Nintendo has recently succeeded in eliminating the threat to their intellectual property rights and shut down yet another fan-made game that took almost a decade to develop. RPG Pokémon Uranium managed to generate more than a million downloads in a couple days, but their makers eventually decided to cave in to legal pressure from Nintendo.
The fan-made RPG Pokémon Uranium was released a few days ago and quickly became very popular, in part leveraging on the Pokémon hype. However, Nintendo was also quick to spring into action, accusing the developers of copyright infringement and asking them to stop distributing the game.
Pokémon Uranium’s developers admitted that they were not contacted directly, but were notified of multiple takedown notices from Nintendo of America and eventually decided to pull the release offline in order to avoid legal problems. Of course, the game’s makers and players are disappointed, but Nintendo’s actions were predictable, as it is known to pursue fan projects using Nintendo trademarks or copyrights.
While it is understandable that Nintendo protects its rights, the company could also learn something from these fan projects and use them to its own advantage, like it did 3 years ago – after Nintendo pulled down the popular fan-made game “Full Screen Mario”, it announced its new “Mario Maker” with many similar features.
In any case, game developers who are going to release a game inspired by a Nintendo release are strongly recommended to refrain from using any trademarked or copyrighted Nintendo material, because otherwise they are doomed to be shut down sooner or later.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
The fan-made RPG Pokémon Uranium was released a few days ago and quickly became very popular, in part leveraging on the Pokémon hype. However, Nintendo was also quick to spring into action, accusing the developers of copyright infringement and asking them to stop distributing the game.
Pokémon Uranium’s developers admitted that they were not contacted directly, but were notified of multiple takedown notices from Nintendo of America and eventually decided to pull the release offline in order to avoid legal problems. Of course, the game’s makers and players are disappointed, but Nintendo’s actions were predictable, as it is known to pursue fan projects using Nintendo trademarks or copyrights.
While it is understandable that Nintendo protects its rights, the company could also learn something from these fan projects and use them to its own advantage, like it did 3 years ago – after Nintendo pulled down the popular fan-made game “Full Screen Mario”, it announced its new “Mario Maker” with many similar features.
In any case, game developers who are going to release a game inspired by a Nintendo release are strongly recommended to refrain from using any trademarked or copyrighted Nintendo material, because otherwise they are doomed to be shut down sooner or later.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.