Nintendo, you need to stop suing fan games

Yet another Nintendo fan game has been shut down by the grim spectre of lawsuits. Kaze Emanuar, who is well known in the modding community, had been making a title called “the Missing Link”, using the same engine as Ocarina of Time. Now the game has been completely stripped from the internet after it was struck with a copyright claim from Nintendo.

“Nintendo has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work.” the company said in its legal complain to GitHub, who had been hosting the project.

Now, I can respect Nintendo wanting to protect their IPs. However, I don’t see what the problem is if the fan game a) doesn’t contain any obscene material, and b) isn’t being used to make money. While they are legally in the right, this just strikes me as them being petty. It hurts relations with fans, which is something a lot of cynical Western publishers seem to revel in, but I’d expect a higher standard from Big N.

This attitude is in sharp contrast to former industry rival Sega, who has not only allowed fan projects, but openly embraced them. Christian “Taxman” Whitehead for example originally started out making various Sonic fangames, before Sega took notice of his work and commissioned him to do a full on remake of Sonic CD using his “Retro Engine”. Whitehead would later go on to develop Sonic Mania, a wholly original title that was widely regarded as the best official Sonic game in decades. Heck, even makers of some of the more bizarre Sonic fan works have seen collaborations, if not employment, with Sega. Except the furries. Sonic fans don’t like to talk about the furries.

Fan projects have been a mainstay of geekdom as long as there’s been geekdom. You’re never going to kill them off. So if you can’t beat em, why not join them?

Of course, not all of them are going to be good, and some may indeed hurt the brand, there’s certainly a lot of talented people in various communities. Passionate people who can add a whole new spin on existing franchises. Frankly, that’s what a lot of those franchises need, badly. Nintendo should maybe try leaning on these people for fresh ideas instead of repeatedly harassing them with their legal goons. Who knows, maybe that’s where the next great game ideal will come from. And if not, well, at least let fans have some fun with the characters they love so much.

Source: Nintendo Life