The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
]Syntax Error[ Gets Shut Down By Nintendo C&D
Posts
Exactly. Cheating, penis attacks, griefing, and the inevitable tech problems... and people wonder why Nintendo got annoyed.
I don't mean to be inflammatory, but if Nintendo had a better online security (or security in general) system in place this wouldn't be a problem. These sort of problems have been handled in the PC world for decades and in the console market with Microsoft (and Sony to a lesser extent).
It looks to me like a decent, if not mindblowing, indie game, but it's tough to see what's really there behind all the "OMG I MADE THIS MUHSELF AREN'T I AWESOME" crap. Seriously, someone should show this guy Cave Story.
Yes, because cheating hacks absolutely don't exist in the PC world.
That's not what I mean. Valve VAC servers don't let you replace your Counter Terrorist with:
This is the core of the issue. The Wii is not a PC.
"Hey that guys fucking with Brawl. Thats OUR game. Shut him down."
and that's that.
Im not trying to be a wiseass, but do companies like this ever just shut shit down because they feel like it, or would they honestly need a bigger reason because of the legal effort involved to make it worthwhile?
They're far cheaper than actually getting a court to tell you to stop, and they're effectiveness is based on how much either party really wants to deal with the consequences. They are for the most part a threat, and like in any situation where a threat is made, the bluff can be called, the threatened party may not feel that the other party can realistically make good on the threat, and / or one party can think they are in the right to the point that the situation escalates. In this case, ]EE[ obliged and did what Nintendo asked, which is often the case since a large corporation's resources far outstrip those of a random fan project, and both parties know it.
I can't really state their motives for doing so, but Nintendo probably saw the possibility of its IP weakening or (more likely) saw a means for them to be opened to legal action by another party (likely because some of the new textures were from other rights' holders).
Honestly, if I were in charge of the project, I would simply provide a front end for swapping textures, and let the user decide which ones to get a hold of and use (at a separate site entirely).
Nice statistic. Cite please.
Nice dodge. Try and answer the question part of his post.
I will show you, but you have to play along...
First download this PDF from Nintedo here. It's is Nintendo's Annual report. It basically tells everything you need to know about Nintendo's money situation.
I direct you to page 20. Near the bottom of the page, you are going to find a category on the left hand side called "Total intangible assets"
Now I want you to follow across to the right side of the page, you will find the number "20,098".
Let me explain what that means.
Companies have something called "assets" that's just a fancy word meaning "Valuable stuff the company owns." The line item I pointed out is the total value of their imaginary stuff. Things like Mario, and Link, and other characters are stuffed in there. Basically it's the value of the Intellectual Property, Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights and such. In this case the "20,098" number is in thousands of dollars. The actual value is $20,098,000. In other words, A touch over $20 Million dollars.
Now the reason why this is separate from "normal" assets (stuff) is that the value is completely made up based on a "perceived value", not what it can be sold for. If Nintendo ever goes out of business and needed to be liquidated, (Sold off for cash), that number becomes zero because it's not a physical thing someone can sell. In the U.S. the price of a company's Intellectual Property is called "Goodwill" and not put directly into the balance sheet. When you see a C&D sent to a bunch of hackers that claims that the company's "goodwill" has been damaged, that is they number they are using.
When you damage the perceived value of a company's goodwill, they will come after you with layers. This devalues their company a hurts their bottom line. It has nothing to do with how "nice" a company is. It only superficially deals with trademarks and copyrights, and that's all the reason they need. Nintendo has to answer to it's shareholders and when the balance sheets go down, that means the company is worth less money.
See, when you guys bitch about meanie companies spoiling the fun of some homebrewers, you have to remember that Nintendo is a fucking business. They are not only out to make the best product they can, but to maintain a high value of their companies stocks. When you "damage" a game, you are, in effect "damaging" Nintendo itself.
That's why they have to be pricks about it.
This is why any publicly traded company has to be pricks about it. (Squaresoft, etc)
Now, I hope this answers your question. If you still don't understand, then you never will, and your whines will fall on deaf ears.
In the form of a school house rock, if you don't mind.
I am imagining a bulleted list with things like
- Super Mario World hacked into autoplaying levels such that the sound effects play the theme to "Lucky Star".....-$500,000
or
Analysts changed their rating on nintendo from hold to sell Monday, after Pokemon was hacked with sprites replaced by underage girls dressed as Pokemon.
1) Doesn't seem a very forgotten corner, does it.
2) You are in a position to damage their game, and, in effect it's perceived value. If Nintendo does not vigorously defend their trademarks, they can lose them. Also, derivative changes to copyrighted works are illegal. Even "translation patches" are illegal because the translation is derived from the original work.
Here is the actual copyright code, taken from the U.S. Copyright office.
Creating an ISO violates #1 and creating textures based off the original violates #2. You really can't much more clear than that.
===EDIT===
As a matter of disclosure, I was involved in Sony v. Connectix lawsuit. I happen to know a thing or two about this crap. It really gets my goat when people don't get where the company is coming from.
And hell yeah it's a forgotten corner - no one had even heard of this before nintendo shut them down. Now the second group is going to release it anyway with more publicity, so if this really hurts nintendo, all they did was make it worse and come off as dicks.
But thank goodness their copyright is safe, because this was totally a legitimate threat. After the moemon incident they are pretty much on the verge of losing pokemon, now.
You'd think with all the half-life mods that valve would be under by now, or does that not count because valve allows people to mod it?
edit: uh so how did that connectix thing work out? quick googling says that connectix's emulator didn't infringe on sony's copyright.
His whole post was a dodge; a smokescreen made of generalizations and made-up figures. I understand his point, but he wasn't exactly supporting it with anything.
Then I don't see the argument is.
Well, obviously since Nintendo was hawking it, it proved to be of great interest to them.
I'm sure the shareholders are all teary-eyed
That patch to work will not work on a DSi. Guess what's being slated to be discontinued.
Look, if you want to develop for Nintendo, you get a software title under your belt and lease a devkit for $10,000 like the rest of us.
Uh? Supposedly they are going to be furious about this when this thing comes out it is going to rock nintendo's perceived value to the core, right?
Yeah it won't work 'cause gba games won't work on it. I'm sure that's all due to moemon?
The argument is "what is the point of this". Just because something is legal to do doesn't mean it is right to do! It looks like nintendo shitting on a bunch of guys just screwing around. You claim that it's for the purpose of protecting their apparently made-up perceived value, and still haven't answered how such a thing is measured, and how these kind of hacks can, and in the past supposedly did, damage it.
What question do you think you are answering?
Your link there even advises to ignore the intangible assets line, and claims investors only look at the income statement?
You are also talking about a Japanese company. Japan doesn't not have fair use rights and that is part of their culture.
Nintendo isn't you friend either, stop treating them as such.
I suggest you wipe the tears of nerd rage from you eyes, the guys who made the patch are seem to be a buch of asshats anyway.
Shame for who? Shame for nintendo who won't be affected by this at all or shame for the hackers who are releasing this anyway?
I am aware of Nintendo's status as a company who likes money! However, this is the first example of such behavior from them, isn't it? Previously I asked for some tales of Nintendo Dickery and received a grand total of 0 instances.
Also for japan having no fair use rights and it being a part of their culture they sure do parody a ton of shit.
I guess I am just stunned by Nintendo's action? I mean obviously you are one of those "nintendo's not your friend" guys, but this does seem to really be an unprecedented move by them....unless you have some examples.
Atari v. Nintendo - Successfully made it illegal to create 3rd party applications that went around lock out restrictions. (Unless it's for scientific study)
Just because you are not a company does not make you immune to lawyers
I just googled "nintendo cease and desist," took no time at all, and three or four random things popped up right away.
Tons throughout the years.
The thing is, these things are clearly not perfectly analogous to this particular C&D, so you can easily say that they are not past examples of C&Ds issued and Nintendo is still Our Friend.
Which is funny because no$gba is sold as a development tool. (Which, I know is actually purchased as such in many dev houses)
When mothers see penises fighting Mario on the evening news Nintendo's bottom line suffers. It doesn't matter that Nintendo didn't have anything to do with it, the mothers are still going to stop buying Nintendo products.
The game genie one is interesting since...it seems to apply to exactly this?
Limed for the very important difference.
The only penises you can see are your own!
Would you suggest that Nintendo's pictochat application is in danger of becoming m-rated due to the ability to draw wangs?
I am reading "without creating a derivative work" as "this does not constitute a derivative work".
Perhaps I am reading this wrong?
There already was controversy about that on the news.
Broadcasters don't care that both parties would have to mod their consoles to have fighting penises, as long as there are videos out there of someone doing it Nintendo's property is damaged and they, potentially, have angry mothers refusing to let their kids play the game.
It's not a "dick move" for a company to protect their livelihood. Even a project that starts out harmless can lead to the tainting of the characters that they've painstakingly built over decades. They've spent millions to get the Mario character where he is today, and fan patches that could lead to nude Mario fighting vaginas is not something they want to have to deal with, and isn't something they should have to deal with.
Oh ho? I remember quite a different pictochat controversy, but find me this one.
Somehow I am not seeing this media backlash from other, more easily moddable games and their self-inserted penises fighting gordon freeman.
Or mii penis faces boxing each other.
It wasn't in danger of becoming M-rated, but there were news stories on how kids could potentially be exposed to such things.
And Gordon Freeman is in nowhere near the same league as Mario. Ask ten people on the street about Mario, then do the same for Gordon Freeman. The results will be very different. The news media doesn't care about people modding on their PCs, but when Mario or Nintendo gets involved, you have a story.
And, as has been said before, there is a much different culture on the PC side than the console side. Kids play games on their computers, but a mom is much more likely to buy her kid the new Nintendo console than a full on gaming computer. Computers are also more often in rooms where you could fight penises without your mom knowing, whereas the Wii is more likely hooked up in the family room.
This is now a thread about penises. Damn. Only 12 pages, this time.
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)