What's more important? Shareholders or customers? In this modern age, it tends to be the former. The term "IP protection" gets bandied about, but the reason it exists is that shareholders see their share value in IP. Companies have to placate shareholders, lest they lose them...
@kosteraku Doc never made a cent off of AM2R. The donations button at the bottom of forum pages donates to the actual forum site hosting his forums. And Nintendo had no reason to take the game down, which they knew. That's why they let him release it before they issued the DMCA.
And THAT is why I hate Nintendo. I can acknowledge its importance to the gaming industry, I can acknowledge their history and their ideals, I can even understand why so many people like them. But for me, they're shit tier.
@Ein Mugen Tenshin: That costs money, and won't necessarily make money. Sure, to us consumers it seems incredibly obvious that it would, but big companies will almost always play it safe if they didn't make it themselves.
Guys, once more, the "Copyright must be actively protected" thing is a MYTH; you're thinking of Trademarks, which are different. Have an informative link:
www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopping-internet-plagiarism/your-copyrights-online/3-copyright-myths
One thing I don't get is why they don't just "buy out" the fan developers as freelancers if the work is good enough and release it under an indie banner. Especially for 2D scrollers and "simple games".
so, the guy was basically trying to make "his own" metroid and the guys who actually made metroid didn't like the idea of having someone using their IP in a way they don't like, and now those guys are the bad guys... Nintendo is not evil, it's just a company keeping their IP in control
I never was big into metroid. Never cared a whole lot of 2D platformers with a few exceptions (Rochard!!!) And I totally got lost on the first level (the first one after the tutorial) and never cared enough to really dive in. :S
@Tyler Wang: It gets worse: they just today (I believe) told Archive.org to remove the Nintendo Power magazines they'd put up for posterity... I mean I love Nintendo as a fanboy as Mario and Link pretty much raised me, but a lot of their stuff off screen has been really disappointing.
@TheMiscGamer: The remake is amazing. Better visuals, better controls, higher resolution (obviously compared to the gameboy), and even some original content. All it needs is some extra polish/bug-fixing and it will be almost perfect.
@TheMiscGamer: still a dick move on nintendo's part. Once again black mesa source. Most people who played it would consider it superior to the original half life 1, yet valve did not become butthurt little shits and force the BMS team to remove their game. Nothing about what nintendo did is...
@KabutoYuushaZX: What they care about is the fact that THEY made it. It's one thing to see a completely new game paying homage to your creation, it's another to have some random person declare that their version of your creation is superior to the original.
The game is already out anyway. It's in torrents, there's simply no stopping it anymore. All this does is send a clear "fuck you" message to the fans while the game remains out there no problem.
And the game itself is also fantastic, easily on the level of Zero Mission/Super.
@Zero: Indeed, i don't see why the hell do these companies feel like they MUST prevent all of those fan made games to come to pass... Honestly, don't they know how to treat their community? You gotta support them, not to be so strict... specially in this case, since it's an old game.
The problem is that most NES games aren't worth paying for anymore. Value depreciates over time, and gaming has evolved. Old NES classics are rough and honestly kind of bad when compared to the more refined sequels they spawned. NES games are important, sure, but more for the foundation they laid
You lost what little credibility you had left as soon as you began to defend Nintendo. I don't care if it infringes or not, it was still a massive dick move on their part. They stopped giving a shit about the franchise, so what do they care about a non-profit fan remake?
Hear me out: Nintendo isn't in the wrong because the fan game being "better" is completely subjective. Other M sucked for some, but that doesn't mean the fan one is better. Some groups let fans try to compete, but saying the fan game is inherently better is just arrogant and insulting to Nintendo.
@Rolan7 Parody games and the like are a bit of a different situation(Not certain if you're talking about copies or parodies, but I've mostly seen parody games). As the name suggests for AM2R, however, it's a remake of a game. I haven't studied copyright law, but it might be close enough.
You say it "was" a fan game.
But really, it still is.
Nintendo didn't make a move until AFTER the thing was already complete and out on a torrent.
The download links may be gone from the official site, but AM2R is never coming off of the internet now.
Anyone who hasn't tried to learn copyright law, especially in the last year or two, is just not going to understand. I don't blame Nintendo for this, but I'm still going to download it. I've been hungry for a Metroid title for years now (Fuck Other M), so I'm going to play the fuck out of this.
@Kyle Law: No, they fucking don't. Read up on the laws before making retarded proclamations. You CANNOT lose copyright simply because people infringed on it, that's trademarks and that's only in a handful of countries under special circumstances.
@Kyle Law: Well it can't be that simple, because there are several shitty Metroid flash games which never got taken down. Some even vaguely reproduced Metroid's mechanics. And yet Nintendo still owns Metroid...
Not gonna argue anything about metroid or copyright. just gonna say its well known nintendo are incredibly control freaks over theire IP, garnering a lot of bad press from content creators who get stifled by nintendo's lawyers
@Steven Morse: I came here to post exactly this, Under Copyright Law there is a certain time limit on once an infringement is made on the copyright that the copyright holder must take action upon them, and if they dont take action within that time limit, they risk the copyright becoming publicdomain
Fuck Nintendo. They haven't learned a damn thing about community relations in all these years, and probably never will. And Metroid Fusion is diamonds compared to Other M.
Flavio Hernández
over 8 years ago
Metroid Fusion is a sequel to Metroid Other M...
Steven Morse
over 8 years ago
It's important to know that under US copyright law, you can lose exclusive access to Intellectual Property (IP), like the setting and characters of the Metroid universe, if you do not both use and defend them. If Nintendo allowed fan projects to go on unchallenge, the IP could become public domain.
Aheh, this is dark. You're right though Jo. Nintendo has every right to do this, but they really shouldn't. Metroid 2 is almost unplayably obtuse by modern standards, even with nostalgia, it desperately needs a remake because it's a really good concept and setting otherwise.
BAHAHAHAHAHA! They really think a takedown and some cease and desist will stop this? Please. Dude already said he was going to keep working on it in private. That means it will 'accidentally' find its way on pirate websites on a regular basis.
No business or government can control the internet.
It should be noted that a trademark can only really be lost in such a way if the term you trademark becomes generalized, and this is only true in a number of countries. Aspirin is still a trademarked product in Germany for example.
They have lost the right to the term "band-aid" because it is in wide use. Same for e.g. Aspirin. And @unbelievers like the c-c-combo breaker below me(oh look it's deleted now), have a link: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopping-internet-plagiarism/your-copyrights-online/3-copyright-myths/
What the myth is actually about is trademark. A band-aid was a product name of a specific "adhesive bandage" by a specific company. Other companies called their adhesive bandages band-aid as well, the owner didn't fight it. Then after years, they decided to fight someone on it. 2/3?
Education time!
The anecdote that you lose Copyright if you don't protect it is a myth. Copyright is simply something you have for X time, and it is quite literally, the right to copy. YOU decide who gets it. You infringe copyright by pirating things. 1/2?
... and BMS is pretty much like AM2R where they are taking the original game and updating it graphics wise. If it was as simple as you say to loose copyright, then why doesn't Valve shut down black mesa source? why doesn't Jagex shut down all those runescape psevers.
@What The Hell: I call bullshit on that. If that was the case and a company can loose their copy right, then what about Black Mesa source? What about all those runescape private servers? Why is it that other companies like jagex and Valve aren't issuing take downs of fan games?...
I'll be honest with you: I have never liked Metroid. Like the character, just never liked the games. Any of them. And I had the original Metroid 2 Gameboy edition. Got past first boss, didn't know where the hell to go after.
This could have been a lot worse. At least M64 was able to release a full version of the game. I do not want to know what kind of scars could be inflicted if Nintendo shut down the project days before its release. Imagine, 10 years of work down the drain brought on by the very company you look up to
Nintendo is very touchy about it's IPs in general. Just look at how they handle youtube videos. They have the right to control their IPs as they see fit, but the way in which Nintendo goes about it is ridiculous.
@What The Hell: And if the consequences of your own stupidity are insulting to you then fucking stop acting like a god damn moron and that problem resolves itself, rather than crying about people being meanies like a fucking toddler.
@What The Hell: For one, I don't proclaim untrue bullshit, for two I have no responsibility in educating you on your errors. You have a computer, you have internet, google basic trademark legislation and do your own damn reading you toolbag.
Just a few examples of why the sentiment is so retarded; if Nintendo had to shut down every peon infringing their trademark or lose it, a large group of people could individually challenge the trademark and Nintendo would not have the resources to sue everyone, making trademarks impossible to defend
No, 'a google user', Jo is correct. This is not s trademark issue, but rather entirely a copyright issue. Unlike trademarks, you don't risk losing your copyright by not strictly enforcing it.
It's not what we'd usually think of as copyright infringement (piracy), though, but more like plagiarism.
So fucking tired of people propagating this bullshit, it doesn't even make any kind of sense yet people will proclaim it as fact all the while knowing absolutely fuck all about law and it's workings... good grief.
No, you are in no way obliged to hunt down anyone who might infringe on your copyright or intellectual property or risk losing your rights, that sentiment is beyond absurd and one of the oldest and dumbest myths around, just fucking stop and educate yourselves.
@a google user: For fucks sake why do people like you comment on things like intellectual property when you have absolutely no clue how it works. There isn't even a hint of truth to that ridiculous claim of yours
There can be some issues with your rights on your products if someone that doesn't have that rights uses their names. It's not just Nintendo baned project just because they can. They can lose rights due to law if they not. The same shit happened with "free" vanilla WoW servers.
Sadly, it's not as simple as whether Nintendo wants to allow this or not. Copyright law is a frustrating thing. If they DON'T fight things like this, they actually risk losing their copyright for Metroid.
