Nintendo Accused Of Allowing "Pirated Software On The eShop" By GBA Emulator Developer

Yeah, that’s extremely scummy. She literally made the software free to use commercially. All they had to do was properly credit her.

This just does not make any sense for Imagineer to have done this. It could have been done without any cost to do the right thing.

This deserves to get pulled from the eshop entirely! After stealing work He shouldn't let them use it. At least make them have to look for a different emulator at that point.

Download it before Nintendo pulls it.

We always get people that rage that emulation is bad and hurts the industry and blah de blah, and then these same people tend to be silent when the industry screws over folks from the emulation community in the name of profit.

Corporations are not our friends and should be expected to follow the rules like anyone else.

Do we know for sure that Nintendo is responsible for doing this? I don't know how this kind of thing works...

Either way, the developer should be credited or the game removed entirely.

@Kalmaro It’s not Nintendo, it’s just a clickbait headline so that people come in the comments to defend Nintendo against the masses of imaginary people who’re bashing Nintendo instead of Imagineer who’re to blame.

@Kalmaro simply highlights Nintendo's literal non-existent QA for games published to the eShop.

@Kalmaro No, Nintendo aren't at fault, but they should pull the game until the dispute between the developers is resolved.

@Kalmaro Nintendo themselves aren't directly responsible (beyond allowing the sale of a game with such content, which probably happened unwittingly) but they're the ones who have the authority to actually pull out the game until this is resolved.

Kind of a bummer that an article about a real issue has such a clickbaity title. I don't think this is about "Nintendo letting a title be released in eShop", it's about Imagineer using the emulator without permission and without crediting it. Heck, I don't think proper tools exist that would allow Nintendo to check these things in advance. But yeah, I do hope they will pull it from the eShop until the credits are restored.

It's going to be ignored, especially if the company using it is Japanese and the person who created it isn't. They won't care.

Wait, I'm confused?

Nintendo didn't code the game — Imagineer did — Imagineer are the ones to blame here. What a distasteful act of stupidity. This is a scar on that company I'll not easily overlook next time I see a game from them pop up.

I am not falling for the clickbait. Nintendo should pull the software, but they didn't do it themselves.

this is a click bait article. Nintendo did not knowingly do this.

@KoopaTheGamer Yeah agreed, Damo apologized last time but it's not that different a few days later.

There are two tweets embedded and none references Nintendo, so "Nintendo accused of..." is a complete fabrication.

I guess I'll find another site for news; it's a shame cause I've grown to like the community.

I mean it's ***** to steal their work there, but you're also complaining that someone stole your software that at its heart is being used to pirate tons of GBA games. I'm sure some people strictly play only backups with such emulators, but we all know the vast amount of people are using emulators for piracy.

So with that in mind, there is only so much sympathy I can feel for you before I recognize that the software you're so protective of isn't exactly innocent in all of this either.

Nintendo are so low nowadays.

"Nintendo Accused Of Allowing "Pirated Software On The eShop" By GBA Emulator Developer"
Nothing clickbaity about the title. It's completely factual. The dev of mGBA is has called out Nintendo for allowing a game that allegedly infringes on his copyright to stay up on the eShop.
People will decry piracy in all its forms without even a bit of nuance but it is much worse for a corporation to steal the work of an individual without even giving credit as required in the license.

@duffmmann Fun fact, Sony tried to sue devs over Playstation emulators. However it was deemed legal and good for the market. The key thing is if the emulator uses copy written code. Which most don't do, also that is a back handed stance to take when devs who make offical games use emulators in their dev process.

I can understand the author being upset, but the blame is a little misdirected.
Why would you send a message to Nintendo of America to complain about a Japanese release? And why is Nintendo responsible for the legalities of a third-party release?
You'd have to make a complaint to Nintendo of Japan.

@MaxiPareja It’s not within the scope of lotcheck to verify if the publisher appropriately credited code in the game. Lotcheck only checks to see it the game runs according to the standards Nintendo says it should run at.

I’m guessing Imagineer wasn’t aware that the dev they hired to code the emulation just reused mgba. Or misunderstood that there was an issue with doing that.

Maybe NOA will inform NCL to pull it until updated, but I’m not confident NCL will listen. Imagineer should update it, and pull the payment to the guy to “ported” it.

@duffmmann Blaming emulator authors for piracy is like blaming blank disc producers for software/movie/music piracy.
Despite what Nintendo's biased legal page says, there are legitimate reasons to use emulators. I use it to play games I actually own and dumped the ROMs from my own carts. Screenshot/video creation. Savestates (did you know "Restore Points" existed before Nintendo started putting them in newer digital releases?). Not having to worry about power issues in both of my SPs. Convenience of not digging through my box of carts.

@Arehexes don't get me wrong, I'm not here proclaiming emulators are (or even should be) illegal. I'm just saying it's hard for me to feel sympathy when the product you're mad has been stolen has been used countless times by countless people to play (for lack of a better word) stolen video games. There are no saints in this scenario, both parties have metaphorical blood on their hands if you ask me.

Send a patch update to properly attribute and credit the Open source software. Problem solved.

It's Japanese estore only, so if you have a Japanese account, download it now before they pull it from the store.

@KingMike like I said, I'm aware people use emulators legitimately for backups, but we all know the vast majority of downloads of the emulator are being used to play pirated games. And again I'm not saying emulators are or should be illegal, just that we all know what they really are used for by the vast amount of people grabbing such emulators.

Well, well, well, what do we have here, Nintendo, being hypocritical,

"Hey lets take down a F*** Peach P**N game, and lets get rid of this bowser model with a D***" Then proceeds to use a emu and doesn't even credit, Nintendo, Nintendo, Nintendo. (But we all still love you (Kinda) LOL JK)

Edit: So I hear nintendo isn't the main reason this is happening, so before you go and start typing "The blame isn't all on nintendo" I know already, and I made this as a joke with some of my opinion's mixed in.

That emulator was terrible anyways, VisualBoyAdvance is still the best GBA emulator out there. Also those Medabot games are just shovelware, I'm sure Imagineer could just re-release those with a different emulator or if they made their money they probably wouldn't bother with those again anyways.

Nintendolife seriously put affiliate links to this game in the article, so they could also profit off of stolen work. Cmon guys, you’re better than this. @damo

@MaxiPareja That... isn't what QA is.

@Damo Nintendo should take it down in the meantime if there's a recorded dispute but I don't understand why they're being blamed, or even how the person accusing them has a point in calling Nintendo out. It's not their responsibility to check if a game published to a third party is credited correctly, or using a pirated emulator.

If Nintendo pirated the stuff (if that's true) then its not new: It was also said that Nintendo just took illegal rom's from games and dumped them on the Wii u e-shop. Suspicious to say the least.

@Damo Now can you remove the affiliate links until the emulation author is credited?

@Henmii Nintendo owns all code of said ROMs so its the same thing as stealing someone elses software.

@Damo awesome! Thanks for turning up the journalist integrity. I love this site even more now

Yeah nevermind. The developer has every right to complain that his code was used without credit. These are GBA games that are over a decade old we're talking about here. If anything the devs of these GBA games are stealing from themselves by not putting them on the eShop already.

If the emulator freely allows for commercial use, and the only thing that makes this "pirated" is the lack of credits, then that sounds like 1) something that is easily overlooked when trying to develop your own software, and 2) something that could easily be resolved by calmly talking to the concerned parties, and 3) this guy is WAY overreacting and being a drama queen. Shouting "pirated pirated pirated" over something that is already free and open source, is kinda douchy.

@GameCollector84 Not quite. He wrote the code and made it available, one can't control what the masses using it will do.

The fact is a large corporation, flooded with money, stole and packaged the emulator and are profitting on it. Let's not forget Sonic Mania was a fan project and Sega hired the team to make it a fully fledged official release.

It says for commercial use to contact, how difficult would that be?

To all the people crying “clickbait,” please read the article. The screenshot of the tweets are showing that the developer of mgba is accusing Nintendo of the error, so the author of the article is stating something factual, and is not clickbaiting.

@Damo heh, I appreciated it last time but it can't become the norm now.
If it happens from time to time fine, but you can't expect to put out trashy clickbait and only ever retract if and when the readers complain; it's like having your cake and eating it too.
Wanna put out clickbait? It's not a problem, at least be upfront about it, don't make it look like it's a whoopsie every single time.

I mean, in this case it was the matter of a screenshot, we're not talking having to trim down a 1000-word article. All that was needed to give context was that one screenshot.

And lastly, the fact that I easily took the whole accusation thing as a fabrication on your part (before ypu added the screenshot) should tell you enough about how trustworthy and "stretchy" the site has become.

@GameCollector84 No, it’s a big deal in software distribution to credit the coder, even when using open source code. Mgba doesn’t steal ROMs, it simply plays them. The programs used to dump a ROM are not the same thing as something that emulates system hardware.

@BloodNinja yes that's true but I think the issue is that Nintendo is the focus of the headline, rather than actual story being that the developers of this game used a pirated emulator and not having anything to do with Nintendo at all (other than being on its system)

So in that respect I think that yes, this is clickbait because it's the most minor part of the whole story being used as a headline to draw you in.

@Yorumi

Yeah nevermind. The developer has every right to complain that his code was used without credit.

@clvr Why are you jumping down this guys throat? Let him do his job. You aren’t his boss. You know what I do when I see an article on this site that I don’t like? I scroll to the next article.

@doodlewhizz When I read the article, the developers were pretty much the main topic. They are even mentioned in the first sentence of the article, and are talked about for the first two paragraphs of a 4 paragraph piece.

This is slightly less about "Nintendo allowing pirated software on eShop" and more about devs not paying each other the necessary respect. :-/

@BloodNinja Exactly, so why is the headline about Nintendo? The main story is about the developers using pirated software, with the Nintendo part being a footnote, so the headline focus is a weird choice to make, even with the tweet from the emulator's creator (which itself is part of a longer chain where they initially call out the devs).

@doodlewhizz Why are you asking me, when the answer to your question is in a giant screenshot in the article? The mgba dev is doing exactly what the headline states: he accused Nintendo of shipping his emu without giving him credit. And rightfully so, Nintendo needs some QA on their eShop, pronto.

@BloodNinja I'm saying it's clickbait to draw people in because it's not the main part of the story. It's a cherry picked tweet from a bigger story that the actual article is about. It may have a nice big screenshot of the accusation but the article itself barely speaks about it being Nintendo's problem, because the actual story is about a third party publisher - but I guess that wouldn't bring in as many clicks.

Also people need to stop using QA when they don't know what the term means or what it actually consists of. This is not a Nintendo problem and it's not something that they (or any company who QAs content which goes on sale on their digital storefront) would check in that process. The person writing this article (if they were well informed) should also understand this if they knew anything about what they were writing and in an ideal world would disregard the accusation as a non-story but I guess we'll just have to deal with that aspect.

@MaxiPareja It's not Q&A's job to check if developers adhere to their contracts.

A game's quality isn't defined by names in the credits getting left out. It just defines the quality of the company, which in this case is poor.

@doodlewhizz verifying that content being sold on your platform isn’t pirated.. isn’t quality assurance? Interesting logic

@BloodNinja Nintendo has no obligation to this person unless the emulator was patented, which I doubt it is.

@MaxiPareja It's not part of QA testing, no

@doodlewhizz The first two paragraphs of the article are focused on mgba dev and Imagineer. It’s only a 4 paragraph piece. If 50% of the article isn’t “main topic” enough then I don’t know what to say, mate! Nintendo needs quality assurance for their eShop, in the form of curation. I think everybody knows what we mean when we say QA.

Another annoying click bait article from Nintendo life I was going too say you can too better, if anything it's getting worse and worse with a lot of articles nothing but click bait.

But Nintendo need to remove this from the store until sorted

@LzWinky They do have an obligation, and if they looked into it more deeply they would know that. Crediting coders is super basic practice, so for a big company to miss something like that is actually a big deal. They don’t owe monetary damages, obviously, but they do owe credit. It’s software basics.

@duffmmann Just because someone's software is used for a nefarious purpose doesn't necessarily mean it's their fault it's being used that way. Put on your thinking cap before speaking please.

@BloodNinja 6 paragraph piece, one sentence about the creator accusing Nintendo and that's it. Might want to read the article first. So why is it the headline when 95% of the article isn't about that?

If you meant curation, say curation (which still wouldn't catch this specific issue anyway). QA in the gaming space is a completely different thing.

@LN3000 "Free to use" =/= "Free of credit"

See Creative Common Copyrights

@GameCollector84 You have no way of proving people en masse use it just for stealing software. By any stretch, and on top of that, have no real evidence of stuff. Are you just a lunatic or what?

@BloodNinja And if Nintendo says no, then what? It's essentially an honors system.

I know it's an easy fix, but this is a huge fuss over an emulator.

@BloodNinja I'm not his boss and you're not his bodyguard, I think he's more than capable of fending for himself 😛

Btw I simply voiced my disappointment as a visitor of the site, is that not allowed? If it isn't, it still isn't your job to put me in my place, there are the mods for that.

If you don't know the context, don't jump to conclusions: I had a similar conversation with Damien just a couple days ago, on an article where I and a lot more pointed out the clickbaity title.
Damien kindly replied owning his mistake, and we're all good.

Thing is, if a few days later the same happens again, am I giving him grief for nothing or am I justified in feeling a bit led by the nose?
Am I not allowed to voice dissatisfaction just because you say so?
Is it not fair for me to want this site to keep a high quality standard as it has pretty much always done?
I'd get it if I insulted anyone, but I'm not even angry or whatever, just disappointed.
If your solution is "shut up and take it lying down", good for you, but I don't do that for things I care about.

So, a guy complains at a company for using his emulator of that company's hardware. I'll sit this one out, it hurts my brain haha. But yeah, I think the oversight (I'll be generous) is on Imagineer's part, not Nintendos. I'm sure a credit wouldn't have done any harm Imagineer. Credit where it's due. Especially as the dude is allowing it for free use!

@doodlewhizz Whoops, minor typo (I know SUPER big deal) but no the main topic of the article is about mgba dev vs imagineer, with the screenshot pointing out the accusation. The article even points out that Imagineer’s oversight is baffling in paragraph 3. Please read the darned thing, ok? LOL

Nintendo can't possibly check if every single line of code of a software sold on their platforms is legit or not...so Nintendo doesn't allow anything, they are just an intermediary between who publish the software and the final users (us). If I publish that uses for example stolen assets it's not Nintendo's duty to check for them.

@BloodNinja So to go back to my original point why is the accusation of Nintendo the headline when 95% of the article isn't about that, if not to draw people in to get clicks?

+1 for not a fan of the headline, that’s not the story here.

@doodlewhizz Mgba dev specifically called out Nintendo, as stated in the tweet. Clickbait is usually a stretch of the truth, but in this case, it’s exactly what happened. Is mgba dev justified? That’s not the job of the headline to figure out.

@doodlewhizz

Exactly pretty sure it wasn't a typo, unless you do zero proof reading but more likely you didn't expect people to be so vocal about it.

@nessisonett Well, to be fair, it's not Nintendo Life's fault that endrift accused Nintendo. They literally did tweet it as if Nintendo was at fault at first. Endrift isn't mentioning the developer of the software, just that Nintendo is "shipping" it.

While it's obvious who is actually at fault, the article is representing the accusation accurately.

@BowtieShyGuy Thanks for completely ignoring the part where I say "if there's a problem they should have tried calmly reaching out to the developer, as it is surely something that can be easily overlooked"

@MegaVel91
Yeah nevermind. The developer has every right to complain that his code was used without credit.

@BloodNinja Something doesn't have to be false to be bait. The headline choice seems intentional so as to draw people to an article about a topic where Nintendo has history of being relentlessly opposed to when in fact the blame obviously lies elsewhere as can be understood by anyone with even a modicum of sense or understanding of the industry.

All this notwithstanding the fact that it's an accusation that the article barely even mentions outside of one sentence in six paragraphs and one tweet in a screengrab of five, so the headline badly represents what the article is about anyway.

@doodlewhizz Amazing how it's solved by simply reading the article. Please let this rest, you're just not in the right, here.

@Yorumi

Yeah nevermind. The developer has every right to complain that his code was used without credit.

@LzWinky It's not our job to judge the severity of another person's work. It's very simple, in coding. Someone writes something and asks for credit, they should be credited. It's very basic practice, very cut and dry.

@clvr Based on your response, you're taking small things and making them extreme. I can't really cooperate with that. It's just an article, so the "take things while lying down" thing is being severely misused. Mgba dev specifically called out Nintendo. The headline states that, and the body of the article goes on to show us how. This is literally just stating facts, and isn't clickbait in the slightest. You JUST said that clickbait can be factual. That goes against what clickbait usually does, which either stretches or hides the truth (You won't BELIEVE number 10!) This article is literally stating facts that happened, and showed a screenshot of proof, to boot. "guy accuses Nintendo of something, here's a screenshot." Sorry, I'm not with you on this, mate! I mean, a clickbait article implies a bait and switch, like you read the headline and then got "tricked" by the article because of how misleading it was, but in this case it's stating literally what happened: mgba dev accused Nintendo of something. I scrolled down a little and read, oh wow! They did accuse Nintendo. It all lined up, so it's not a clickbait.

@GameCollector84 Emulators don't steal ROMs. Emulators are legal, and are used for simulating hardware. ROM dumpers are separate programs, and THOSE are the things that "steal" ROMs. Just want to clarify, 'cause your argument is a little off base. An emulator cannot steal a ROM, unless it's been programmed to do so, and most of the commonly used ones do not have that functionality. mGBA is NOT a ROM dumper, to my knowledge.

@BloodNinja The intent of the headline is obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense.

As I understand it the problem isn't that Imaginary used the mGBA sourcecode in their game and then put it on the eshop. That was allowed in the EULA.

The problem is they knowingly removed the creator's name from the source code and didn't mention it in the credits either.

So basically it's like using a free game engine and then not credit the engine maker at all?

@Piyo the collection of those games are available only in Japan, though...I don't think the same laws apply there. Anyway, the developer of the GBA emulator could probably have that collection taken off the eShop, but not much more (in other words can't ask for damages to Nintendo...)

@doodlewhizz I don't blindly judge intent without asking the person for clarification. That's called assumption, and it's not good practice.

@Zimon Nailed it

@BloodNinja As I said, any person writing about games should know that the accusation is silly and that Nintendo aren't allowing it as far as they didn't know anything about it in the first place before it was highlighted. The accusation barely even warrants a mention in the article, let alone the headline

To make it the focus by putting it as the headline and distracting from the actual story is either foolish or entirely planned and I'm loathe to call anyone a fool for no good reason.

@doodlewhizz Come back when you've actually read the body of the article, you're just making stuff up to be negative at this point!

@Yorumi Nintendo doesn't have nor the right, nor the duty, to check if all the code used in a product on the eShop is legit or not.

@BloodNinja What am I making up here? The actual story here is that a developer is probably using pirate software to run their game. Why isn't the game, publisher responsible or the creator of the original software mentioned in the headline? Why is the focus on Nintendo and the accusation that they're allowing pirated software on the store, when at the time of the tweet they likely weren't even aware of the issue as it had't been reported. That's not 'allowing' anything, that's just not knowing there's a problem.

Not to mention in all of this that I don't think the tweet in question is probably all that serious in tone when it comes to blaming Nintendo...

Emulators in themselves are not illegal in any way. In this specific case, mGBA is available free of charge to anyone under the MPL 2.0 license. This means anyone, including gaming companies, to simplify a bit, can use and distribute it, even for commercial purposes, as long as the authors are credited and the source and any modification to it are made available.

In this case, Imagineer has apparently distributed (and maybe modified) mGBA without making any mention of it, which is totally an infringement on endrift's copyright. She would be completely justified in requesting that Imagineer stops selling and distributing the games, changes them to respect the license, or failing that, sue them and ask for damages.

By distributing their collection this way, Imagineer is breaching endrift's copyright (this does not have anything to do with patents). Imagineer being a japanese company doesn't change much of anything in this respect, as Japan's copyright laws are very similar to most of the world's.

As for endrift reaching out to Nintendo of America rather than Nintendo of Japan or Imagineer themselves, I guess she might have tried reaching out to the latter two already, but aside from actually starting legal action, I doubt she'd get much attention from Imagineer unless she got the attention of another interlocutor such as NoA first, so that totally makes sense to me.

@Yorumi how the hell they are supposed to check every single line of code in every software published?? Also, if I sell Stolen goods on eBay, nobody checks before if they are stolen or not.

@BloodNinja 1) "the "take things while lying down" thing is being severely misused."
Sorry for not being native, I guess?

2) the screenshot wasn't there initially, giving us readers no way to know that Nintendo was being accused by anyone.
Damo says just as much in his reply, so again, if you don't know the context don't jump to conclusions.

3) funny how I'm "jumping at Damien's throat" for asking him to embed a screenshot necessary to get the context, but it's okay for you to treat me as if I was insulting him pr something.
I simply expressed my dissatisfaction at the choice to muddy the waters and present incomplete information, that's all.

4) your telling me how bad I am for expecting some quality in NL's reporting has been going on for longer than my complaint to Damien. Pot, kettle, and all that.

@Slowdive Oh I get that mate. Just wondering who is at fault here. Imagineer or Nintendo. Wouldn't cross my mind to think 'Oh, better check it's credited' before ok'ing it. But probably would if I was using it for a game. No arguement from me for thinking it's bad form to not credit someone. But he seems to take umbrage with Nintendo...and I'm not convinced it's their fault is all. Who actually removed the credit? Was that Nintendo?

@nessisonett The title of the article’s not technically click bait, because the accuser did accuse Nintendo.

EDIT: Just read some other comments, so never mind.

The certification process only checks to see whether the game software can critically compromise the functionality of the Switch hardware itself, not whether game code has been properly credited, so I don't see how this is Nintendo's fault beyond the game in question being on a Nintendo platform.

Damn, that's downright scummy. Nintendo doesn't want us emulating or playing ROMs yet they allow the sale of pirated emulators and ROMs found on the internet. Double standards much? Definitely don't feel guilty for ever emulating games. Companies are greedy and scummy and will steal and resell you things you should be getting for free

@Yorumi

Sorry, you are right. After all these are GBA games we're talking about. They are over a decade old. The author of the emulator has every right to complain.

@BloodNinja True. Emulators can't steal ROMs.

@Yorumi Nintendo has only one duty, which is to take down a software from the eShop if it violates some copyright laws, but it needs EVIDENCE, a tweet (even from the developer) is not enough!!

I like how I made a comment about people raging about emulators and generally making fools of themselves over something they don't understand, then lo and behold, several such people show up and start making the exact arguments I described. Thank you for proving my point.

@Yorumi Do people just not understand what QA is in relation to uploading a game to a platform store? It's just a basic check to amke sure the game runs (not poorly or well, just runs) and that the game doesn't cause any hardware issues, it has nothing to do with the content of the game. This goes for all platforms.

On the submissions side, adding that kind of question would be smart move but they still can't check the code, and I'd be willing to bet there'd developers and publishers who would still lie on those forms.

The creator of the emulator here seems to have submitted documentation to Nintendo America so hopefully it'll get the ball rolling (although it's the Japan store so may take some time to get to the right people) and if there's a case I'd expect to see it removed from the store pending an investigation. If nothing happens in the next week then I think criticism of Nintendo's position would be valid (although even then, we can't see the documentation or evidence so it still wouldn't be a clear cut case)

Three things pointed out by another commenter on Twitter

you can't pirate an iNES header

• common bad dumps from the web haven't been found in Virtual Console
• nintendo have extensive internal NES archives, as evidenced by filenames in 3DS virtual console + the 2020 nintendo leaks

@Yorumi
If I sell stolen goods on a platform it's my responsability (except some cases) period. Is it too difficult to understand?

Just want to make 2 points about this article;

1) I don't know how many of y'all have been on the internet, but most of it is run by algorithms now. And for search engines, and I'm really, REALLY, simplifying this, the biggest factors are essentially tiers and filters. Imagineer, a company that most won't know or have forgotten about, low tier. Very low tier. Nintendo on the other hand, global giant that they are, highest tier. If you want traffic to your site, especially from search results, mentioning Nintendo will do infinitely more than mentioning Imagineer. And, we'll revisit this point in a second cause

2) If you don't let people know there's a problem, how is it supposed to be fixed. If my computer just bursts into flames, I'm not going to go "Why can't I do my spreadsheets?" I'm going to the boss and telling them, "Hey boss? My computer was ON FIRE!" Cause I'll put it out of course. But until you let the people who can fix the problem know, the problem won't be fixed. Very simple. Which on my first point I was going to say, someone pointed out how the title seemed like "click-bait" because there was no direct reference to the information of the title. Now there's a picture and the tweets are viewable. By letting them know here, they fixed it. So the person who made the emulator is letting people know their stuff was stolen so the problem gets rectified. And reporting it to Nintendo is the smartest move they could make. They are informing them so they can hopefully change things from the top down, that way it doesn't happen again.

Finally, I hope to see an update to this article to see how things progress. This is fascinating to me and I want to see how it resolves.

@Yorumi I don't think you understand how mammoth the task of checking this would be. They'd need to first check the code (something that isn't exactly brief), understand it and then check it against every known piece of software (of which there are, to put it mildly, a lot) to ensure it doesn't match at all. And now multiply that by the sheer volume of games that release on the eshop any given week.

I also don't think it's a deflection to point out that platform QA does not work like that in the industry and never has. And if Nintendo weren't aware of it no, there isn't a hypocrisy in having hosted it, even while simultaneously going after ROM sites (which did so knowingly)

The blame for all of this lies on the original developers (and publishers, as the responsibility for releasing the product ultimately stops there), but thanks to articles like this the focus is divertd and they're the ones sliding casually away and barely being mentioned or called out about it at all.

Saw the aricle headline and thought "this comments section will be fun" and it is!

Regarding the article, Imagineer just credit the creator ffs.

@LzWinky Its not an honor system and you dont need a patent. Computer code is protected by copyright laws.

“ In the context of software, a copyright could protect source code, object code and user interfaces. A copyright is obtained automatically at the time the expression is created, such as when the source code is written, when the user interface is created, or when the program is compiled.”

And yes open source software with EULA is definitely protected and enforceable.

It is helpful to everyone if you don’t chime in unless you actually have valid information. Stating your guesses on a public platform just leads to others carrying that misinformation forward elsewhere.

If Nintendo doesn’t respond and remove the game until the issues are resolved, the emulation author does have the legal ability to make a court case, and one that can be won. However this is unlikely due to the upfront costs.

I read the article and I read the comments and now I'm no longer interested.

@Yorumi At a level less forensic than diving through a game's code, sure, but even then onus lies with the developer and publisher.

There are many licensing deals which may be in effect which Nintendo wouldn't necessarily know about, but I'm sure if say a Nathan Drake game which used names and trademarks in its submission materials, alarm bells would ring and they wouldn't just let it be released on the store.

Sure, bring it to Nintendo’s attention. I’m sure they’ll happily remove it from the eshop. But if this person is seriously upset about the use of their emulator used to play someone else’s game (geez, this “two-way street”), it sounds like they should be taking it up with Imagineer, not Nintendo. But I guess they could get a snowball effect happening.

@Yorumi You said Nintendo in general, not QA. The platform QA team wouldn't be looking for those things - they test to see if the game runs and whether it has an adverse effect on the hardware. Any issues that don't require forensic examination which violate copyright would be picked up in the submissions process.

Side note, folks: I see a lot of references to the developer as "he" in the comments, when in fact they are "she" or "they". Please respect a person's pronouns.

Carry on.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi I don't know about mGBA, but especially the original VBA is NOT the best emulator. It can't record video (a pretty standard feature these days) without MULTIPLE seconds of audio desync. Worse than any I've ever seen. Just one example.

Before anyone says anything to the contrary: Emulators are enitrely legal--emulators are not the same thing as pirated games--so the people that make them should be afforded exactly the same copyright protection as a massive multi-billion dollar corporation like Nintendo is. And since many of you will defend Nintendo to the death when you believe its copyright has been infringed, you should be doing exactly the same for the person who made the mGBA emulator, or else you are a total and utter Nintendo fanboy hypocrite.

The eshop is the wild west

It's always great to see how many people in this community will bend over backwards to protect poor little Nintendo.

What would we do without them?

Also the eShop belongs to Nintendo. I'm not sure how deluded you have to be to give Nintendo a blank check for everything ever but you guys are there.

The issue may stem from Earlier than Switch. medabots got a Wii U release on eshop too, so if that emulation was used, that might be why credits have been scrubbed, as it will have had a tweak to run on Wii U. They'll have then had to tweak it back for Switch. Definitely isn't right though if it definitely "is" based on the free one.

@Wolfgabe and my personal favorite: why would they keep unreleased games like DK OE, Drill Dozer multi-lang, Star Fox 2, but not have flippin' Super Mario Bros.?

Honestly, with the number of crap that we saw get passed onto the eShop behind Nintendo's backs (NSFW horror game, game with Zelda music, etc.), this comes as no surprise. Nintendo has given too much freedom on the eShop to the point where we hit scummy corporate practices like this.

@FargusPelagius It's highly unlikely, the Wii U releases are a part of the Virtual Console service, these use the same emulator for its base platform, in this case it was developed by M2. VC releases are done by the VC team almost (if not completely) exclusively.

In an Iwata Asks they talk about the process on 3DS VC for Game Boy, they pretty much confirm doing it all by themselves.

@nessisonett Clearly you don't read any of the comments from other people on all of these articles you comment on, because the masses who criticize Nintendo at every opportunity are most definitely not imaginary. But the fact that you found a way to play to them means that you already know that.

@SNEED What is that flag from?

@nessisonett All they had to do was properly credit her*

@Seega_meega_drive Fixed 😅

@BloodNinja It’s the transgender flag, endrift is trans. Which means the user in question is an outright transphobe.

It's a curious thing.
Looking at the credits in the game, development is credited to a company named "A&S", which turns out to be an agency named "Art and Strategy" in full. They seem to be some tiny web design firm connecting worldwide developers with Japanese clients. There's only one programmer credit, a name that's not even listed in Japanese, but in Russian.

So as I believe the emulator dev mentioned in an early tweet, it could be the fault of the random Russian guy the web design firm hired...

I like how there is a double standard.

So scummy zibba was right and if not, cornmeal dome

@nessisonett Oh dear.

@nessisonett they don’t have to do anything really. It’s free to use which means it’s free to alter as well.

Sounds like they are screwed to me. It’s freeware which means they have no right to cry about it at all.

@bluesun it’s freeware so she doesn’t have to be accredited.

Oh dear, not good. Not illegal perhaps, but not good.

@Dirty0814 it's under the MPL-2.0, this means endrift allows people (including companies) to use it and redistribute it free of charge (even for commercial purposes) as long as some conditions are respected, those conditions are, to put it simply, to properly credit the authors and to make the source code (of the emulator, not the emulated games) available along with any modification they might have done. It doesn't look like Imagineer did any of those things.

Stole??? More like took back. Sorry, whine all you want but emulation or not is still Nintendo's. I'm glad that this happen it will discourage pirates and thieves from taking or working on IPs or projects that original didn't belong to them. Work as hard as you want on something that didn't original belong to you it still won't make it yours, glad Nintendo has ways of showing this message, just don't miss with Nintendo, they don't play around, period. Besides is freeware, so yeah, you all may not like it but nothing bad happened here. =:3

Everyone who claims that it's not nintendo's fault should also admit that sites like thepiratebay were never responsible for anything - they didn't publish pirated content, just hosted it.

@lexiestence There's a moral difference between knowingly and unknowingly hosting pirated content

@AlienX yeah so looks like whoever is involved in the Switch version used the freeware emulator as a shortcut. Probably the cheapest way, so creator should have a credit.
Totally misread your post at first, thinking M2 had also done "this" Switch emulation (and therefore used their base emulator for Wii U). Which would have made so much more sense from a publishing perspective as the work was already done for the Wii U release on a comparably powerful processor. It just needed a front end wrapper.

@doodlewhizz not knowing that you break law doesn't make any more legal.

@lexiestence As I said, moral difference.

@doodlewhizz morally speaking with how trigger happy nintendo is about DMCA strikes they are huge hypocrites by not doing the proper check of what they put on their storefront.

@lexiestence Oh god, not this again...

Already discussed this at length with someone else, not going to repeat myself.

@doodlewhizz oh god, not asking companies to do qa again.

@lexiestence Imagineer are in the wrong.

However I think when you make something open source and just hand it out for free, you can't really expect an unaffiliated store front to police it for you.

For every game submitted are they supposed to go through every single asset and line code with a fine tooth comb and then cross check online whether it exists somewhere else, then check whether the original source wants credit or not, then check whether there's a credit?

I'd imagine they'd have blocked the games if Imagineer had no rights to Medabots, but the level of depth of finding out whether an open source emulator is being used and whether the creator wants credit is not reasonable.

@duffmmann EXACTLY - the moral high ground here is a sand castle

@bluesun right and the reason the emu Dev doesn't just go after that Russian dude who snipped the credit out, is because emu Devs hate Nintendo for cracking down on pirate sites so this is a hissyfit type move to scream Nintendo's fault because after putting logic into a blender you can say this is the same exact thing Nintendo goes after.

Did this person copyright the code? Does this person live in a region where you have to get copyrights? Is it time to go to court? Otherwise this is all talk from a person without a case.

I ask because I had to go to court for an indie game stealing my art. Took 18 months.

Nintendo should credit her emulator for their future Nintendo Switch Online GBA function, and then hire her.

Just put the credits in. It's not that hard.

@Tim_Vreeland,

True, but wouldn't it be incredibly sad if Nintendo had nicked them from the internet? They could have taken them from their own vault.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi Nah, I have used both emulators and mGBA is better!

@Quix You are part of the problem!

Soooo on another note, can this person help get a Game Boy line Switch Online app made and games ported to it please?

... Wun can only hope.

Wouldn't buy those anyway, I have the full GBA library on my MiSTer. These games are all old enough to be fair game now. Games are art, make your money and move on, the art will always be shared.

@GamingDude800 What problem would that be exactly ???=:3

bit late, but an update: they've since been credited https://twitter.com/endrift/status/1406415350401421316

@DannyBoi fact is im a pro pirate in front of both Nintendo and sega and sony and Microsoft also. and there is nothing capcom sega Nintendo sony konami and Microsoft could do about it.