It's Amazing All The Cool Stuff We Could Have If Nintendo Didn't Insist On Nintendo-Ing

It's Amazing All The Cool Stuff We Could Have If Nintendo Didn't Insist On Nintendo-Ing

4 years ago
Anonymous $MUlyiGRWxa

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191001/09250843101/amazing-all-cool-stuff-we-could-have-if-nintendo-didnt-insist-nintendo-ing.shtml

Perhaps because the stories we routinely do on Nintendo doing the Nintendo come out at a clip somewhat spread out, and perhaps because the ultimate reality is that Nintendo's Nintendo-ing is legally something it is allowed to do, I believe the wider world really doesn't understand just how much cool stuff the public is deprived of. If you don't know what I'm talking about, some percentage of Nintendo's rabid fanbase likes to try to do cool stuff with Nintendo properties as an expression of their fandom. This means creating interesting new games, or trying to get Nintendo classics to work on laughably aged hardware just for funsies. Or celebrating Nintendo game soundtracks. The point is that fans do fan things, right up until Nintendo's lawyers come calling and shut it all down as copyright infringement.

Again, just so we're absolutely clear: Nintendo can do this. But it doesn't have to. Plenty of other gaming companies have carved out space and methods by which they can still protect their intellectual property but allow fans to make fan creations. Nintendo refuses to do this and the result is that we lose the opportunity to see and have cool stuff. One example of this was a group in Australia's attempt to get the original Donkey Kong game working using only some recent tools Facebook provided.