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Nintendo DMCAs Project AM2R and 562 smaller fangames

Too late Nintendo haha, we're already playing it, and it's f**king awesome!

Like, seriously impressive. I have to stop and remember wow this is fan made sometimes, the amount of care put into everything shows it was made by true Metroid fans.

Something Nintendo seemingly know nothing about.
 

LordRaptor

Member
they made AMR2 from the ground up.

It's hardly a 'clean room design' implementation given its using actual assets, gameplay features and level design created by Nintendo.

At best it is a derivative work.

That would require them to have even an inkling of a clue as to what the Metroid fanbase wants.

What percentage of people downloading AM2R for free do you believe would go and buy a boxed copy for $40+ and the associated hardware required to play it?
 
Well, AM2R is a really good game and I greatly look forward to what DoctorM64 and his contributors do next. Since things like the Solarus Zelda games haven't received as much press coverage, I can only imagine that they're safe for now.

I am not sure Mother 4 will have this problem, actually. It will be huge in the press, yes, but aside from using the name and perhaps referencing some plot points, it's going to be all original. Nintendo has also never cared to try to take down the majority of romhacks or Tomato's translation work, e.g., for which it might have more legitimate claims than Mother 4, actually. In any case, I've read that the team has a plan if it happens, which likely would include some retooling and rebranding and they'd be good to go.

I mean, they did do that huge let's play romhacks takedown in the wake of the Super Mario Maker release, so I guess anything is possible. Nintendo has been quite unpredictable in their pursuits against fan-made stuff, likely based on ignorance about what is actually out there.
 

MUnited83

For you.
It's hardly a 'clean room design' implementation given its using actual assets, gameplay features and level design created by Nintendo.

At best it is a derivative work.



What percentage of people downloading AM2R for free do you believe would go and buy a boxed copy for $40+ and the associated hardware required to play it?
It doesnt really use that many assets aside from a couple of sprites, Nintendo doesnt own gameplay mechanics, and the game has original levels in addition to the remaked ones.


In answer to your sales question: it would handily outsell Federation Force by 10x easily, and thats a pessimistic estimate.
 

zelas

Member
Clearly there's man power and a will for people to create these projects, instead of handling this in an archaic fashion why not create a solution that can work for both sides? Something akin to what was done with that Mega Man/Street Fighter crossover or what SE(?) is doing by setting aside licenses for people to create with under their umbrella. Monetize and pay these people nothing. Stop a game from releasing if ultimately it doesnt meet your so called standards of quality. Make the games exclusive to your platforms and fill out your software gaps or mitigate damage games like Sticker Star or Federation Force do. Twist the terms in your favor however you like.

This feels like such a wasted oppurtunity that other platform holders will likely never have just because Nintendo doesnt think anyone can do what they have done.
 
You have literally no basis to assert that as a fact.
Based on the sales of other Metroids in Japan i would say 10x is a pretty reasonable guess compared to FF.
How am I being hypocritical? When did I say I dont like fan games? Im arguing for people keeping it underground and not being idiots putting it up everywhere, and also that once its taken down tough titties thats what was gonna happen from day 1. The creator of A2MR knew that the whole time, and even pleaded for people to stop hating on Nintendo.
Did the creators of the hundreds of other fan games that Nintendo went after also "put it around everywhere"? How secret are you meant to keep these can games while still making people aware that they exist? Anything outside of only sharing it on a private forum could make it back to someone at Nintendo. You're not hating on fan games you're just holding the creators to ridiculous standard to distract from the fact that legally correct or not Nintendo made a dick move that they didn't have to.
 

Metal B

Member
A filmmaker can't claim ownership of slow mo, dutch angles, or other filmmaking techniques. Gameplay, level design motifs, mechanics, and other game making techniques are similar.

Case in point, Stardew Valley is not a Harvest Moon game. It is inspired and iterates on gameplay concepts and ideas in Harvest Moon, but it is in no way a Harvest Moon game nor is it using Harvest Moon assets.
If this would be the case, then software patent would be under the same lens. Yes, there are many stupid ones from patent trolls, but also some great ones. If gameplay, level-design and mechanics, which there are many more possibilities then in movies, what is their still left, what makes games unique? Story, art and music isn't a exclusive element to games. You're argument is, that there is no exclusive authorship in games. This would be very sad ...

Stardew Valley are lucky, that Marvelous Inc. either don't care, don't mind or don't have any legal ground. There could also be some agreement in some backrooms. But there were cases of illegal copying game-play in the past.
And over all Nintendo is okay with ripping up their ideas and mechanics (not sure about level-design, but i can't remember if this ever happened in other games. It's mostly all or nothing). The problems is only in using their IP, their assets and getting popular.

Let's be clear, i am not against fan-games. They can be fun experiments from people or a clear passion of love (as well as cheap cash-ins). But fan-games can always be taken down, that the name of the game and everybody knows that. It is just the attitude of people, that everybody should be allowed to do anything and that the original creators are seen as assholes, if the have the NERVES to be against it. It's there decision.
We should be more pissed of, that Disney forced down the Mickey Mouse act on everybody, so that many IPs didn't became public domain. Which created a creative stagnation in many industries. Or that horrible patent system, which makes too much stuff
in modern technology unnecessary complicated. Instead of being pissed of on a company, having all the rights, but you just don't like it,
People still buy and play Resident Evil Director's Cut even though REmake is a thing that exists. Remakes never fully eliminate the appreciation for the original project, and in many cases they revitalize interest in it.
But this is was a decision from Capcom! There wasn't some person, simply making the decision for them without asking.
 

LordRaptor

Member
Based on the sales of other Metroids in Japan i would say 10x is a pretty reasonable guess compared to FF.

What percentage of AM2R downloads are from Japan only?
Any "X would definitely sell Y because I like Z" statements are inherently make-believe wishful thinking.
Looking at week 1 sales of FF in one single territory and then extrapolating that out to hypothetical worldwide sales of a completely different product is, well, I don't know how to say idiotic in a less confrontational or insulting way.

e:
It's also not relevant, because FFs existence isn't a "THIS OR AM2R!" decision. FFs existence has no bearing whatsoever on AM2Rs existence.
 
Talking about takedowns to come ... I think Rogue Dawn is a pretty big project that has some potential to blow up upon release. It's a romhack of NES Metroid, but it is also all new apart from the character and name. It's a completely different game from the original. I think that might give it the potential to gain some media traction through word of mouth even outside the usual romhacking/speedrunning circles.

The big difference to something like Skelux' Star Road (which is basically a fan-made sequel to Super Mario 64) is that the Metroid franchise is currently in the news anyway.

It's going to be interesting to behold. Pokémon Uranium blew up a bit and got taken down, but the vast majority of the hacks and games on Pokécommunity are completely fine. You'd think if Nintendo found out about Uranium, they might have found out about the huge homebrew community there, too, especially since there've been articles on Pokémon homebrew before. Or they really just don't care until it reaches the general public.

I wonder if Nintendo even has an actual enforcement policy that is not basically arbitrary.
 
Based on the sales of other Metroids in Japan i would say 10x is a pretty reasonable guess compared to FF.

In all fairness, a free game with good press on an omnipresent platform would garner you a LOT more downloads than it would a full priced hardware game. And I would think a lot of the downloads were more casual ones just to make sure they have it rather than play it.
 

Mivey

Member
Why should nintendo work with the guys, people give these fan made developers too much credit they just use nintendo gameplay engine. They couldn't make a good metroid game from the ground up to save their lives.
What is this even? AM2R has an incredible amount of original work, the separate areas are incredibly fleshed out in design and lore. Music is the only thing the game is derivative in, and good composers are hard to come by.
At this point I am not even sure Nintendo itself could pull of a proper 2D HD remake of any Metroid title. This guy (Milton "DoctorM64" Guasti ) spend 8 years on this, and the only real criticism are the focus on Metroid fights, which happen to be core focus of what Metroid 2 is.

As to everybody saying Nintendo "has" to do this, no they don't. They are not some special snowflakes for whom different rules apply. What they are doing here is dumb and stupid. In every regards. They could easily outsource new 2D Metroid games to any number of studios in a way that would make a huge return on investment. These are not billion dollar games. They won't because they are out of touch with their western audience. And that is a general Japanese game dev thing, not exclusive to Nintendo.
 

Zubz

Banned
I mean, GameJolt was set up so that fan games could make money for the creators. I can't be upset at that alone, even if innocent games were probably blindly taken down with the guilty However, this was just abysmal timing. Between the Direct offering even more games with "How do you come up with this without actively wanting to ruin the project" decisions like Mario Maker 3DS and a lack of news otherwise, this wouldn't've flown well either way, but the wounds from AM2R and Uranium still haven't healed. And seeing Federation Force's abysmal sales vs. the downloads for those 2 games, it's clear some of these fangames are doing a better job at making Nintendo games than Nintendo.

But the thing I'm really fucking annoyed about if how so many people here are discrediting the great work fans produce using owned IP. The Sonic community is famous for this and some of my favorite Sonic games (Before & After the Sequel) are FAN GAMES. Yet they stand tall next to the Genesis games to me.

Sonic Chrono Adventure is another great case, as it uses assets/music from other games but its core gameplay is an inventive take on Sonic gameplay (Metroidvannia Sonic).

I was going to talk about fan games with Retrospectives for the Sonic side of the series, but with how many people here dislike fan productions, why bother putting them here? When I get around to them, they won't be posted on Gaf.

I swear, this year really showed me how toxic his forum is.......see you all later.

Hey, I'd love a compilation of the best Sonic fangames. I know SEGA's not a shining example of not being awful about fan projects (At least we had a terrible, official Metroid to mock when they shut down AM2R; why get flustered over Streets of Rage Remake?), but the fact that Sonic Mania is heavily involved with the fan community with guys like Taxman, Christian Whitehead, and Tee Lopes on board shows they can acknowledge fans just want to improve upon their work, and that this talent can be used to improve upon their work for profit.

Unfortunately, SoRR's probably staying dead, but I doubt Nintendo's ever going to learn that lesson. They're too backwards as a game developer sometimes, and becoming the Video Game Disney means they're going to, well, act like Disney.
 

MUnited83

For you.
What percentage of AM2R downloads are from Japan only?
Any "X would definitely sell Y because I like Z" statements are inherently make-believe wishful thinking.
Looking at week 1 sales of FF in one single territory and then extrapolating that out to hypothetical worldwide sales of a completely different product is, well, I don't know how to say idiotic in a less confrontational or insulting way.

e:
It's also not relevant, because FFs existence isn't a "THIS OR AM2R!" decision. FFs existence has no bearing whatsoever on AM2Rs existence.
Its entirely relevant, since if they can greenlight a crappy spinoff no one wants and is going to sell lije shit, surely they could've worked with this dude and got a game that would have sold much better.
 

Chitown B

Member
All Nintendo does is insulate itself and crawl further up its own ass.


What was the latest version? I think I have 1.2.
 

Toxi

Banned
What percentage of people downloading AM2R for free do you believe would go and buy a boxed copy for $40+ and the associated hardware required to play it?
A much larger number of people than those who bought Federation Force for 40 dollars.

But go on, keep defending Nintendo's shitty business decisions.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Meanwhile, sega is giving a lecture next month at steam dev days about embracing fan generated content...

Valve held that lecture last time.
 
This is not how you inspire future generations of game designers.
Exactly. At best this sort of thing damages people's interest in creating fanworks for Nintendo's properties, at worst it creates a venomous relationship between Nintendo and its fans in general. It's such a zero-win game as to be ridiculous. To say nothing of fanworks sparking interest in official games - speaking personally, my first Mega Man game was a fanmade one, and I went on to buy literally the entire classic series.

There are few things more scummy that actively attacking fans who are willing to work 8 years for a free tribute to one of your franchises.

I'm just very worried for Pokemon Uranium and Mother 4, just like most people. The former because it's still pretty buggy and I'd love to see it improved, the latter because it has yet to be released, of course.
 
In all fairness, a free game with good press on an omnipresent platform would garner you a LOT more downloads than it would a full priced hardware game. And I would think a lot of the downloads were more casual ones just to make sure they have it rather than play it.

What percentage of AM2R downloads are from Japan only?
Any "X would definitely sell Y because I like Z" statements are inherently make-believe wishful thinking.
Looking at week 1 sales of FF in one single territory and then extrapolating that out to hypothetical worldwide sales of a completely different product is, well, I don't know how to say idiotic in a less confrontational or insulting way.

e:
It's also not relevant, because FFs existence isn't a "THIS OR AM2R!" decision. FFs existence has no bearing whatsoever on AM2Rs existence.
I never mentioned AM2R downloads. Look in the FF sales thread. 30-40k+ seems to be the normal range for first week sales of the series. ~10 times what FF did in a week. Considering how vastly negative the reaction to FF was and that it has been 12 years since the last 2D Metroid I don't think it's that out there to suggest that an official AM2R would do significantly better than a surefire bomba.
 

Kyzer

Banned
Kyzer, AM2R is copyright infringement but it is ultimately harmless for Nintendo. The reason the game exists is that Metroid 2 is extremely dated by modern standards. The audience for the game is either serious Metroid fans who either already own the game and want a better version or people who think Metroid 2 is dated enough that they don't want to buy the original version. Nintendo ultimately doesn't gain that much by going full bore against the game.



It really doesn't. It wouldn't surprise me if the sales for Metroid 2 on the eShop INCREASED based on the additional exposure that AM2R gave the game.

It's "harmless" (I dont think a court of law or Nintendo's lawyers would agree), but that has nothing to do with it.

They sent a cease and desist, and it took them months, even after it was on the worlds most prominent gaming sites and there was literally no way nintendo executives didnt know about it. Thats not "full bore". They gave it the softest slap on the wrist they could, legally.

*Raises hand*

Own both the VC and the original Gameboy version (though that one's lost somewhere).

Fucking Nintendo fanboys.

Are you fucking serious?

Sorry but Im not the fanboy, the people crying and calling people fanboys because a game they liked getting taken down are the fanboys. Open your eyes, Link.

you're the one who doesn't understand how it works lol

im gonna get my uncle at nintendo to sue you for infringing on the pokemon copyright

Do it.

Likening A2MR to using an avatar is straight up laughable. So. lol

Based on the sales of other Metroids in Japan i would say 10x is a pretty reasonable guess compared to FF.

Did the creators of the hundreds of other fan games that Nintendo went after also "put it around everywhere"? How secret are you meant to keep these can games while still making people aware that they exist? Anything outside of only sharing it on a private forum could make it back to someone at Nintendo. You're not hating on fan games you're just holding the creators to ridiculous standard to distract from the fact that legally correct or not Nintendo made a dick move that they didn't have to.

People are trying to peg me as disliking fan games, villainizing the developer, being a fanboy, and a bunch of other stupid shit. Im not. All for being on the other side of an argument about copyright infringement. And no, Im not holding the creators to any standard that hasn't existed for the past 20 years. These fan games have always existed. Remixes and copyright infringement and pokemon avatars are all over the internet. What about them? If you bring attention to it you increase your chances of facing legal consequences. If it makes it to someones desk they have to make a decision. Thats how it works. An unrealistic standard is saying fan games should be allowed to exist because theyre cool. Sorry for not being angry about something because I feel entitled to a product from a company?


"How secret are you meant to keep these can games while still making people aware that they exist?"

ALL THE WAY SECRET. You're not supposed to be doing it. Thats the whole point. It HAS to be kept secret because theyre illegal. Theyre passion projects that cant be kept private because people want to share it with others, but they are taking a risk when they do so.

I dont care how much you love the game, or I love the game, it could be a remake of my favorite Pokemon game ever. Just because its awesome and was made by an awesome guy and we have an awesome time playing it does not make it right.

What are you guys even trying to get me to understand? That I should be angry at Nintendo? That they coulda done something different and it woulda been cool? Thats not what the damn argument is about. A2MR is cool and it would be awesome if we could just be let to have it, but thats not how it worked out, and people being upset makes 100% sense, but if youre denying its illegality or pegging me as a fanboy because im not against Nintendo for this decision, then theres a lack of perspective IMO
 

Lynx_7

Member
I'm just very worried for Pokemon Uranium and Mother 4, just like most people. The former because it's still pretty buggy and I'd love to see it improved, the latter because it has yet to be released, of course.

Didn't the Mother 4 folks already say they'd simply change the title and remove all Mother references if they got a C&D? They built the game from the ground up and absolutely none of the assets belong to Nintendo, so I'm not too worried about that project.
I actually wish they'd do that already and just release it as an official product. If Undertale is any indication there's a considerable market for games like this on steam.
 

Anteo

Member
A remake of a metroid game has the potential to get good sales wiht or without the guy who made am2r but that would require Nintendo to have any interest on developing 2d metroid games and its clear they dont care about 2d metroid
 
You know, when a fan remade Sonic with a new engine and widescreen, SEGA hired the guy and released SEGA CD... then 1.. 2... And now the same guy is working on Sonic Mania.

If only Nintendo would want to make money. :")




A remake of a metroid game has the potential to get good sales wiht or without the guy who made am2r but that would require Nintendo to have any interest on developing 2d metroid games and its clear they dont care about 2d metroid



All they'd need to do is to hire M2. Remake Metroid 2 with ZM assets. Put in a collection ZM, Metroid 2, Super Metroid and Fusion with stereoscopic 3D on 3DS. Profit.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
But this is was a decision from Capcom! There wasn't some person, simply making the decision for them without asking.

This response is irrelevant to the point being discussed, which is whether or not AM2R is directly competing with the eShop version of Metroid 2. AM2R being fan-made rather than official does not make it more of a replacement than if it was an official remake. You're making a different argument entirely.

Any harm that AM2R is ultimately making is mostly in making Nintendo look bad in terms of how they have been handling the Metroid franchise as of late. If anything, the success of AM2R actually provides something of a counter-argument against our current intellectual property laws. AM2R is a project that is clearly filling a need for a lot of people, a need that Nintendo has seemingly not bothered to fill. So fans did it for them.
 

Anteo

Member
You know, when a fan remade Sonic with a new engine and widescreen, SEGA hired the guy and released SEGA CD... then 1.. 2... And now the same guy is working on Sonic Mania.

If only Nintendo would want to make money. :")

They probably think they can make even more money investing their resources in something else.
 

LordRaptor

Member
A much larger number of people than those who bought Federation Force for 40 dollars.

you have no idea what a hypothetical title today would or would not sell.

But go on, keep defending Nintendo's shitty business decisions.

Sorry, not having a great deal of sympathy for people using ripped assets is nothing to do with "nintendo business decisions".
I get some people are super butthurt about FFs mere existence. but that has nothing to do with the topic

I never mentioned AM2R downloads.
No, but you quoted me replying to someone who did.

FF is an unpopular product.
That has literally nothing to do with a fangame being popular, or hypothetical sales if a fangame was a correctly licenced product
 
you have no idea what a hypothetical title today would or would not sell.



Sorry, not having a great deal of sympathy for people using ripped assets is nothing to do with "nintendo business decisions".
I get some people are super butthurt about FFs mere existence. but that has nothing to do with the topic



No, this just outlines how Nintendo is out of touch. Here you have a guy who spent 8 years making this game. Nintendo could've stepped in, sign a 50 000 to 100 000 bucks check to the guy who'd been happy with that. And Nintendo would have a brand new Metroid 2 remake to sell.
Mother 3 ? You had this fan translation made by a guy who worked as a pro in translation industry. The guy said "Please Nintendo, use my patch for free, localize and sell this game".
What did Nintendo ? "lol"
 

KingBroly

Banned
Talking about takedowns to come ... I think Rogue Dawn is a pretty big project that has some potential to blow up upon release. It's a romhack of NES Metroid, but it is also all new apart from the character and name. It's a completely different game from the original. I think that might give it the potential to gain some media traction through word of mouth even outside the usual romhacking/speedrunning circles.

The big difference to something like Skelux' Star Road (which is basically a fan-made sequel to Super Mario 64) is that the Metroid franchise is currently in the news anyway.

It's going to be interesting to behold. Pokémon Uranium blew up a bit and got taken down, but the vast majority of the hacks and games on Pokécommunity are completely fine. You'd think if Nintendo found out about Uranium, they might have found out about the huge homebrew community there, too, especially since there've been articles on Pokémon homebrew before. Or they really just don't care until it reaches the general public.

I wonder if Nintendo even has an actual enforcement policy that is not basically arbitrary.

I think it has more to do with media exposure. Uranium and AM2R both got major media sites to cover and report on it. Stuff like that easily catches Nintendo's eyes, because it's low hanging fruit.
 
What are you guys even trying to get me to understand? That I should be angry at Nintendo? That they coulda done something different and it woulda been cool? Thats not what the damn argument is about. A2MR is cool and it would be awesome if we could just be let to have it, but thats not how it worked out, and people being upset makes 100% sense, but if youre denying its illegality or pegging me as a fanboy because im not against Nintendo for this decision, then theres a lack of perspective IMO
me said:
legally correct or not Nintendo made a dick move that they didn't have to.
?
 
It's "harmless" (I dont think a court of law or Nintendo's lawyers would agree), but that has nothing to do with it.

They sent a cease and desist, and it took them months, even after it was on the worlds most prominent gaming sites and there was literally no way nintendo executives didnt know about it. Thats not "full bore". They gave it the softest slap on the wrist they could, legally.
They could have. Oh, I dunno. Not done anything to it? There was no reason for them to do anything to AM2R, Pokemon Uranium, or any of the other fangames they've randomly decided to be up in arms against. Just like fanart or fanfiction is, while technically not kosher, left alone. It's a piece of fanwork, as a tribute to a thing someone really enjoys, and it isn't hurting anyone, least of all Nintendo.
 

OmegaFax

Member
Nintendo taking in a fan project and making it an official release would be unprecedented. I don't know what kind of legal red tape there is. I guess Nintendo would have to do a licensing sweep on the tools used for development and coming to an agreement with the author himself.

Nothing to do with Federation Force but I think whoever greenlit the project is going to have to suck up an enormous amount of pride for the time, money, and resources spent on their project when a single person accomplished something in their spare time and it's more well received from outspoken fans of the series.

I just think Nintendo's incapable of taking unsolicited work for their own IPs.
 
They could have. Oh, I dunno. Not done anything to it? There was no reason for them to do anything to AM2R, Pokemon Uranium, or any of the other fangames they've randomly decided to be up in arms against. Just like fanart or fanfiction is, while technically not kosher, left alone. It's a piece of fanwork, as a tribute to a thing someone really enjoys, and it isn't hurting anyone, least of all Nintendo.

Dude, you don't realize how this is harming Nintendo's image? They may even make a copyright claim to own the Metroid franchise!
 

Kyzer

Banned
They could have. Oh, I dunno. Not done anything to it? There was no reason for them to do anything to AM2R, Pokemon Uranium, or any of the other fangames they've randomly decided to be up in arms against. Just like fanart or fanfiction is, while technically not kosher, left alone. It's a piece of fanwork, as a tribute to a thing someone really enjoys, and it isn't hurting anyone, least of all Nintendo.

Woulda been nice. You saying it isnt hurting Nintendo isnt true though. They are distributing a copyright infringement, AND setting a precedence for other people to do the same.

Nintendo is a huge conservative company, they have stated they try to treat fan things delicately because its illegal but its out of love, but they do have lawyers, a board, and investors and stuff. Its not as simple as Reggie or Miyamoto sending an email to everyone "hey guys, about A2MR, we're gonna let this one slide", its just not how things work. If "Nintendo" was just one really cool guy, or a smaller team, or more liberal/in-touch like Sega, maybe things coulda worked out different.
 

Lynx_7

Member
you have no idea what a hypothetical title today would or would not sell.

You're being a bit disingenuous.
I don't think it's unreasonable to use salas data from the series' history and the overall reception and performance of its current iteration to theorize that another product that the fanbase actually wants and is asking for would perform significantly better saleswise. There's such a thing as demand, the market isn't nearly as random or indecipherable as you're trying to argue.


At any case, I don't know why so many people feel the need to argue about this anyway. Everybody knows Nintendo is within legal their legal rights to do whatever they want with their IPs, you don't need to preach it every single time a thread like this comes up. People are also within their rights to criticize said actions as out of touch when we have numerous examples of big companies embracing and even officializing fan works out there.
 
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