I'm always struck by how Nintendo seems hellbent on trying to "preserve the image" of it's brand / characters / etc by performing these kinds of takedowns, but seem perfectly fine to weather the backlash from the community and fans?
Garry's Mod and other similar games are how so many people get exposed to various different fan communities, characters, game-modes, and etc. that you'd think it'd essentially function as "free" marketing.
There's always the question of "What happens when Mario has a gun?", but you'd really hope that people would have the mental capacity to understand that it's not an official image or marketing material.
I don't think such backlashes amount to anything in 99% of cases. The loss of a few fans is probably outweighed in their mind by the loss of potential future customers if Mario appears in a Skibidi Toilet video or similar. Nintendo has been selling entertainment products since the late 19th century, after authorities there relaxed a long-standing ban on playing cards. Brand integrity and public perception have probably been priority issues for them since their founding.
I’d guess it’s because the size of the community that gets angry is trivially small relative to the overall customer base of Nintendo. I’d also guess that the average person whose gaming doesn’t stray much further than casually playing Animal Crossing, Zelda, or Mario doesn’t care nor notice when Nintendo does this sort of thing.
First, having your assets in Garry's Mod is, in my opinion, a ticking time bomb for those assets going viral. This can be good, however in Nintendo's case their target market is kids and naturally they want tight control over the (squeaky clean) image of their characters. They have spent decades building that brand recognition and association.
Second, the only people who are going to get angry about this are Turbo-nerds, and Nintendo has already turned their back on Turbo-nerds. The overlap between people who are mad about this and who were already mad about Yuzu has to be substantial.
I don't know. I think this sucks, and it's particularly sucky that they just filed a DMCA action and didn't contact the developer directly. I feel bad for Gary.
All in all, it seems that they want to send a message that messing with The Plumber is just about as bad as messing with The Mouse.
I seriously hope these "turbonerds" as you call them wise up and start doing their thing anonymously so that the likes of Nintendo can do nothing about it.
Nintendo's strictness with its image reminds me of Bill Cosby, who was so particular about how he was presented that he got his lawyers to order the shutdown of Justin Roiland's "House of Cosbys" cartoon.
Well, we know now why Cosby was like that.
There are probably secrets about Nintendo that only the board and the yakuza members who sit in on board meetings know, and they're not telling.
It seems far more likely that Nintendo strives to be like Disney instead of covering up decades of rape within Nintendo.
Especially now that Japanese company leaders are realizing their IP is valuable outside of Japan and don't just treat translation and marketing outside of Japan as a complete after thought.
1. If making a fan made game, build it in secret and release it once it is finished. Otherwise it will suffer an early demise (see: Chrono Resurrection)
2. Don't build emulators for current gen consoles (or if you do, do it in secret). Piracy argument is much weaker if the hardware is no longer being sold.
3. Don't link any fan creations to your real or existing identities. Use throwaway accounts and brand new pseudonyms.
I guess the issue is that content creators ripped Nintendo assets and included them in their Garry's mod creations, is that right? Hope I didn't misread that.
If so, I'm somewhat surprised that a takedown notice can be so expansive as to include all GM content, and not just individually enumerated creations. I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of IP violating Garry's Mod creations, but also thousands that don't. If there was just one single example of a Garry's Mod user that ripped a single sprite from a single Nintendo game, would that also necessitate a takedown of everyone's content?
It's copyright, the DMCA as well as expensive american courts and lawyers. Logic need not apply. Just send your take down and be confident that the other guy will submit to your will simply because he does not want to pay the costs associated with fighting it in court. Even when they win in court, they lose because they went bankrupt while the budgets of the likes of Nintendo and Sony were barely scratched.
It's not "everything", it's only the Nintendo-related add-ons (user uploaded content) published through Steam. So it's not all of Gmod, it's instead folks whole ripped a Mario skin and put it up as an add-on on steam.
How is it even possible for them to do this? Garry's Mod doesn't host the mods, do they? I was under the impression that Steam hosted the content, so they would have to send the takedown notice to Steam, not to Facepunch.
>The sandbox game is known for the massive workshop of user-made creations, which Nintendo took issue with when it discovered years' worth of ripped Nintendo assets in-game.
It is possible for something to be well within their legal rights while also being what is colloquially known as "a dick move". It costs Nintendo absolutely, positively nothing and nada to allow random Garry's Mods to use models ripped from their games. This action is beneficial to nobody, anywhere.
Trademarks must be actively defended to be maintained. Nintendo has to either do this or hand out free license to all of the creators. Even doing that could be used against them in the future, I suspect.
Doing nothing would literally cost them their company, because without exclusive rights to Super Mario, Zelda and so forth, they're just a manufacturer of subpar hardware.
Sega has long had an intentionally loose policy with regards to fanart and fan games and rarely issues takedowns for projects that don't generate profit. It doesn't seem to have hurt them at all.
Capcom too. An infinite amount of Mega Man fan games. Quite a few Mega Man bands making music, performing live. Projects that have been active for literal decades now. Do they issue silly takedowns and destroy all this culture? No, they invite them to play at their official events.
It's just corporations like Nintendo that suck. It's definitely not alone in that group. We all need to stop giving them money.
I feel ya, but I am sympathetic to the argument that Nintendo’s IP is uniquely valuable and their brand is globally very unique. They prize their reputation and the Nintendo authenticity seal has been a thing since forever.
This takedown is not based on trademark, but copyright (you can tell because the article mentions the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
It's true that you have to defend a trademark, but that doesn't actually mean you're required to go after anybody using your trademarks without authorization.
Let's chat again in 10 or 15 years and see whether every other piece of popular media ever has lost trademark rights due to not being DMCA'd out of Garry's Mod. I'm on the no side of that bet.
wow that's really evil of them i quite don't like them for this as i too played garrys mod back in the day and it pains me to see such a loss of community effort and beloved mods
It's not like they're demanding the deletion of all mod content as the headline carelessly implies. Yes it's boring and corporate but I don't think it rises to the level of 'evil.'
Garry's Mod and other similar games are how so many people get exposed to various different fan communities, characters, game-modes, and etc. that you'd think it'd essentially function as "free" marketing.
There's always the question of "What happens when Mario has a gun?", but you'd really hope that people would have the mental capacity to understand that it's not an official image or marketing material.
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