Jesus Christ is nothing sacred anymore. This is a completely retarded move on Nintendos part, seriously, not only are these homage games free advertising space for nintendo, they also prove the fact that nintendo kicks the collective ass of the videogaming world when it comes to trump titles. They need to just sit back and watch, maybe even help out these fan game designers. Although if nintendo is going to be assenine about it, why dont the fan game designers just changes character/title names.

Actually, this particular cease and desist order was given to several popular websites over the course of the past few days. Apparently the big N has been surfing the 'net and taking names...

I have mixed feelings about this move. It's not the first time Nintendo has done something like this, and it definately won't be the last. I honestly wonder what they expect to accomplish, other than alienating a percentage of their core fanbase - namely, old-school gamers who played classic NES titles as kids who are now creating homebrew games based on those themes in an effort to hone their programming skills and further nostalgia.

Of course, I'd bet real money that the majority of Nintendo's income over the past eight years or so has come from the Pokemon generation - or, rather, the parents of the Pokemon generation. The diehard old school gamer spent the majority of his/her Nintendo money years ago on the NES and SNES, so alienating that portion of the audience, as well as their money, is not so bad financially, and they get to put a point across at the same time. Seems like a fair gamble to me...

Then there's also the fact that a lot of these homebrew Mario and Zelda clones, of which there are hundreds, simply suck ass. I have played several of them, and only a few were worth the download. "Protection of Intellectual Property" is a good way to disguise "Get that sub-par bullshit off of the internet you wanker."

No matter what the motivation, at the end of the day it all boils down to "We have more money than you; therefore, you must do as we say."

*Sighs* It's the music industry all over again. Nintendo probably feels threatened that somone's going to jump in and mess around, and someday make a better Zelda than the original (or heaven forfend,) the new ones. That's precisely what they're saying, 'We've got the intellectual property and the money to back it up.' It's Napster on a smaller scale.

Never underestimate the power of a large megacorp with lawyers over the little guy. Little guy loses everytime.

Sol

I'd just like to note that most likely the reason they made that remark was because that's the only angle of attack they have for stopping fan made original Zelda games. A copyright only protects a whole piece of art from being copied. So a singe Zelda game can be copyrighted but not the characters or setting. Those are trademarked. But a trademark is different in that it only prevents someone from profiting from your trademarked material. Hence a free Zelda game doesn't profit and therefore doesn't violate the trademark.

There is an exception though. If Nintendo can show that the use of their trademarked material somehow devalues that very trademarked material then they can have it pulled. Hence the whole quality image thing.

Odd are it's really about control. Nintendo doesn't like versions of their franchises that aren't under their control, just like they don't like anything of theirs that isn't under their control.

PS. Odds are this is just harassment on the part of Nintendo. That is, it's unlikely their argument would hold up in an actual court case unless there are actual copyright violations invlolved.

I honestly see no problem with someone making the setting of Zelda underwater with Link having gills and playing blitzball. If anything, if Nintendo keeps advertising these fan sites I'll download the free ones and forget about Nintendo.

Finally, one good person to read on copyright issues is Lawrence Lessig. In terms of corporate control over a product, I'm firmly against what Nintendo's doing here. That's what unofficial versions of products are for.

-edit- Oh, and I researched that Clinton Privacy Act...

Damn urban legends...

WHo knows precicely what their intentions are. They could be thinking about money somewhat, but Nintendo has done such strange things in the past that I never put any possiblility above them, including that they are not wanting Zelda games to be made so they are the only ones who make them (feeling they are the only ones who know enough about the series and have its creator to make the best Zelda games possible). I'm not going to rule it out and if that would be the case, I say I'm all for it.

Now I'm not against the Zelda fan games, but if Nintendo can prove to me that they can make better games and keep the 'feel' of Zelda at a higher quality by asking (notice they didn't demand or place ordrs) others to stop making Zelda games, then I'll side with them on this.

They aren't asking - they are very much demanding. Don't allow the soft wording of the cease and desist letter fool you into thinking it was a simple request.

You forgot Capcom. Only Nintendo and Capcom know enough to make the best Zelda games possible. ;)

The law is the law. Sometimes laws suck.

They can just take down the game, take down the website, and then wait a couple of months and make a new website, put the game back up. Simple.

They take too long to react to this sort of thing to be a real threat to the little guy.

Simple? Taking down a server, backing up all of that hard work, THEN putting it back up for dl after just dumping the stuff?

That's not necessarily simple...