NES on Facebook?

ArcSyn

I know this could stray into the illegal areas, and I don't want it to, but I wanted to discuss why companies allow these things to show up and actually stick around for a while?

Digg had this on the front page a moment ago (might still be there)
snip

Basically you can play NES games on your facebook account. Clearly it's illegal, but why hasn't facebook taken it down yet? Why doesn't Nintendo, who is rereleasing a lot of games on the VC, defending their property more?

It reminds me of those cheap-o systems you see in the malls around Christmas where you can play 300 nintendo games in one system and they make a controller almost exactly like the old NES and include a zapper too.

Why can companies get away with this?

HallowedFaith

I'm not sure I've ever seen a system that plays Nintendo brand games like that.

However. If a company pays a licensing fee in agreement with the license holder, I imagine anything can happen.

As far as Facebook goes, it will only be a matter of time.

Nozz

I'd be real careful with this, because you basically just linked to an emulator full of roms.

Moe Fwacky

I've seen those things in the malls, and I'm pretty sure they're illegal. They sneak them in from China somehow, I heard something about them lying on the customs list about what it actually does, and that's why some of them have what looks like the NES 72-pin connector, when in reality all the games are internal and the connector will not play your legal NES games. I don't have a link for any of this, so I can't verify it, only that I've seen one with a 72-pin connector built into it's N64-style controller. The games were internal to the controller, the tv and zapper plugged into it, and the cartridge slot did nothing.

Lewisham

ArcSyn wrote: »

Clearly it's illegal, but why hasn't facebook taken it down yet? Why doesn't Nintendo, who is rereleasing a lot of games on the VC, defending their property more?

Because Facebook doesn't approve every application. There is an approvals process, but once it's taken down he can put it right up again.

I presume Nintendo has steered clear of this issue because piracy only affects a small proportion of it's fanbase, and they stand to lose more in PR money after someone posts "ZOMG NINTENDO WRITES CEASE + DESIST TO FANS!" to Digg after some jerk posts a huge ROM library.

The problem here is that this application is way too visible. I expect Nintendo will send letters to Facebook so it can be kept on the DL.

Monoxide

Nozz wrote: »

I'd be real careful with this, because you basically just linked to an emulator full of roms.

This.

All these guys did was make a NES emulator that runs on the Facebook platform. There's other web-based emulators out there, this is certainly not the first. It's falls pretty far on the wrong side of the "No ROMs/Emulators" rule.

The short answer is that companies don't allow these to stick around once they find out about them. The long answer is that with the international nature of the internet, there's a thousand and one ways to loophole the law and ignore cease and desists. The ones in malls don't last long after Nintendo finds out about them, but they rely on people to report it.