An upcoming video game tournament will be missing a game from its original lineup, following the organizers of the tournament being contacted by Nintendo of America. Riptide was scheduled to take place last year, but was postponed due to COVID-19. It was then moved to September 2021, where it would feature competitions involving Super Smash Bros. Melee, Splatoon 2, Rivals of Aether, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, along with Project+, a tweaked version of the popular Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod Project M. However, that's no longer the case, as Nintendo representatives reached out to the team behind Riptide, leading to the removal of Project+ from the event.

Riptide was contacted recently by a Nintendo of America, Inc. representative regarding our Project+ events. As a result of that conversation, there will be no Project+ tournaments or setups at Riptide.

A direct reason was not stated, though it can only be assumed that Nintendo of America did not want Riptide to go forward with an event featuring a modded version of one of Nintendo's first-party titles alongside official releases. Similar incidents have taken place in the past, such as last year, when Nintendo of America sent a cease and desist to The Big House, which was going to utilize Slippi, a specialized netplay build of the Dolphin emulator for to hold their tournament. Right now, Riptide organizers are contacting those signed up for the Project+ tournament and allowing refunds for those affected.

Source

 

[raxadian]

Surprised I am not.

 

[FAST6191]

There's protecting your IP...

...and then there's just being Nintendo

To be fair if you read stuff like the xbox content usage guidelines* then modded stuff, especially modded stuff being named similarly enough to the original game, is explicitly disallowed. Similarly trademark laws are kind of all about avoiding confusion so someone seeing a clip of it or something and thinking "where do I get that" or "ew that looks awful" both count as damaging aspects as far as the law (intent, letter, spirit and otherwise) to Nintendo in this case but the trademark holder in general.

*linky
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules

You can't reverse engineer our games to access the assets or otherwise do things that the games don't normally permit in order to create your Items.

I imagine Nintendo has a blanket refusal policy here, however I am curious whether they could avoid using the name or anything else and what might happen there.

 

[tabzer]

Sounds like they had a serious discussion on what it means to be a fan of Nintendo.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

There are times when I think people are hard on Nintendo for being relatively fair, and then there are times like this where they deserve whatever shit they get. Hosting a tourney that includes a Brawl mod hurts nobody.

 

[IncredulousP]

Hosting a tourney that includes a Brawl mod hurts nobody.

My father was killed by a Brawl mod.

 

[diggeloid]

One of these organizations needs to stand up to Nintendo and settle this in court. I don't even follow competitive smash, but it always bothers me to see a company try to dictate what consumers can or can't do with a product post-purchase. Sure, I can see how this is a potential IP concern, but even then the concept of fair use exists, and if this doesn't qualify as fair use, then copyright law needs to be updated.

Fuck Nintendo for doing shit like this, and for making games like Metroid Dread that are physically impossible for me to not buy (so I can't even boycott their evil ass)

 

[jahrs]

I believe Nintendo literally said that the way people play melee competitively is not how the game is meant to be played. While they can't stop people playing there own legit games however they want they can stop the mods because it's not a legitimate version so it's akin to a fan made project and you know how they act towards those

 

[phreaksho]

Prime 2d just got hit as well..

 

[Seliph]

I wouldn't say they hate their fanbase really, they just hate hackers, modders and users of homebrew.

Every company hates their consumer base

 

[gudenau]

These tournament organizers will never learn will they? This keeps happening and they continue to try it.

 

[Noctosphere]

When I play Game Dev Tyccoon, sometime I'm told about fan games and all
There are few examples of what I can do
Like, if I stop their fan game with a cease and desist, I lose fans in my fanbase
If I encourage them, I get more fan

I can even be asked to sell the game engine of my old game to the fanbase
Hell, if only Nintendo was doing that with some old games like Pokemon

 

[Deleted member 397813]

what would happen if they hosted a tournament like this in canada?

 

[Noctosphere]

what would happen if they hosted a tournament like this in canada?

I think NoA is also in charge of Canada
There do is Nintendo of Canada, but I think they respond directly to Nintendo of America

 

[the_randomizer]

In before the Nintendo sycophants/white knights show up

 

[64bitmodels]

i'm gonna say it
If you're currently supporting Nintendo or any of their products regarding the current stuff they've done since the beginning of this year
you are a fucking simp, and one of the biggest retards on this site. you've chosen to be ignorant of their actions. The steam deck has now given you 0 reason to support any of their products or anything they've done. STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES.

 

[MultiKoopa]

jesus christ Nintendo is a joke now

 

[Kwyjor]

which was going to utilize Slippi, a specialized netplay build of the Dolphin emulator for to hold their tournament

I thought Slippi was a mod that ran on original hardware? It's so hard to keep track of these things.

On that note, is Project+ substantially improved over Project M? (Didn't Project M cease development because Nintendo asked them to? And if so, why isn't Nintendo asking Project+ to stop development? Such strangeness.)

Even developers like Sega and Capcom simply hire modders, and in Valve's case, make things continue with development and become first-party (sort of; ref. Black Mesa). Nintendo really has a problem

Sega can barely give away their back catalog for free anymore.

allowing all of this technically opens them up to losing their copyrights

Why does this still come up? Copyright does not work that way. Copyright has never worked that way.

jesus christ Nintendo is a joke now

Nintendo Switch sales surpass 89 million, has outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3! Hilarious!

 

[MultiKoopa]

Nintendo Switch sales surpass 89 million, has outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3! Hilarious!

yes yes, money is everything

 

[CeeDee]

I'm better than you because I use vague anti-consumerism as a moral justification to pirate Nintendo games

 

[Noctosphere]

I'll quote you

"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH CARTMAN"

I know Nintendo is being a jerk of C&D all fan games, it's a shame on them
But I still pay for Nintendo games because, for fuck sake, they do make good games