planet or Axiom Verge direction.

@Shiryu After AMR2, do some of these developers ever learn?

"Nintendo is of course well within its rights to protect its brands, but do you think it has been a bit heavy-handed here"

in word NO, Pokemon is OWNED by Nintendo and these people, no matter the intention was using a property THEY DID NOT OWN OR HAVE ANY RIGHTS TO

no to mention they would be using the program from an oficial Pokemon game to make this, which involves reverse engineering and modification of it WHICH IS ILLEGAL, it even says so in the games terms of use

now i'm not denying that they people who was doing this have talent because they do but if they want to make a game then they have to make their own original game, THEY CAN NOT USE AN IP THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM, that is STEALING

And what is stopping Nintendo from sending C&D letters for the hundreds of other Pokémon ROM hacks? Seems Nintendo targets fan projects now that get media attention, no matter if it's a ROM hack or a self-programmed game.

@AlphaJaguar "Rogue Dawn" is a rom hack, but unlike this which can be considered a regular pokemon hack, "Rogue Dawn" is a total rewrite using the Metroid NES engine. A lot of folks are putting a lot of effort in it and its looking rather stellar with impressive stuff like rain effects. It still is a rom hack and as such fits this category, but I am very sure that only a few people besides me know about it is being made.

PS: Your avatar is my favorite Tekken character!

I understand that Nintendo has the right to do it but I don't understand why they do it... Afterall, such demonstrations of love and fanboyism should be considered as great tributes to Nintendo, making them such a nice advertising in a way...

The only real justification I can see for this is if the fan games were making money. Most companies allow fan fiction, fan films and fan games as long as the person making them does not charge & does not make a profit. However, as with the Star Trek fan film "Axanar", the bounderies between something being "fan made" and something being made by a small studio which is Patreon funded is getting dangerously close.

Personally I think Nintendo should have let this go, but then if it turns out the creator was getting thousands of dollars in Patreon funding... then I reserve my right to say "aah, I get it."

anytime i hear ppl say something like :"but its THE LAW" about Nintendo's takedowns of fan's projects, part of me is dying inside, thinking that those ppl truly believe that cuz Nintendo has the right to do so, its also the RIGHT THING to do... -_-

And this is why you don't advertise your stuff until after it's DONE AND RELEASED. When will people ever learn?

I remember the dude advertising Prisma more than a month before it was supposed to release by letting Twitch Plays Pokemon use it. I feel the effect would have been equally well if he had just did that when it was done while also releasing it to the public. No need to gamble.

I'm just going to thow some common sense here by saying that if a single Crystal romhack menaced Nintendo's hold on the Pokémon trademark in any way, they'd have already lost it more than a decade ago.

I can respect the viewpoint of people who think making fangames such as these is immoral because you're using the work of other people to make you own. I don't think they fully understand what drives people to create a fangame in the first place, but I understand their opinion.

However, to white-knight Nintendo to such extremes by claiming that they don't want to be so draconian about this stuff, but they are forced to do it is delusional. I mean:

@SanderEvers No it's not, if one fan can make a game about a Nintendo trademark then they can't sue a second fan for doing the same. Or Ubisoft. Or Microsoft. Simple as that.
Posts like these are just crazy talk. As in, borderline the-whole-world-is-conspiring-against-Nintendo crazy talk.

I'm glad people are actually citing copyright law. And even if those laws didn't exist and it were simply a case of Nintendo being heavy-handed and bullying, the fact is that developers know Nintendo are highly defensive, so they cannot be surprised when their spin/rip-offs are forcefully objected to.

@jimi There are FNAF games, Undertale games, Mario, Sonic and more. The main issue is both the scale of a fan game, whether it makes money & how directly it uses the trademark/IP.

In regards to "abandonment of a trademark", it is more nuanced than Nintendo/Gamefreak simply having to attack anyone using the Pokémon name. Heck, Captain Marvel lost a case against DC trying to use abandonment even though DC didn't mark copyright etc. on their newspaper strips for years.

@jimi id Software comes to mind as an obvious example, given the whole Game Awards fiasco. I'm no expert on the subject, but I'm sure there are many companies (especially those that encourage modding) that have no problems with fangames.

@MarcelRguez I agree with you, I think the issue isn't anywhere near as black & white as some people are seeing it.

...also, looks like the game was leaked anyway. You can find it if you look in the right places <cough-4chan-cough>

As long as Nintendo remembered to end their letter with 'Merry Christmas', then I think it's ok for them to shut this down.

@DanteSolablood Same here. People can't just pass judgement by reading a wiki article on trademark law and just call it a day. The line between infringement and fair use is not clear cut in any way.

@jimi tx for the advise, but i'm good, tho, i'd also suggest you educate yourself...

@Trurii back at ya bud, don't serve me your crap, and just cuz you lack of vision, doesn't mean everyone has stop thinking for themselves...

How thick can you get?

@jimi And what if I already own Crystal? Sure, the code of the whole game is in the fangame, but one could argue it's just as grey as emulation is.

Better yet, what if I have a dump of my own cartridge and I apply an IPS patch to it? I'm not crossing any lines and I still end up with a fangame.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I think this romhack works. If these people are uploading a modified Crystal ROM, then Nintendo might have done this so people don't confuse it with the real thing somehow. If it's just a patch, I'm afraid don't see how anyone can justify it.

@jimi Actually, I was referring to people making their own Undertale games & people making Mario games (with Mario in). Also, much like with games, there are lots of fan movies etc. which use trademarked characters and more without legal implications. It's not as simple as saying "you used a trademark, you get shut down".

Abandonment isn't the clear cut thing you make it out to be. For example, what about tattoos? Companies have the right to enforce trademark laws on tattoos yet only one (Disney) actually does... are they abandoning their trademarks?

Why not spend all that time and energy developing an original game?
Hmmmm

It's a shame. I have one of the older builds of Prism, guess I'm stuck with that.

@cfgk24 Simple, make your own game... spend a tonne of money marketing and people may ignore it. Slap the name Pokémon on it, get an instant audience. The same reason there's an Emoji Movie coming soon.

The law is assumed to be well known by everyone. Nintendo, or the Pokemon Company in this case, I guess, is in the obligation of protecting their IP if they don't want future fan projects to argue an abandonment of the IP.

It isn't anything personal against the fans, its just business. People need to understand that part.

And I agree with some others, how thick can you get? This isn't the first project shut down, won't be the last and people insist on doing the same. If they have so much skills in coding, why don't they do a new game, an original IP they can promote? It worked for Undertale!

@jimi no, i am and i was definitly good, i'm completly aware of the legal side of things... this is not my 1st rodeo on that subject... you on the other hand are lacking education when it comes to basic ethic, marketing and PR, and unlike you, i won't pretend i'm some sort of authority on the subject and try giving you a lesson, but i'll definitly invite you make some research, but most importantly some thinking, to have some perspective on things before you go all out defending terrible business decision...

Oh Nintendo, you will never learn. Stuck in your conservative ways.

@jimi And when you rip your own game apply a patch and put it on another cart, then YOU created a pirated copy.
No offense intended, but for someone so willing to quote the law, you are not getting your terminology right.

ROM, ISO and similar files are just backups. Piracy comes into play the moment people who don't own those games use them to avoid paying for it. That act is piracy, not the files themselves.

It doesn't sound totally legit, because it isn't. That doesn't mean it's illegal either. It's such a ridiculously convoluted situation that it's up in the air to interpret what's moral and what isn't in this situation, because the law is not clear cut about it.

And about this line: This whole excuse is silly anyway, 99.9% of all emulation users are 100% pirates, who do not buy those games at all but simply download them off the 'net
Currently, there's literally no way to buy Pokémon Crystal and give the companies involved a penny.

@jimi Undertale is both trademarked & very profitable, plus I already gave you an example of Star Trek which has both fan games & fan movies which until recently were openly allowed by Universal.. even then Universal has set some rules allowing people to continue making fan content.

Also, companies own trademark for characters and images, so when I said Mario was "in" the game, I was referring to the actual character of Mario, not just his name.

You seem to have very little understanding of how any of this works, but are very vocal about it. Wonder how this is getting past the Big N: http://zfgc.com/

As always: understandable on a legal standpoint and nowhere else.

Oh my god I don't usually care for rom-hacks but this one looks dope, I want new GBC style pokes so bad. Not even going to bother with the armchair lawyer garbage, I'm gonna go find a leak now and actually enjoy myself

@jimi You know, ever since digital-only libraries became a thing I've seen people trying to retroactively claim that it's always been the way you say. Which, don't get me wrong, does make sense, but I've yet to see proof of that.

The DRM of modern consoles is irrelevant. We're not talking about Nintendo's VC, we're talking about discontinued hardware and software. And I'm talking about Crystal since this is a romhack of Pokémon Crystal. At this point I'm not talking about the Pokémon trademark as a whole, but about how the lack of purchase options affects this whole discussion. From a moral standpoint, mind you, not a legal one.

And that's surely also 99.9% of all people, who play this "fan made" Pokemon Crystal. They will download Pokemon Red off the net, then patch it and then play it in an emulator. And that's simply piracy of Pokemon Red, plain and simple.
I... think you need to re-read the article.

I don't understand why those fans keep creating Fake Pokemons ? Their "Love" about Pokemons like a Worshipper. For some reasons, they have became Zombie Gamer, lose their humanity, lose their logic.

@jimi Undertale was consistently one of the top selling games on Steam and surpassed a million sales earlier this year, while it's not in the league of Pokémon it's definitely more than someone working at McDonalds would make.

Also, please check what you are saying "Nintendo DOES NOT own the TRADEMARK for "Mario". Can you finally get this into your head? They own a trademark on "Super Mario Bros". "Mario" and "Super Mario Bros" is not the same." So they don't own the Trademark for Mario... they own the trademark on Mario.

As you love to quote Trademark law, how about this one? " Rights to characters may exist under federal trademark law as well as under state laws dealing with unfair competition and passing off." This covers both the name & image... so what I said was perfectly correct. Being rude & wrong doesn't reflect well.

Interesting you are skipping Star Trek fan movies & fan games BTW, is this in any way because it directly contridicts your argument?

I understand why they did that, what I don't understand is the timing. This thing has been in development for years, why would you stop it a few days before release?

This is GameFreak, not Nintendo. Then again the same thing would happen regardless...but GameFreak seems much worse.

@DanteSolablood star trek okay but if they went to rival the movies coming out and people watched them more than paying for the real thing think they wouldn't stop it real quick? and did star trek know of x projects or ignore them like sega do they can't say we let these on a official stream go watch where they was asked to.

I understand he spent 8 years making it. but without permission from Nintendo/The Pokemon company any creation of derivative works is illegal unless it's parody or critique.

It would have been for the best if he asked for Nintendo's permission. Ofcourse Nintendo most likely would have said no, but it would have saved him 8 years bother creating a product he has no right to even release. Considering these sort of things are getting more and more press(Pokemon Prism's trailer got over 1 million youtube views), I'm not surprised Nintendo are trying to stamp these out. Even if not for profit people are utilising Nintendo's IP in a way that spreads their names to millions of people in a way they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Like if they make an original game and sell it they could put "From the makers of Pokemon Prism" and that would give them a massive advantage in the market.

@Nintendo_Ninja They probably weren't aware of it until recently. In October he released a trailer for which got over 1 million views and had Twitch Plays Pokemon advertise it by providing them with a ROM for it and it started appearing on gaming news sites.

@DanteSolablood So if someone was to make a star trek vr of their own right now think they wouldn't shut it down, because i bet they would.

@Nintendo_Ninja These things only gain enough traction immediately before and after release. I'm not sure if Nintendo bothers to monitor them when there's not even a beta available, given that so many of them never get finished.

@Dr_Lugae yeah i mean if it was put in that kinda place, odds are the legal team seen it.

@kenrulei You have some good points but yes, Universal were aware of the fan projects & actively ignored/allowed them UNTIL the producers of one called Axanar started making a large amount of money on Patreon. They have since created some rules for fan producers to follow but have not shut down fan projects altogether. This also goes for games, there are fan games which the rights owners are aware of but haven't shut down.

The real issue is that a company could shut down fan art, fan films and fan games easily but in most cases choose not to as long as they don't directly rival OR make money. Think of the free publicity they'd be throwing away... fan productions kept Star Trek alive in the years when there were no movies or series.

In the case of Star Trek VR, they might shut it down because it would directly compete with an official Star Trek VR. However, there are games which have run for a long time without being shut down.

Ah, it's time again for Nintendo fans to indulge in their favourite pastime: discuss legal stuff, and who is in the right here.

@MarcelRguez or it could be a let it come out so people have the thing then do the c/d to keep the copyright laws kept. i mean they likely knew of the other past projects and they let them all come out before shutting them down, they could axed them a lot faster like square did to the chrono trigger remake once.

also it's competing with there games in a lot of ways as it's on pc not on there systems.

@huxxny It's "ethics", not "ethic". Basic enough that it suggests you're not as educated on these topics as you insist.

_meow
Everyone who's pissed off at Nintendo's childish behavior spread this as much as possible
This is an autentic leak, scanned it by myself and found no virus

It's interesting how they shut these fan games down but allow something like Pixelmon to thrive.

@Bobb The big difference between a fan game & selling merchandise... is the selling. Once you start selling something it's no longer a fan-product, it's being a competing business using unlicensed trademarks. Much like the Star Trek case when a producer was allowed to make fan films until one of them started getting so much funding he quit his job and did it full time.

There is no contradiction, a fan game or art may draw attention to the main game & work as publicity. A game being sold at a cost or becoming so large it takes attention away from the owners own product... it's competition & is shut down.

@ikki5 I love Pixelmon, used to run a server. I think Pixelmon is both different enough from the main Pokémon games it doesn't act as direct competition & as far as I know they don't charge for the mod. May be wrong.

I'm so sick of Nintendo white knights defending this kind of stuff. It is a free rom hack of a game. A rom hack! A creation of love given out for free! And I get it, it's just what Nintendo does; It can't be helped. But the amount of people that adamantly defend Nintendo like this company is their friend, and that these developers are BAD people blows my mind.

@Bobb Don't worry about it, I could see where you were coming from.

@MegaBlaziken Spreading that out of spite is pretty childish behaviour in itself.

Isn't copyright (and patent, and trademark) law supposed to PROMOTE creativity? The system should ban flat out copies or anything REALLY close, and then use mandatory royalties to make sure original creators still profit from all other use of their work.

@MegaBlaziken Thanks for the share. Looks like /v/ pulled through for us this time!

Now Nintendo won´t lose out on mad dough because of a fan game of a 15 year old game that maybe only a handful of people are still interested in after all this time.

@PanurgeJr hahaa, indeed, basic enough, but you're right, in this case my orthographe/spelling was wrong, which we can all agree, TOTALLY invalidate my argument, right? besides, i never insisted nor pretended i was an expert on anything...

@huxxny I wasn't implying an argument was invalidated, I was implying credibility was undermined. And every time in this thread somebody pointed out what copyright law actually consists of you basically said no thanks, I already know enough. So maybe not expert, but you certainly claimed knowledge.

I don't understand why somebody would make a project like this. It's so much easier to make a Pokemon-like that doesn't infringe on anything. Anyone who's trying to do something like this has to see the inevitable future that "Hey, maybe I shouldn't be using somebody else's assets to make my game."

Here's hoping this guy can at least take what he learned to his own game, I guess.

@MegaBlaziken ...Yeah let's not go there.

It's surely a pain to lose eight years of work, but if you do a project like this then you know that this can happen.

Doesn't help either that they even used the official Pokemon logo for the thing, by doing that as soon as their project raised in popularity they placed Nintendo in the position to lose their trademark if they said nothing; no wonders they intervened and shutted the thing down.

Nintendo. Always pissing off its fans. Do they even realize the fan games are being made because the creators LIKE Nintendo?!

@PanurgeJr just so we're cleared, in french, ethic is éthique, and it refer to a code of conduct, a philosophy that set the foundation of morale, of what is juste and how we should act, and if i'm referring to the english definiton i found here, that is basically the equivalent of point 2.c

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic
http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/%C3%A9thique/31389

even tho most commonly you use the word ethics that actually refer to the principles included in that code of conduct, to the set of rules itself instead of the dicipline, which might seems obvious to the native english speaker, it can still be tricky to someone how studied philosophy for many years in another language... tho its not a really good excuse since i've read and write my fair share of text in english, so i should know better, but then again, spelling never been my strong suit...

now, you can question my credibility all you want, but in the end, whenever ppl try to attack someone's credibility/character instead of the points they're making... you know...

like, there will always be 3 types of persons
1.the ones who talk about ppls
2.the ones who talk about events
3.the ones who talk about ideas

EDIT wow, i made so many typos in my response LUL

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-drop-cease-and-desist-order-of-pokemon-prism

Show Nintendo that you won't support these actions. Sign the petition

@PanurgeJr also, i'm fairly certain that most ppl who visit this site are familiar by now with the bases of trademark laws and understand that Nintendo can, and to a certain extend, should protect their IP,...

But many ppl, including me, feels that the way Nintendo treat content creators and their fans overall, is definitly not the right way to go in this day and age! They should embrace the community that produce and share content that gives more visibility to their product like most of the industry is doing nowaday, instead of hindering their brand and reputation on the web like they seems to be bent on doing atm...

I'm trying to understand why most people's standpoint is "Well, Nintendo has the LEGAL right to shut them down, but not the MORAL right"

What is moral or ethical about essentially stealing a major logo, name, brand, and even some assets for your game? Even if you aren't selling it, how is that the "right thing" to do? I understand that people love to see fan works - why do you think Stardew Valley, Undertale, and Axiom Verge have sold so incredibly well? Because those are "fan games" done right. Creators with a passion for Harvest Moon/Metroid/Mother, who said "I want to make a game that shows my love of those ideas while also creating something wholly my own" is the right way to go about this. And those games are amazing (unlike the vast sea of ROMhacks and games capitalizing on the Pokemon name).

Why are fans spending years of development on a ROMhack, and creating trailers and hyping them up before release, while also using the Pokemon logo, assets, and existing 'mon? Because they want attention. They want fame for their Pokemon game. But do they go to Nintendo/Gamefreak and say "hey, I want to make a Pokemon game" and try and get into official development? No. Do they take their love of Pokemon and make something amazing and new (we could always use more unique monster-catching IP)? No. They use Pokemon for attention, they spend eight years that could have been put to work making something new that wouldn't be taken down, and would be able to last. But they don't. Because they want attention, they want the Pokemon brand for themselves even though they can't have it.

Why do people do this? Why do people think it's okay? No matter the quality of fan games, do you recognize that they're piggy-backing on established IP to gain attention and recognition?

The people making these fangames and ROMhacks clearly have talent and potential as actual game designers. I wish they'd realize that and put in the work on something they can actually make and not worry about getting taken down. Something they can legally sell so they can make a profit off of their hard work. Something that might just be amazing and an exciting "alternative" or "love letter" to a series people love (see Undertale/Stardew Valley/Axiom Verge).

Fans, stop wasting your talents. And stop acting entitled to someone else's IP, logo, and brand recognition.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I was looking forward to that game, it was going to calm my pokemon trainer thirst because sun and moon left a bad aftertaste in my mouth...

I haven't read all comments, so sorry if someone wlse brought this up already, but there's another side to it:
Pokemon in particular has reached a new form of popularity and is a name known by basically everyone now thanks to Pokemon Go. Not everyone who played Go knows about the Pokemon main games.
They might search online and find the fan-project instead (this includes news media!) and might think it's the real deal.
Now there's a wide variety of things that could go wrong, from an overall lack of quality that puts the official games to shame up to mature content (maybe a joke, an easrer egg or even a part of the story), that could result in parents banning Pokemon for their kids up to media making a fuss about it with or without better knowledge (they may drop the word "fangame" in their report - but what sticks will be "new Pokemon game").

Sad as it is, I fully understand Nintendo.

@Gorlokk Nobody is defending Nintendo, it could be any company, it's just how IP laws works, like it or not. Seriously, read up on it or get a lawyer to explain it to you. I had a cousin who's a lawyer and works with brand protection cases like this (I'm not sure if that's the correct term, but you know what I mean), and it's interesting the many different ways something like this can affect the IP owner.

@DarthNocturnal Yeah, difference is: Tobuse the Steam Workshop for creation or playing, you need to buy the base game. SEGA sells this game, so they make actually more money the bigger the workshop gets.
Nintendo sees nothing as it's a free-to-download rom hack.

@demonta4
As if this could accomplish anything...
The game was leaked. Look for it in the appropriate places and you'll find it (something something fourchan)

Ohh, playing as a Pokemon. That would've been nice to see.

Good.

I just hope rougue dawn releases.

I guess in this case, the ROM hack was shut down alongside Game Freak, since 100% nintendo IPs rom hacks have never been C&D like this one. (of course, that could change in the future)

As they should....

Found the leak in 3ds format. Booooom!

I'm seriously thinking that NL has become a cult.

Ha fan game, if they really are fans of Pokemon then they make a game inspired by it rather than a direct infringement of the IP. Unless they had legal permission to make a game for Pokemon, the rights is still in Nintendo's favor.

Nintendo just mad because the fans put more effort into the gameplay than they do. (at least XY. "Hey, let's put Mega Evolutions into the game AND THEN ALMOST NEVER USE THEM." And then never make Z.)

Nintendo acting like ROM hacks are something new. Fans have been doing this for like 20 years now, and NOW there's a problem?

@jimi LOL at "Pokemon Red and Pokemon Crystal are the same game" and I don't care what a law from like 1982 says about backups, I have a right to make a ROM from my Pokemon Ruby cart with a dead battery, so I can play the game in an emulator to experience the intended gameplay. They only considered ROMs "unnecessary" because in 1982 they didn't have things in carts like batteries that could fail (and I know the battery isn't strictly necessary in RSE, but the cart was still acting up last I played it). I can only imagined if challenged now, dumping ROMs for personal use would be like ripping CDs to digital formats, which is ruled legal.

@Shiryu Cheers man, Armor King is very under-rated as a Fighting character. But back to topic, these "fan-games" are more trouble than they're worth now. Essentially, what these creators are doing is asset flipping. Nintendo is well within their rights to be as adamant as they are with take-downs.

@dAvecaster "Merry Christmas, you filthy fanimal"

@jimi Making a backup is no pirating. Sharing the backup, however, is piracy. That's the difference.

Also, I guess I'm one of the 0,01% who use emulation as a way to preserve the ancient games on discontinued hardwares, even though I do own some of the old cards and more modern CDs myself.
Because you do know that someday, all of your systems will break, along with all the physical media you have your originaly purchased games on, right? Unless someone officialy release it digitaly, you gonna loose all the abandonware that were once working.

Btw, pirating Pokemon Crystal is not equal to pirating Pokemon Red. By that logic, people who pirates SuMo pirates every other pokemon game ever released... Heck, you may as well add all the pokemon spin offs to the batch, or any other turn based top view jRPG because it's the same idea. How did you even come up with this?

I mean, obviously when you make a free fan game, using a ROM and someone's IP, you can expect lawsuits sooner or later, depending on the owner attitude towards such actions; and trying to monetize the game will bring a disaster on you for sure.
But sir! What you are saying is clutching at straws to win an argument.

@Rutana
Gosh... Fan project of Pokemons = Real Nightmare. Parents beware ! Update the knowledge about Genuine titles and Fake titles. When I was young, I was also experienced with similar case (This case was Hacked NES games). There was a hacked Fighting NES games with title "Girl's Fighting". The opening song was Sailor Moon theme in 8 bit. The characters just only 8 girls, some of them are from Sailor Moon but renamed (Ami -> Sugico, Rei -> Jennifer) some of them used their original names (Chun Li & RanMa). The games looked like traditional fighting games, no blood, no gory, but if you set the difficulty level on MAX, everytime you beat the girls there were sets of "Hentai, I mean Naked girls" even though didn't show her boobs, but still... it looked like Wolf in Sheep skin disguise, Fake games with harmful potential inside. I regret after several years later because it was my cousin's fault to offered us (with my siblings) that hacked games (We never knew what it called hacked games and we didn't realized because we were still young). I think my experience facing with hacked games raise my awareness against another hacked games in modern era. And I want to help poor unfortunate peoples who doesn't know about hacked games to not use that product due to illegal activities.

@Anti-Matter I think those could be some bootleged hacked Chinase games... And they usually are indeed not worth playing (maybe for lulz and gigglez). Those are the worst and I've been experiencing them them from my child age... What's worse, they are intended to be sold and gain profit - ripping off the original and/or ruining the mark.
...And I'm not a fan of romhacks and mods, most of the time, unless it's official. Even if it's like the only way to play a game in physical form, that has not left Japan (Telefang for example).
Yet, just to point this out, some fan made hacks can deliver greater experience than the original game. And I guess that's the point why fans are doing these: to provide even more experience to fans.

Sorry people who don't like it, we live in the real world where it is illegal to use someone else's IP to make your own project. The "Is it right" argument is stupid. Yes it is right, this is why those laws exists. The whole idea that everything is free is wrong. Time to wake up and join the real world.

Things like the comment section here are why I now proudly support piracy. If you want to call fans thieves for wanting to pay tribute to series they like, I might as well take advantage of it and go all the way with what I've apparently been doing anyway.

Yo ho ho.

@BaffleBlend That makes no sense, I can understand people can be unhappy that Nintendo shuts down your free game or whatever and frustrated that people agree with it.

But how do you justify responding to something that is legal with a literal crime?

@Dr_Lugae Spite. Pure, bitter spite.

I never said it was justified. But if they don't want me to "steal IPs" by enjoying harmless fan works, then I'm gonna steal IPs harder just to defy them.

What can I say? I'm a grudge-holder.

I understand he spent eight years of his life working on this game, but surely he expected something like this to happen.

It was too pure for this world. IP infringing or not, I consider fan-games that make no effort to monetize their effort or hide what they are innocent in spirit.

And while Nintendo is perfectly in the right, I can't help but wonder how much of flexing their right is more to do with percieved competition or feeling upstaged.

@Syrek24 People like you are the ones who pushed me into this attitude. In fact, I think it was you specifically. I remember seeing you in past comment sections.

I know what the law says. The law bans fan fiction and fan art, too. Plenty of those have been taken down in the past. (Just look up Anne Rice, who's infamous for C&D-ing authors of fanfics for her book "Interview With A Vampire".) But the law isn't holy, infallible, and unquestionable. There's a reason most content creators willingly ignore fan fiction and fan art. Sometimes, it's the law that needs to be changed.

I'll stop breaking the law when the law gets half a brain. I'll stop supporting the harmful when the harmless stops getting lumped in with it.

I always love how everyone in the NL comments section suddenly earns a patents and trademarks law degree before posting. >_>

Two things: if anyone has a beef with this practice, it's not with the ones who follow the law, it's the law itself. Second, breaking it is not how you send a message for change, only that you have a disregard for a guideline set in place to help as many people as possible because it inconveniences you and you only. Laws only change when a vocal majority clamors for it, and the fact is the world has bigger fish to fry than a legal dispute over imaginary characters/games.

Personally I feel like non-profit things SHOULD NOT be targeted
Prism looked like a great game, it's a similar story to Uranium.
Uranium was a phenomenal game and better then everything since Black & White 2 IMO.

Lots of ways to show nintendo your displeasure with their practices I'm not buying a switch and have told them why.

@LilligantLover If you think those games are superior to the modern Pokemon games that would mean, even despite Sun/Moon having record sales these fan games are legitimatley resulting in lost sales for the main entries by providing a free alternative when there is no right for there to be.

Pokemon should have to compete against Yo-Kai Watch, Digimon,etc. Pokemon should not have to compete against its own fanbase using its IP against it.

@LilligantLover
Be careful. Some fascinating things maybe just a delusional things. Maybe looks good but if copycat or hacked ? Not good. Learn to respect the author.

I'm just going to copy and paste an older comment for this one, because it still holds true:
I just want to say, Nintendo is NOT legally required to do this. They CAN, of course, but it's not some law where they have to. From a 2014 Supreme Court ruling:
"It is hardly incumbent on copyright owners, however, to challenge each and every actionable infringement. And there is nothing untoward about waiting to see whether an infringer's exploitation undercuts the value of the copyrighted work, has no effect on the original work, or even complements it. Fan sites prompted by a book or film, for example, may benefit the copyright owner. See Wu, Tolerated Use, 31 Colum. J.L. & Arts 617, 619-620 (2008). Even if an infringement is harmful, the harm may be too small to justify the cost of litigation."
Source: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16343772915477319302&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
The first sentence there is the key bit, but it goes on to explain why this dumb myth is, well, dumb:

"If the rule were, as MGM urges, "sue soon, or forever hold your peace," copyright owners would have to mount a federal case fast to stop seemingly innocuous infringements, lest those infringements eventually grow in magnitude. Section 507(b)'s three-year limitations period, however, coupled to the separate-accrual rule, see supra, at 1968-1970, avoids such litigation profusion. It allows a copyright owner to defer suit until she can estimate whether litigation is worth the candle. She will miss out on damages for periods prior to the three-year look-back, but her right to prospective injunctive relief should, in most cases, remain unaltered."

At the end of the day it was not the fans IP too use. If they tried it they would probably find more satisfaction in coming up with their own concepts.

@sonicmeerkat
that feels a bit like an over reaction. no company is perfect. none of us are perfect. that's just life. enjoying nintendo's games doesn't mean you have to agree with every business decision they make. on that bases none of us could play any system.

@GeminiSaint This petition is more about sending a message to Nintendo that their fans won't tolerate this. I already have the leaked version, but I shouldn't have needed it in the first place. Nintendo simply had no reason to do this, lawful or not. Especially at the time they did, right before launch. There are thousands of other rom hacks that are popular, none are taken down and they haven't affected Nintendo's sells for the last decade.

Its a shame Nintendo is this way. Fan games are both fun to play and fun to make.

Everyone who makes a rom hack or fan game based on a Nintendo game knows exactly what they are are doing and the risks making said game entails. Just because Nintendo enforce their rights doesnt mean you can suddenly cry fowl. The best thing to do is start by recreating your favorite game if you want to but once you learn the ins and outs morph it into your own idea so nobody can claim it as infringement.

Here is a really good article about fan games. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26290&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+(Gamasutra+News)&utm_content=Google+Reader

@Syrek24 I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I was talking big and I let myself get out of hand. I don't actually pirate retail games.

My stance on fan works still hasn't changed, and I still strongly believe that "fan work = copyright infringement" is about as relevant of a law as "don't wash a fish in a faucet if it's not a fish-washing faucet in a national forest" — meaning I believe that it's one of those laws that, though it's in the books, it's not reasonable to enforce — but that's just my stance on the matter. If there's consequences for it, then those consequences will be mine to face. I'm comfortable with my stance because I don't believe there will be, because a notable number of content creators vocally feel the same way. But, if I'm wrong, then I'm going to accept defeat and face it with dignity, not kicking and screaming.

I'm sorry for being so snooty about it.

@ollyander make no mistake I'm not skipping the switch because of the shut down of 1 fan game, and if they started improving the way they did things I could change my mind.

@sonicmeerkat
Fair enough, nice to see someone that sticks to their principles. Just hope you don’t miss out on too many good games. Can I ask what makes you continue to be part of this forum if that is you view? You are of course most welcome here

@ollyander I still enjoy my 3DS and WiiU, they're not buried yet and still see games although in lesser quantities.

@sonicmeerkat
That's true both current gen systems have cool stuff on them, my problem now days is having to shear with my three kids 😢

@ollyander Well that's why most games have 3 save slots these days, pokemon not withstanding

KEEP YOUR FAN PROJECTS A SECRET UNTIL RELEASE, PEOPLE!

Jeez, will they never learn..

Pokemon Prism is a ROMhack, not a standalone fan game like AM2R. Nintendo has left alone countless Pokemon ROMhacks for years. The "they're protecting their IP and copyrights!" argument is hazy. Why wouldn't that apply to all of the Pokemon ROMhacks that have been created for the past 10 years? Generations 1-5 have ROMhacks available for every entry, all the way up through Blaze Black and Volt White. Even the remakes like Heart Gold and Soul Silver had them- Sacred Gold and Storm Silver.

The only reason I can think of that Nintendo would go after Pokemon Prism (that mods the Crystal version, which Nintendo probably isn't ever re-releasing) now, is due to it's rising publicity, especially through Twitch streaming. Many Pokemon ROMhacks have been streamed on Twitch and Youtube, but few have become so hotly anticipated. And it does not disappoint.

Here's an 8-bit remix of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" to complement Nintendo's untimely decision:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy47RLVblUo

Edit: Now I know why... Nintendo of Australia in particular issued the CaD order. Not Nintendo HQ directly, not NA, not EU, not JP. Nintendo AU.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/nintendo-sends-cease-and-desist-notice-to-pokemon-rom-hacker/

@TheShiningAbsol Nah, that's going to be the Star version.

@kotag Just torrent or ask someone to share it, there's no other way to get it at this point.

@Trikeboy The comments on that article add another wrinkle, factoring in good faith laches. If Nintendo had been contacted, and no reply was given within a 2 year time frame (Pokemon Prism was in existence in some form for 8 years), that can be used as a defense against legal suit. Nintendo can still force the fan game creator to stop working on the project, but that's it, nothing more.

The article's details, if you actually examine them, paints a more complicated picture than the one you're trying to use it for. It doesn't get into the nitty gritty on differentiating a ROMhack like this and a fan game like AM2R, either. That article is absolutely applicable to AM2R; to Pokemon Prism, not quite so much.

In particular, I refer to this article:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/nintendo-sends-cease-and-desist-notice-to-pokemon-rom-hacker/

"Nintendo is of course well within its rights to protect its brands"

The Galoob lawsuit of 1992 sets a case precedence that would definitely apply to romhacks as transformative as these, Nintendo is entirely out of line.