Mother 4 Coming Without Nintendo's Help
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
I'm a little late to the party here, but a thought or three:
Why the heck do the folks who work so hard on these well-intentioned fan projects destined to be shot out of the sky ONLY think like hopelessly starry-eyeballed fanboys and girls and NOT like true game creators? Put yourself in any game company's shoes for a minute and you'll see that they've every right to stop anyone from reworking an IP they own into a new game, even if it's a series that's been dead for some time.
If you're going to spend hundreds or thousands of hours (and I'm gathering some of your own money) making unofficial "sequels", parodies or any work that pays homage to ANY already existing game series whether it's currently being published or out of production for ages, why not get the proper legal clearances FIRST? If you get a big, fat NO, no worries as long as you go do something completely ORIGINAL and release it down the road.
It's ridiculous for any of the otherwise fine folks tinkering away on their "homage"-packed projects to whine about how Nintendo (or any other company with an IP they're using without proper permission) is shutting them down if they haven't done all their homework before they put in those years of programming (or drag & dropping, in the case of RPG Maker games). Legally, they have no leg to stand on when that cease and desist order hits them in the forehead. Especially if they're using the unofficial OK of a creator as the "final" word in deciding to go forward with the project.
Obviously, these folks are quite talented, but so what? As noted earlier, at the end of the day, they'd be MUCH better off using those talents to create an ORIGINAL game and possibly trying to get it released over WiiWare or perhaps Xbox Live or PSN if it meets their standards. I'd rather see them get PAID and get happy, not get shut down and pissed off because they didn't understand how things work from a legal standpoint.
I'd imagine some of the team on this project wants work in the industry, right? Somehow, I don't think a resume with "Nintendo shut down our game's website and made us destroy the code once it was released because we didn't know they still owned the rights to the franchise" would get your foot in too many doors.
As for The Escapist running this story, they've every right to - that's games journalism, folks...
g.
Why the heck do the folks who work so hard on these well-intentioned fan projects destined to be shot out of the sky ONLY think like hopelessly starry-eyeballed fanboys and girls and NOT like true game creators? Put yourself in any game company's shoes for a minute and you'll see that they've every right to stop anyone from reworking an IP they own into a new game, even if it's a series that's been dead for some time.
If you're going to spend hundreds or thousands of hours (and I'm gathering some of your own money) making unofficial "sequels", parodies or any work that pays homage to ANY already existing game series whether it's currently being published or out of production for ages, why not get the proper legal clearances FIRST? If you get a big, fat NO, no worries as long as you go do something completely ORIGINAL and release it down the road.
It's ridiculous for any of the otherwise fine folks tinkering away on their "homage"-packed projects to whine about how Nintendo (or any other company with an IP they're using without proper permission) is shutting them down if they haven't done all their homework before they put in those years of programming (or drag & dropping, in the case of RPG Maker games). Legally, they have no leg to stand on when that cease and desist order hits them in the forehead. Especially if they're using the unofficial OK of a creator as the "final" word in deciding to go forward with the project.
Obviously, these folks are quite talented, but so what? As noted earlier, at the end of the day, they'd be MUCH better off using those talents to create an ORIGINAL game and possibly trying to get it released over WiiWare or perhaps Xbox Live or PSN if it meets their standards. I'd rather see them get PAID and get happy, not get shut down and pissed off because they didn't understand how things work from a legal standpoint.
I'd imagine some of the team on this project wants work in the industry, right? Somehow, I don't think a resume with "Nintendo shut down our game's website and made us destroy the code once it was released because we didn't know they still owned the rights to the franchise" would get your foot in too many doors.
As for The Escapist running this story, they've every right to - that's games journalism, folks...
g.