this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Well, you know, the games are theirs to begin with.

I see what you mean, and you are correct, but I think it's more about the games that are being emulated than emulation in itself right?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It would be, if they didn't target the emulators and only targeted the roms/game data.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The only time the emulators are targeted is when the creators try to profit off them, or am I mistaken?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's definitely not the case for Switch emulators.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yuzu was charging for early access to their emulator, which is what prompted Nintendo action.

Ryujinx doesn't seem like any legal action was taken, sounds like the creator was given a chunk of cash by Nintendo to take it down.

I hate Nintendo, but you gotta keep the facts straight

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

I don't think they paid him off, I think it was more along the lines of "We won't do anything to you if you stop now"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They also shut down Yuzu forks using the DMCA. If they paid Ryujinx's dev it was the equivalent of the Mafia bribing a judge while waving a picture of his family.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Totally the same /s

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

That, and when Nintendo's code is used in some way to develop the project. Japan has very strict laws on reverse engineering any software, which Nintendo is always set to capitalize on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Which is still a legal thing to do.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I don't disagree they are their games, but is it their emulator, or did they just download one of the many online? Really doesn't matter, just love to see companies bitch about something, then turn around and do it themselves.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What about the fan games that were made of pure passion for the IP that they've taken down?

To name a few:
Pokemon Uranium
Pokemon Prism
Mario Maker 64
Another Metroid 2 Remake
Zelda Maker
Ocarina of Time 2D
Zelda 30

There are countless others I'm sure.

FUCK Nintendo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

They have to protect their IPs, it is what they have to do by law if they don't want to lose then.

https://www.varnumlaw.com/insights/enforce-your-intellectual-property-or-risk-losing-it/

So it is not really Nintendo's fault that the IP laws are the way they are.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I understand needing to protect your IP, in some sense, but what I'm getting at is that when a fan game is made, it is a homage to a beloved franchise that fosters love for the IP. If you were a smart company, you would foster this love for your franchise, to entrench the fans you already have, and to gather more fans because you are seen as the company that "does no wrong", which in turn also increases your profits. Imagine if instead of taking these love letters to your franchise down (which makes you look like an absolute fucking ass to most), you made a feature of it on an official channel. Look at Scott Cawthon and his Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. He encourages people to make fan games using his original ideas and that encourages people to not only love his own games, but to go out and start developing their own little games that include ideas that Scott may not have even thought about including before. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a good way of protecting your IP by taking down blatant rip offs of your game that want to steal money from your fans, and cause confusion to new fans. Then there is the bad way, which is taking down these passionate love letters to your franchise that encourage others to look at the original source and see why they even decided to take the time to create the fan game in the first place. IF the fan game is trying to monetize, then by all means, send a warning. Tell them to not monetize it, and they are free to continue. If they continue, Cease and Desist. Hopefully that makes sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

If they would carte blanche allow fan games of their IPs then that would weaken the IPs, which could lead to them loosing the IPs completly. For that it is irrelevant if the games are monetized or not.

Nintendo would need to implement some kind of process for developers of fan games to get them officially licensed. But for that to be effective as a tool to protect the IP they could not just give such a limited fan game license to everyone who request it, so a complex request process with multiple steps would be needed, and they would need to deny lots if not even most of the requests.

And this gets even more complicated when the very complex japan software patent system is added to the mix.

Could Nintendo be less shitty? Oh yes they could, but they decided to go the Cobra Kai way and strike first, strike hard, no merci!