from the mine-mine-mine dept
Perhaps because the stories we routinely do on Nintendo doing the Nintendo come out at a clip somewhat spread out, and perhaps because the ultimate reality is that Nintendo’s Nintendo-ing is legally something it is allowed to do, I believe the wider world really doesn’t understand just how much cool stuff the public is deprived of. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, some percentage of Nintendo’s rabid fanbase likes to try to do cool stuff with Nintendo properties as an expression of their fandom. This means creating interesting new games, or trying to get Nintendo classics to work on laughably aged hardware just for funsies. Or celebrating Nintendo game soundtracks. The point is that fans do fan things, right up until Nintendo’s lawyers come calling and shut it all down as copyright infringement.
Again, just so we’re absolutely clear: Nintendo can do this. But it doesn’t have to. Plenty of other gaming companies have carved out space and methods by which they can still protect their intellectual property but allow fans to make fan creations. Nintendo refuses to do this and the result is that we lose the opportunity to see and have cool stuff. One example of this was a group in Australia’s attempt to get the original Donkey Kong game working using only some recent tools Facebook provided.
Created by developer ‘bberak’, this React Native version of Donkey Kong isn’t an emulation, it was created from the ground up for iOS and Android and documented in a detailed post on Hackernoon in April 2018. Perhaps a little unusually, given the risks associated with stepping on Nintendo’s toes lately, the original repo – which was now been taken down – basically acknowledges that parts of the project may infringe copyright. The game’s code may have been created independently but the visual and audio assets are undoubtedly Nintendo’s. And the repo happily pointed to the company behind the project too.
“Copyright Notice: All content, artwork, sounds, characters and graphics are the property of Nintendo of America Inc, its affiliates and/or subsidiaries,” the repo read.
React Native was created by Facebook to allow developers to make new and better stuff for mobile OS. It’s no surprise that someone explored the platform by trying to develop a decades old classic game for it, if only just to see what the platform could do. This is classic nerd stuff.
Sadly, the copyright notice on the repo didn’t do what the developer thought it might do and Nintendo DMCA’d the project anyway. Instead of figuring out some way to celebrate this effort and make it legit, the whole thing just goes away. That sucks.
And I imagine the exact same thing is about to happen to another very cool project that is just dripping with nostalgia. An animator who has worked in the gaming industry for years, Jesus Lopez, is creating a brand new Mario game with his kids… and styling the entire thing after the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! of the 80s.
The fan game is being developed by Jesus Lopez, an animator who has worked on various video games including The Simpsons Tapped Out, Ducktales Remastered and Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero. He is working alongside his two young children, who are helping with artwork and programming. He has been working on the project for nearly three years.
YouTuber SwankyBox recently contacted Lopez and uploaded a video showcasing new footage of the game, behind the scenes documents and early artwork.
Here’s the video, which shows gameplay footage. If you were a fan of the show when it came out, as I was, you’ll be struck by just how amazing it looks.
But if you’re anything like me, your first thought on seeing this coolness was something like, “We’re never going to get to see this completed, because Nintendo will nuke it.” And I’m not the only one. Sites entirely dedicated to Nintendo fandom are also predicting this project’s demise.
The project is a long way from completion, and if Nintendo’s track record is anything to go by, we imagine this will be available for a day or two before lawyers’ letters are sent. It’s a position Nintendo must maintain if it wants to protect its IP from more nefarious types of infringement, but we do hope we get to try this out one day.
The shame of it is how resigned to all of this we’ve become. Nintendo somehow gets a PR pass when it comes to its overly aggressive IP enforcement. While it’s within its rights to kill off these kinds of projects, nothing stops the company from working with fans to both allow and legitimize them instead. The explosion of good will and fan expression that could occur would make Nintendo quite possibly the king of fandoms.
Instead, we just lose the chance to have nice things.