Well, either way it seems this is actually going to happen anyway. So, when it's released and nintendo loses its copyright to mario and brawl's fighting cocks end up on the news, I suppose I will admit nintendo's fears were justified~
I never claimed that what these guys were doing wasn't wrong. Speeding is also wrong. As said before, a cop who pulls you over for speeding 1 mph over the limit is legally within their right.
I think that cop is being a dick even though he's "protecting the safety of the other drivers", same as I think Nintendo's a dick for stopping this project which, I am convinced, would have no negative impact on nintendo at all. Since the project is moving ahead you will certainly have your opportunity to prove me wrong on that one as soon as nintendo meets their doom at the hands of Sony/MS (in 5 years).
And as an aside, I don't even particularly care about this project - I would probably never download/install it.
I never claimed that what these guys were doing wasn't wrong. Speeding is also wrong. As said before, a cop who pulls you over for speeding 1 mph over the limit is legally within their right.
I think that cop is being a dick even though he's "protecting the safety of the other drivers", same as I think Nintendo's a dick for stopping this project which, I am convinced, would have no negative impact on nintendo at all. Since the project is moving ahead you will certainly have your opportunity to prove me wrong on that one as soon as nintendo meets their doom at the hands of Sony/MS (in 5 years).
And as an aside, I don't even particularly care about this project - I would probably never download/install it.
Your example would make more sense if the cop would no longer be able to issue speeding tickets on that particular road if anyone caught him letting any speeders through. If that road is a highway (such as brawl is a major, major Wii title), would you still call him a dick for giving you a ticket?
If Nintendo finds out about a project being done like this, they have to send a C&D or they're giving implied consent, to the best of my knowledge. You can argue all you want that "no one really knew about these guys before", but if that were true, then Nintendo wouldn't have heard about them either. It's a company, not a huge web of superspies infiltrating every corner of the internet.
I never claimed that what these guys were doing wasn't wrong. Speeding is also wrong. As said before, a cop who pulls you over for speeding 1 mph over the limit is legally within their right.
I think that cop is being a dick even though he's "protecting the safety of the other drivers", same as I think Nintendo's a dick for stopping this project which, I am convinced, would have no negative impact on nintendo at all. Since the project is moving ahead you will certainly have your opportunity to prove me wrong on that one as soon as nintendo meets their doom at the hands of Sony/MS (in 5 years).
And as an aside, I don't even particularly care about this project - I would probably never download/install it.
The project requires the enabling of piracy on a Wii. That spreading is very bad for Nintendo and pretty much the reason why Nintendo cares about such a project. If that wasn't a requirement then Nintendo would have some fault here, but as it stands, there is absolutely nothing that suggests that they are being "dicks".
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
I never claimed that what these guys were doing wasn't wrong. Speeding is also wrong. As said before, a cop who pulls you over for speeding 1 mph over the limit is legally within their right.
I think that cop is being a dick even though he's "protecting the safety of the other drivers", same as I think Nintendo's a dick for stopping this project which, I am convinced, would have no negative impact on nintendo at all. Since the project is moving ahead you will certainly have your opportunity to prove me wrong on that one as soon as nintendo meets their doom at the hands of Sony/MS (in 5 years).
And as an aside, I don't even particularly care about this project - I would probably never download/install it.
Your example would make more sense if the cop would no longer be able to issue speeding tickets on that particular road if anyone caught him letting any speeders through. If that road is a highway (such as brawl is a major, major Wii title), would you still call him a dick for giving you a ticket?
If Nintendo finds out about a project being done like this, they have to send a C&D or they're giving implied consent, to the best of my knowledge. You can argue all you want that "no one really knew about these guys before", but if that were true, then Nintendo wouldn't have heard about them either. It's a company, not a huge web of superspies infiltrating every corner of the internet.
Well in my opinion they should have given their implied consent. Obviously implying consent to one project (m3) doesn't mean they can't c&d later (]se[). Also even if it did I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that nintendo absolutely knew about a project they were implying consent to, since, as you say, they are not a huge web of superspies.
Rakai - yeah if this were nintendo's reason then I could forgive them, though I still wouldn't like it.
It seems like wanting to play games for free is a lot more tempting reason to begin pirating than wanting to mess with brawl textures, but I can see how it could be a gateway.
Perhaps after giving their 'implied consent' to piracy-required mods on the m3 project they felt they had to in this instance so they could keep their "street cred".
edit - dang, you other guys? why didn't you bring up this facet more often instead of trying to make me care about the (let's face it) victimless crime of copyright infringement by nonprofit no-name hackers. I mean shoot they even let peta get away with that nowadays.
As opposed to the hackers, who are totally not being dicks by breaking the law and infringing all over oodles of copyrights.
Much of dickhood is discovered in the person's intentions, is it not? The hackers are making stuff for people to enjoy, for their fun and and for the fun of others.
Nintendo is intentionally killing said fun to shut down the dubious chance of some harm coming to their company's finances from inaction on the matter.
Thus, Nintendo is within its rights, and Nintendo is also pulling a dick move.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
People who are standing with Nintendo on this one sicken me.
People who are taking this personally amuse me to no end. I mean, the mod required a Brawl .ISO ("Possibly promote piracy" - ya THINK?!), the Twilight hack which Nintendo have actively been trying to nullify (I'm all for honest homebrew on Wii, but if Nintendo says homebrew = no online services, then fair enough), the fact that the mod featured copyrighted content both from Nintendo and other companies... it was a mod for Nintendo's largest online IP - if Nintendo want you playing their games their way, then you either play the games their way or not at all!
It's a disappointment, sure, but perfectly understandable for Nintendo to react the way they have. Why everyone is painting them as the big bad bastards for doing this is beyond me.
Edit - to answer your first question, it is illegal to use ip copyrighted ip that you have not been given permission to use, the use of .ISO's is very much a legal grey area no matter if you own the physical disc or not, and if Nintendo doesn't want you playing their online games in a way other than they intended, they have every right to stop you.
Rohan on
...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.
As I've said before, the silly thing is that people were surprised by Nintendo's reaction. Quibbles about the law aside, the developers of this thing really should have expected Nintendo to get a wee bit grumpy over any kind of hacking.
As opposed to the hackers, who are totally not being dicks by breaking the law and infringing all over oodles of copyrights.
Much of dickhood is discovered in the person's intentions, is it not? The hackers are making stuff for people to enjoy, for their fun and and for the fun of others.
Sure I filmed a snuff film where I killed like 5 people, but it was for fun and the fun of others so really.
If they really want their own version of Brawl then they just have to build it themselves from scratch. There's nothing honorable in stealing a company's work and modify it slightly to make it your own.
Yes some companies will gladly let you use their engines to make your mods but that doesn't mean everyone should do the same. Does EA give away it's in-house engines? Ubisoft? Mythic? Most companies don't.
Even if these modders wouldn't make any money from their mod, in the long run it has the potential to harm sales for current and future Smash Bros products.
If they really want their own version of Brawl then they just have to build it themselves from scratch.
Not even this is ok, in truth - just ask Konami~
But of course ]se[already has their own version of brawl - they just can't let other people play with it.
Or rather it's official that nintendo doesn't want them to let other people playing with it but another group is doing it anyway.
You can't copyright a game.. implemenation. Anybody can make a brawl clone and Nintendo can't touch them. You just can't build it off of Nintendo's copyrighted code and models.
I am talking about how konami sues companies who make games very similar to theirs. Though the DJMax one is yet to be determined and the ITG suit was settled (but with konami owning the rights to itg).
Point is even if they made their own game, they wouldn't necessarily have no worry of legal action, they would just be on stronger footing.
Why does this come up every time some people try to make a mod or new game or whatever using proprietary assets? Just make your own dang game or something.
I mean, every project that is 'almost done' gets C&D'd. The only confirmed C&Ds are the Chrono Trigger remake (which was being used to sell their engine, not an actual remake intended for people to play, which is a big no no) and the Halogen one, because 2 months later they announced Halo Wars. But people already knew Halogen was pretty much dead.
It seems like if it were the case that they just wanted to drum up hits, there wouldn't be need for the second group to proceed in making a new version without nintendo's properties. Old version
Though, looking, I cannot find the official letter. Perhaps it was indeed all a ruse to drum up hits on their taken down webpage, or they are the same people in the second group who have all changed their names.
Why does this come up every time some people try to make a mod or new game or whatever using proprietary assets? Just make your own dang game or something.
Because piracy is so much easier than development.
Why does this come up every time some people try to make a mod or new game or whatever using proprietary assets? Just make your own dang game or something.
Your game gets instant recognition and an immediate interest from fans of the source material if you take someone else's property to make your game.
So to make, say, a new fan-built Zelda game, you're going to automatically get the interest of all these people who like zelda or have a passing interest in Zelda-like games. But if you make your own top-down action/adventure with RPG elements, it becomes a challenge just to get people to take notice at all, let alone play your stuff.
OK, that's the cynical reason. The other reason is that some people are fans of the source material and love it so much that they want to take that material and do something fun with it.
I dunno. I have a weird place in topics like this because, incidentally, I'm working on a remake of an older game. Why am I doing this without coming up with my own ideas? Personally, it's because someone else started this idea (Halkun) and I had already created many art assets before he decided to stop, so I kind of took the reigns of a preexisting thing with intent on seeing it to the end.. But, aside from that, I think that Adventure 2600 is actually a classic game and that a lot of people would enjoy it, both players of the original who would enjoy a refreshed version, as well as gamers who never had Atari 2600s who would experience it for the first time. Why this game? Because it's small and simple enough for a couple of forum posters like myself to remake from scratch without being overly ambitious and impossible a project.
Why does this come up every time some people try to make a mod or new game or whatever using proprietary assets? Just make your own dang game or something.
Your game gets instant recognition and an immediate interest from fans of the source material if you take someone else's property to make your game.
So to make, say, a new fan-built Zelda game, you're going to automatically get the interest of all these people who like zelda or have a passing interest in Zelda-like games. But if you make your own top-down action/adventure with RPG elements, it becomes a challenge just to get people to take notice at all, let alone play your stuff.
OK, that's the cynical reason. The other reason is that some people are fans of the source material and love it so much that they want to take that material and do something fun with it.
I dunno. I have a weird place in topics like this because, incidentally, I'm working on a remake of an older game. Why am I doing this without coming up with my own ideas? Personally, it's because someone else started this idea (Halkun) and I had already created many art assets before he decided to stop, so I kind of took the reigns of a preexisting thing with intent on seeing it to the end.. But, aside from that, I think that Adventure 2600 is actually a classic game and that a lot of people would enjoy it, both players of the original who would enjoy a refreshed version, as well as gamers who never had Atari 2600s who would experience it for the first time. Why this game? Because it's small and simple enough for a couple of forum posters like myself to remake from scratch without being overly ambitious and impossible a project.
Pirate. Can't you see you're starving the children of the creators of Adventure? You're depriving them of potential sales.
the guys who made the patch are seem to be a buch of asshats anyway.
Pot calling the kettle black, moron.
(Yes, I'm PZT from Stack Smash, and I signed up just to defend my friends and the people who got the C+D)
These guys labored night and day, devoted an entire year to creating something for no profit whatsoever, and you have the nerve to insult them? What's wrong with you? Are you insane? That's a horrible thing to be happy about.
the guys who made the patch are seem to be a buch of asshats anyway.
Pot calling the kettle black, moron.
(Yes, I'm PZT from Stack Smash, and I signed up just to defend my friends and the people who got the C+D)
These guys labored night and day, devoted an entire year to creating something for no profit whatsoever, and you have the nerve to insult them? What's wrong with you? Are you insane? That's a horrible thing to be happy about.
Labored every night on day, wasting an entire year building something on top of someone else's IP, doesn't matter if it was not-for-profit, everyone could see the result coming from a mile away.
Plus the way you guys talk, you are acting like asshats anyway. Build a smash clone off your own code, don't use Nintendo's code and models that cost them more than you'll ever get in allowance from your mom.
I devoted an entire six years to a game that was released not-for-profit. Don't come whining when the entire 'work time' of the project was probably only a total of 30-40 hours.
In fact I'll show you how to do this properly:
Step 1) Program a smash clone engine
Step 2) Program dev tools to make levels and characters
Step 3) Release suite.
Step 4) Let internet make whatever characters they want for it, it's not your problem if they decide to make Starfox for the engine, you didn't make it so it's not your legal problem.
Step 5) Holy shit it's like MUGEN! OMG OMG OMG. Except a smash clone!!
Step 6) Victoly
You can't copyright a game.. implemenation. Anybody can make a brawl clone and Nintendo can't touch them. You just can't build it off of Nintendo's copyrighted code and models.
Sega (Crazy Taxi) vs Fox Interactive (Simpsons Road Rage)
You can't copyright a game.. implemenation. Anybody can make a brawl clone and Nintendo can't touch them. You just can't build it off of Nintendo's copyrighted code and models.
Sega (Crazy Taxi) vs Fox Interactive (Simpsons Road Rage)
EDIT: Corrected the crappy simpsons knock off
EDIT: And the defendant
That was a patent lawsuit, not a copyright lawsuit. The case was also settled out of court, so game patenting hasn't really been proven one way or the other in court.
the guys who made the patch are seem to be a buch of asshats anyway.
Pot calling the kettle black, moron.
(Yes, I'm PZT from Stack Smash, and I signed up just to defend my friends and the people who got the C+D)
These guys labored night and day, devoted an entire year to creating something for no profit whatsoever, and you have the nerve to insult them? What's wrong with you? Are you insane? That's a horrible thing to be happy about.
Happy is the wrong word anyway. Smug and morally satisfied is a far better description.
the guys who made the patch are seem to be a buch of asshats anyway.
Pot calling the kettle black, moron.
(Yes, I'm PZT from Stack Smash, and I signed up just to defend my friends and the people who got the C+D)
These guys labored night and day, devoted an entire year to creating something for no profit whatsoever, and you have the nerve to insult them? What's wrong with you? Are you insane? That's a horrible thing to be happy about.
I was misdirected, I thought your site was the homepage for the project (Which adds to the confusion that Nintendo is trying to avoid). But your roster page speaks volumes. Basically they are giving people the ability to shit all over Nintendo's IP. I'm pretty sure the creative directer of Smash Brothers just looked at that page (or something similar) and sent out the lawyers. It doesn't matter if it's just a texture patch. You just see the end result and some team saying they will release the tools to do it. That's enough for me. Not only that. Some of those characters were licensed, are are not owned by Nintendo. This made them liable to their licensors. (This was also probably why the Chrono Trigger projects was shut down. It was most likely the fact that the art looked like Toriyama's, which is something that Square licensed in order to put into the game.) That falls into all kinds of 3rd part trademark issues that is best fixed by just telling the offending party to cut it out.
Look, I've been on the backend of three major reverse engineering projects, one of which landed me in court. When I start one of these kind of things I always go under the impression that I'm going to get a C&D and then I'll find something else to do with my time.
2) The reverse engineering of the Final Fantasy 7 engine. Wiki is here.
3) The reimplementation of the Final Fantasy 7 engine on new hardware. Homepage is here.
There are other trivial non-public things I've done, such as completely reversing the NES Final Fantasy 1 engine and Adventure 2600 engine. I've also helped in reversing the model format for FF8 and Chrono Cross.
I've done each of these with humility and a non-asshat non-attention whoring sort of way. (Mostly because when I was a grandstanding asshat I wound up in court.) You can tell a C&D to piss off, but when the magical word "subpoena" is written by a judge, then you are forced to play the game. It appears on your website that you are going to "remix some of EE’s hacks and put a fresh Stack Smash spin on them." What alter the textures some more? You do know that if these get released you could stand to put both Sentax Error and yourself in a whole heap of trouble? Just drop it, take it as a learning experience and do something else. It's not worth getting yourself in court over. I was at least lucky enough to be on the good guy's side. In my case, however, the good guys were bought out by Sony and shut down in the end.
Nobody cares if they were doing it on someone else's IP, you already had to own the game to use it and all it was doing was making people happy. Also, our team lives in South America, where Nintendo does not dare step foot (they have zero presence, piracy is rampant, and all legal goods are imported), and we're switching to bulletproof hosting in a few. Nintendo can't touch this. I'd personally like to see them try. We're not technically taking EE's textures, we're taking the ideas, and changing the ideas, then remaking them. They would be made by us, not them. Please inform me of how Nintendo is going to send a legal team to Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, and shut down an underground server in Finland, then I'd be more likely to take you seriously.
Nobody cares if they were doing it on someone else's IP, you already had to own the game to use it and all it was doing was making people happy. Also, our team lives in South America, where Nintendo does not dare step foot (they have zero presence, piracy is rampant, and all legal goods are imported), and we're switching to bulletproof hosting in a few. Nintendo can't touch this. I'd personally like to see them try. We're not technically taking EE's textures, we're taking the ideas, and changing the ideas, then remaking them. They would be made by us, not them. Please inform me of how Nintendo is going to send a legal team to Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, and shut down an underground server in Finland, then I'd be more likely to take you seriously.
So you call somebody a moron for calling you out as an asshat.. and then you go and prove yourself to be one ten times over.
That was a pretty amazing asshat reveal there, I must do say so myself.
Also I don't get why so many people people brought up Valve, when Valve provides the tools to mod their games versus this where Nintendo definitely did not provide the tools to mod the game.
Posts
"We're just going to do this only if Nintendo's okay with it. If they C&D us, it's over."
"Okay, so they did C&D us. But, um, we kind of want to keep doing it. So we will."
That's way more dickish of a move than sending a form C&D letter to a team of people hacking your game.
Like BlueBlue's "we all know it's illegal but what's wrong with doing illegal things?"
I think that cop is being a dick even though he's "protecting the safety of the other drivers", same as I think Nintendo's a dick for stopping this project which, I am convinced, would have no negative impact on nintendo at all. Since the project is moving ahead you will certainly have your opportunity to prove me wrong on that one as soon as nintendo meets their doom at the hands of Sony/MS (in 5 years).
And as an aside, I don't even particularly care about this project - I would probably never download/install it.
A dick for a dick leaves the whole world blind.
Your example would make more sense if the cop would no longer be able to issue speeding tickets on that particular road if anyone caught him letting any speeders through. If that road is a highway (such as brawl is a major, major Wii title), would you still call him a dick for giving you a ticket?
If Nintendo finds out about a project being done like this, they have to send a C&D or they're giving implied consent, to the best of my knowledge. You can argue all you want that "no one really knew about these guys before", but if that were true, then Nintendo wouldn't have heard about them either. It's a company, not a huge web of superspies infiltrating every corner of the internet.
The project requires the enabling of piracy on a Wii. That spreading is very bad for Nintendo and pretty much the reason why Nintendo cares about such a project. If that wasn't a requirement then Nintendo would have some fault here, but as it stands, there is absolutely nothing that suggests that they are being "dicks".
Well in my opinion they should have given their implied consent. Obviously implying consent to one project (m3) doesn't mean they can't c&d later (]se[). Also even if it did I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that nintendo absolutely knew about a project they were implying consent to, since, as you say, they are not a huge web of superspies.
Rakai - yeah if this were nintendo's reason then I could forgive them, though I still wouldn't like it.
It seems like wanting to play games for free is a lot more tempting reason to begin pirating than wanting to mess with brawl textures, but I can see how it could be a gateway.
Perhaps after giving their 'implied consent' to piracy-required mods on the m3 project they felt they had to in this instance so they could keep their "street cred".
edit - dang, you other guys? why didn't you bring up this facet more often instead of trying to make me care about the (let's face it) victimless crime of copyright infringement by nonprofit no-name hackers. I mean shoot they even let peta get away with that nowadays.
Much of dickhood is discovered in the person's intentions, is it not? The hackers are making stuff for people to enjoy, for their fun and and for the fun of others.
Nintendo is intentionally killing said fun to shut down the dubious chance of some harm coming to their company's finances from inaction on the matter.
Thus, Nintendo is within its rights, and Nintendo is also pulling a dick move.
People who are taking this personally amuse me to no end. I mean, the mod required a Brawl .ISO ("Possibly promote piracy" - ya THINK?!), the Twilight hack which Nintendo have actively been trying to nullify (I'm all for honest homebrew on Wii, but if Nintendo says homebrew = no online services, then fair enough), the fact that the mod featured copyrighted content both from Nintendo and other companies... it was a mod for Nintendo's largest online IP - if Nintendo want you playing their games their way, then you either play the games their way or not at all!
It's a disappointment, sure, but perfectly understandable for Nintendo to react the way they have. Why everyone is painting them as the big bad bastards for doing this is beyond me.
Edit - to answer your first question, it is illegal to use ip copyrighted ip that you have not been given permission to use, the use of .ISO's is very much a legal grey area no matter if you own the physical disc or not, and if Nintendo doesn't want you playing their online games in a way other than they intended, they have every right to stop you.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
Sure I filmed a snuff film where I killed like 5 people, but it was for fun and the fun of others so really.
Not a dick move at all.
Yes some companies will gladly let you use their engines to make your mods but that doesn't mean everyone should do the same. Does EA give away it's in-house engines? Ubisoft? Mythic? Most companies don't.
Even if these modders wouldn't make any money from their mod, in the long run it has the potential to harm sales for current and future Smash Bros products.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
Not even this is ok, in truth - just ask Konami~
But of course ]se[already has their own version of brawl - they just can't let other people play with it.
Or rather it's official that nintendo doesn't want them to let other people playing with it but another group is doing it anyway.
Also I know those guys with the iBeer app for the iphone pressed charges fore their beer, app though I don't know how that turned out.
Konami already made a Smash clone and released it. Years ago.
There was even a couple for the original Xbox.
Point is even if they made their own game, they wouldn't necessarily have no worry of legal action, they would just be on stronger footing.
I mean, every project that is 'almost done' gets C&D'd. The only confirmed C&Ds are the Chrono Trigger remake (which was being used to sell their engine, not an actual remake intended for people to play, which is a big no no) and the Halogen one, because 2 months later they announced Halo Wars. But people already knew Halogen was pretty much dead.
Old version
Though, looking, I cannot find the official letter. Perhaps it was indeed all a ruse to drum up hits on their taken down webpage, or they are the same people in the second group who have all changed their names.
Because piracy is so much easier than development.
Your game gets instant recognition and an immediate interest from fans of the source material if you take someone else's property to make your game.
So to make, say, a new fan-built Zelda game, you're going to automatically get the interest of all these people who like zelda or have a passing interest in Zelda-like games. But if you make your own top-down action/adventure with RPG elements, it becomes a challenge just to get people to take notice at all, let alone play your stuff.
OK, that's the cynical reason. The other reason is that some people are fans of the source material and love it so much that they want to take that material and do something fun with it.
I dunno. I have a weird place in topics like this because, incidentally, I'm working on a remake of an older game. Why am I doing this without coming up with my own ideas? Personally, it's because someone else started this idea (Halkun) and I had already created many art assets before he decided to stop, so I kind of took the reigns of a preexisting thing with intent on seeing it to the end.. But, aside from that, I think that Adventure 2600 is actually a classic game and that a lot of people would enjoy it, both players of the original who would enjoy a refreshed version, as well as gamers who never had Atari 2600s who would experience it for the first time. Why this game? Because it's small and simple enough for a couple of forum posters like myself to remake from scratch without being overly ambitious and impossible a project.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Pirate. Can't you see you're starving the children of the creators of Adventure? You're depriving them of potential sales.
Pot calling the kettle black, moron.
(Yes, I'm PZT from Stack Smash, and I signed up just to defend my friends and the people who got the C+D)
These guys labored night and day, devoted an entire year to creating something for no profit whatsoever, and you have the nerve to insult them? What's wrong with you? Are you insane? That's a horrible thing to be happy about.
Labored every night on day, wasting an entire year building something on top of someone else's IP, doesn't matter if it was not-for-profit, everyone could see the result coming from a mile away.
Plus the way you guys talk, you are acting like asshats anyway. Build a smash clone off your own code, don't use Nintendo's code and models that cost them more than you'll ever get in allowance from your mom.
I devoted an entire six years to a game that was released not-for-profit. Don't come whining when the entire 'work time' of the project was probably only a total of 30-40 hours.
In fact I'll show you how to do this properly:
Step 1) Program a smash clone engine
Step 2) Program dev tools to make levels and characters
Step 3) Release suite.
Step 4) Let internet make whatever characters they want for it, it's not your problem if they decide to make Starfox for the engine, you didn't make it so it's not your legal problem.
Step 5) Holy shit it's like MUGEN! OMG OMG OMG. Except a smash clone!!
Step 6) Victoly
Sega (Crazy Taxi) vs Fox Interactive (Simpsons Road Rage)
EDIT: Corrected the crappy simpsons knock off
EDIT: And the defendant
That was a patent lawsuit, not a copyright lawsuit. The case was also settled out of court, so game patenting hasn't really been proven one way or the other in court.
Happy is the wrong word anyway. Smug and morally satisfied is a far better description.
Well, the kettle certainly IS black.
I was misdirected, I thought your site was the homepage for the project (Which adds to the confusion that Nintendo is trying to avoid). But your roster page speaks volumes. Basically they are giving people the ability to shit all over Nintendo's IP. I'm pretty sure the creative directer of Smash Brothers just looked at that page (or something similar) and sent out the lawyers. It doesn't matter if it's just a texture patch. You just see the end result and some team saying they will release the tools to do it. That's enough for me. Not only that. Some of those characters were licensed, are are not owned by Nintendo. This made them liable to their licensors. (This was also probably why the Chrono Trigger projects was shut down. It was most likely the fact that the art looked like Toriyama's, which is something that Square licensed in order to put into the game.) That falls into all kinds of 3rd part trademark issues that is best fixed by just telling the offending party to cut it out.
Look, I've been on the backend of three major reverse engineering projects, one of which landed me in court. When I start one of these kind of things I always go under the impression that I'm going to get a C&D and then I'll find something else to do with my time.
My three projects?
1) The reverse engineering of the PSX console.[PDF] (This wound up with me involved in the Sony v. Connectix lawsuit where I had to testify against Sony's "Trade Secrets" claim.
2) The reverse engineering of the Final Fantasy 7 engine. Wiki is here.
3) The reimplementation of the Final Fantasy 7 engine on new hardware. Homepage is here.
There are other trivial non-public things I've done, such as completely reversing the NES Final Fantasy 1 engine and Adventure 2600 engine. I've also helped in reversing the model format for FF8 and Chrono Cross.
I've done each of these with humility and a non-asshat non-attention whoring sort of way. (Mostly because when I was a grandstanding asshat I wound up in court.) You can tell a C&D to piss off, but when the magical word "subpoena" is written by a judge, then you are forced to play the game. It appears on your website that you are going to "remix some of EE’s hacks and put a fresh Stack Smash spin on them." What alter the textures some more? You do know that if these get released you could stand to put both Sentax Error and yourself in a whole heap of trouble? Just drop it, take it as a learning experience and do something else. It's not worth getting yourself in court over. I was at least lucky enough to be on the good guy's side. In my case, however, the good guys were bought out by Sony and shut down in the end.
...and I found something else to do.
So you call somebody a moron for calling you out as an asshat.. and then you go and prove yourself to be one ten times over.
Good job.
Also I don't get why so many people people brought up Valve, when Valve provides the tools to mod their games versus this where Nintendo definitely did not provide the tools to mod the game.
People living in 3rd world countries would be idiots to respect IP laws.