To the surprise of few, Nintendo has caused the death of another fan game based on one of its properties. Prime 2D, a reimagining of Metroid Prime, but in a classic 2D style, which first appeared on the internet back in April 2021, and has received multiple updates since, has been shut down. The developers behind the fan project, Team SCU, posted an update to their website, saying that "for legal reasons" they have removed the link to the demo of the game that they had been working on, along with the soundtrack, which consisted of original music composed specifically for it. Team SCU had been working on and off Prime 2D since 2004, meaning it took a handful of months for lawyers to kill a fan game that had been in the making for well over a decade.

This bit of news follows the shutdown of the Project+ bracket at this year's Riptide tournament, while also ironically occurring during the same week as Sonic Amateur Games Expo, in which SEGA actively encourages fans to create fan-made romhacks and even full games based on their properties.

Source

 

[Jacobh]

You specifically wouldn't be able to trademark it *because* both the words "Metroid" and "Castlevania" are trademarked. What it refers to is somewhat immaterial, a trademarked name can refer to a range of products. Not that it really matters, of course.

A trademark can refer to a set of related products from a single company. Metroid and Castlevania are owned by different companies and are different brands / products.

The reason Metroidvania couldn’t be trademarked is it’s a generic term for a genre of games. The term wouldn’t exist without the games, but if those games didn’t exit it still wouldn’t be granted a trademark just like no one could trademark “first person shooter” or “graphic adventure”.

 

[Foxi4]

A trademark can refer to a set of related products from a single company. Metroid and Castlevania are owned by different companies and are different brands / products.

The reason Metroidvania couldn’t be trademarked is it’s a generic term for a genre of games. The term wouldn’t exist without the games, but if those games didn’t exit it still wouldn’t be granted a trademark just like no one could trademark “first person shooter” or “graphic adventure”.

Metroidvania is not a "genetic term", like first person shooter - it does refer to a genre, by way of referring to two specific products. If you think this is not the case, try to trademark an "Applephone", see where that gets ya. It's just a genetic description of a phone that kind of looks like one made by Apple, I'm sure it'll work.

 

[daemonspudguy]

Legally speaking, Nintendo has all the right in the world to kill this project. I still heavily disagree with it but the fan project does infringe on their copyrights.

 

[smf]

Nintendo probably being charitable if you think about.

I doubt that was their intention.

Sad truth. With the emergence of games on blockchain, hoping that fan-made games can somehow be made on there but idk if that will still be subject to legal issues

Yes. If they identify who you are then they can keep going after you for damages as you've purposefully made sure it's impossible to comply with any court order.

If you remove it when they ask then they seem quite reasonable.

 

[Jonna]

There are so many people on here with the wrong mentality. I and many friends I've known have made many Nintendo fangames. You have to be creative with them. Don't just make a 2D version of an official game, or an upgraded version, or a sequel to an official game. Actually do something interesting and put the characters of an IP into a situation that would be way different. We never had problems with Nintendo when we did that.

 

[the_randomizer]

Not surprised seeing all the sycophants

 

[tabzer]

Nintendo probably being charitable if you think about. The Takedown will force devs to change sprites/character models etc to remove IP before release. If Nintendo wanted to be nasty, they could wait a while, assess damages, then get their lawyers to sue/fine ruin life's..

They just wanted to subtly break the news to the dev that they will never ever, ever, be good enough for them without crushing theirsoul.

 

[DoubleDate]

It's funny how people feel entitled that they should use Nintendo IP's. If Nintendo doesn't allow it they are Draconian and giving kind of hateful comments. Nintendo has every right to defend their IP's ,they created it. Its like you own a car and then people from the street get in your car and take it away without your permission. Would you take it lightly or would you do anything to get your car back? If Nintendo gets too lenient with projects like this, lots of people will be creating all kind of games from all of Nintendo IP's, meaning that it breaks the copyright issues layed out by Nintendo. Since everyone will be doing it, it could be problematic for Nintendo to stop people from creating unauthorized games without Nintendo's permission. Its all about legallity.

Why dont people try to make a fan made Final Fantasy games? Or a Castlevania one? You will get the same result: You will be NOT authorized to create a dedicated fan game using those IP's.

People go after Nintendo because they see them as a "Kid friendly" company and due to having such an image people expect Nintendo to keep quiet and allowing anyone to do whatever they want with their characters.

If you want to do a dedicated game containing Nintendo characters, you need to become a certified developer. Have your own game portofolio, aaaand if Nintendo likes what you are doing you might be lucky that they lend their characters to your company. One big example is Cadence of Hyrule. They did it the right way and got official permission to use characters from the Legend of Zelda games.

 

[gudenau]

When will people learn that Nintendo does this?

 

[MetoMeto]

Upsetting to say, but people should stop wasting time making fan-made Nintendo games. Clearly, they don't fucking like them.

This did nothing, only officially it did.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Anyways.......
I don't see why is Nintendo bothered.
Its just a bunch of people having fun and sharing it with others online, for no profit whatsoever.

If nothing, they have free promotion of Metroid.


Its like me promoting Coca-Cola on my t-shirt and coca-cola comes at me and sue me
for giving them free publicity.

Another explanation is they are afraid a fan made game will be better than official (it will),
but so what?!

I fucking bought a switch for this one game, Metroid Dread, and preordered it!
I dont see how in any way shape or form they need to and have right to shut down someones fun time project.

I used to be a nintendo fan, now i feel sick of them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

It's funny how people feel entitled that they should use Nintendo IP's. If Nintendo doesn't allow it they are Draconian and giving kind of hateful comments. Nintendo has every right to defend their IP's ,they created it. Its like you own a car and then people from the street get in your car and take it away without your permission. Would you take it lightly or would you do anything to get your car back? If Nintendo gets too lenient with projects like this, lots of people will be creating all kind of games from all of Nintendo IP's, meaning that it breaks the copyright issues layed out by Nintendo. Since everyone will be doing it, it could be problematic for Nintendo to stop people from creating unauthorized games without Nintendo's permission. Its all about legallity.

Why dont people try to make a fan made Final Fantasy games? Or a Castlevania one? You will get the same result: You will be NOT authorized to create a dedicated fan game using those IP's.

People go after Nintendo because they see them as a "Kid friendly" company and due to having such an image people expect Nintendo to keep quiet and allowing anyone to do whatever they want with their characters.

If you want to do a dedicated game containing Nintendo characters, you need to become a certified developer. Have your own game portofolio, aaaand if Nintendo likes what you are doing you might be lucky that they lend their characters to your company. One big example is Cadence of Hyrule. They did it the right way and got official permission to use characters from the Legend of Zelda games.

Its not in comercial purposes, its for fun.
This is not a minority report where you sue and arest people for doing nothing. Its literally few people having fun and promoting nintendo.
If nothing its a bad PR for them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Legally speaking, Nintendo has all the right in the world to kill this project. I still heavily disagree with it but the fan project does infringe on their copyrights.

so does a free publicity right?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

All you "legal" people talk bullshit, but whatever.
Laws are made by people so they arent perfect, and frankly some are stupid. Thats it.

 

[DoubleDate]

This did nothing, only officially it did.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Anyways.......
I don't see why is Nintendo bothered.
Its just a bunch of people having fun and sharing it with others online, for no profit whatsoever.

If nothing, they have free promotion of Metroid.


Its like me promoting Coca-Cola on my t-shirt and coca-cola comes at me and sue me
for giving them free publicity.

Another explanation is they are afraid a fan made game will be better than official (it will),
but so what?!

I fucking bought a switch for this one game, Metroid Dread, and preordered it!
I dont see how in any way shape or form they need to and have right to shut down someones fun time project.

I used to be a nintendo fan, now i feel sick of them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Its not in comercial purposes, its for fun.
This is not a minority report where you sue and arest people for doing nothing. Its literally few people having fun and promoting nintendo.
If nothing its a bad PR for them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


so does a free publicity right?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

All you "legal" people talk bullshit, but whatever.
Laws are made by people so they arent perfect, and frankly some are stupid. Thats it.

It may be nothing for you, but at the end of the day its their property like it or not. You want people to do whatever they want with their IP, something that Nintendo build with years. Why dont people just create their own game?

As i stated before, let someone try to create a full fan made game of Castlevania and let see what happens. People are commenting like they own Nintendo and have all the right to do whatever they want with their characters. All Nintendo characters are copyrighted IP's, meaning to use you need to ask for a license.

If that what the case, that we do whatever what we want with copyrighted material, then im going to copy entirely and sing a song from Ariana Grande for "Fun" and post it on Youtube. Im quite sure i will also be asked to take the song down. That is the thing with all the copyright issues.

 

[DoubleDate]

This did nothing, only officially it did.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Anyways.......
I don't see why is Nintendo bothered.
Its just a bunch of people having fun and sharing it with others online, for no profit whatsoever.

If nothing, they have free promotion of Metroid.


Its like me promoting Coca-Cola on my t-shirt and coca-cola comes at me and sue me
for giving them free publicity.

Another explanation is they are afraid a fan made game will be better than official (it will),
but so what?!

I fucking bought a switch for this one game, Metroid Dread, and preordered it!
I dont see how in any way shape or form they need to and have right to shut down someones fun time project.

I used to be a nintendo fan, now i feel sick of them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Its not in comercial purposes, its for fun.
This is not a minority report where you sue and arest people for doing nothing. Its literally few people having fun and promoting nintendo.
If nothing its a bad PR for them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


so does a free publicity right?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

All you "legal" people talk bullshit, but whatever.
Laws are made by people so they arent perfect, and frankly some are stupid. Thats it.

It may be nothing for you, but at the end of the day its their property like it or not. You want people to do whatever they want with their IP, something that Nintendo build with years. Why dont people just create their own game?

As i stated before, let someone try to create a full fan made game of Castlevania and let see what happens. People are commenting like they own Nintendo and have all the right to do whatever they want with their characters. All Nintendo characters are copyrighted IP's, meaning to use you need to ask for a license.

If that what the case, that we do whatever what we want with copyrighted material, then im going to copy entirely and sing a song from Ariana Grande for "Fun" and post it on Youtube. Im quite sure i will also be asked to take the song down. That is the thing with all the copyright issues.

 

[air2004]

Sure it sucks, but this game is different enough from Prime in the first place that they can replace Metroid characters/assets and turn it into an original game with relatively minimal loss of work. There's definitely stuff to be done here besides throwing up their hands and quitting.

They could be using ninty's legal prowess against them. By that I mean they had to know that ninty would shut this project down... ninty's lawyers publicize this lawsuit because they want go stop others from doing this sort of thing in the future but little does ninty realize that all creator has to do is make a few modifications to make it all legal.

It's a win-win.

 

[granville]

Obligatory PSA about fan works based on Nintendo (and a lot of other companies) IP's-



Very sad as this looked legitimately great. But you could see it coming from a mile away. I'm against this takedown and do support the fangame. But the situation with AM2R (and a lot of other similar cases) made it clear that it's not safe to announce a Nintendo fan remake until it's pretty much already fully completed and released. This looked promising enough that I hope it can and will be reskinned.

I'm surprised AM2R survived to its release, given that its development was well known and reported on for years. Perhaps Nintendo legit didn't know about it, or assumed it was vaporware that would never be finished. They've always been hostile towards fan remakes, but I think AM2R may have prompted them to more actively search for and take out fan projects than they used to.

 

[daemonspudguy]

Its not in comercial purposes, its for fun.
This is not a minority report where you sue and arest people for doing nothing. Its literally few people having fun and promoting nintendo.
If nothing its a bad PR for them.

That is not how copyright law works.

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

Why dont people try to make a fan made Final Fantasy games? Or a Castlevania one? You will get the same result: You will be NOT authorized to create a dedicated fan game using those IP's.

Here you go: https://www.moddb.com/mods/castlevania-simons-destiny

As for Final Fantasy, I suppose there's RPG Maker for that.

 

[tabzer]

I'm surprised AM2R survived to its release, given that its development was well known and reported on for years. Perhaps Nintendo legit didn't know about it, or assumed it was vaporware that would never be finished.

I'm equally surprised it took so long for a new Metroid game to come out. Do you think the timing is coincidental?

Or.

It could be a cost effective form of marketing. It generates hype and pining over the metroid franchise. It instills a feeling of "missing out on metroid", and that will translate into greater sales.

There is no such thing as too much money. Lol.

Great video btw. Everybody should have watched it 6 years ago and learned about shutting the fuck up.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

This is why you need to keep fan projects secret until the game is "finished" so that even if it gets shut down, people will still have a version playable from start to finish and the effort isn't wasted. It sucks, but this was guaranteed to happen, it happens every single time. I'm sure the team behind it saw it coming too.

 

[Wickedchew]

why cant nintendo love how enthusiast and creativity of these guys..
like what capcom did to Megaman x Streetfighter


i remember when there is no mario maker before..there was this team developing mario where you can create levels and play with friends..
Nintendo Ban them..after a year or so..nintendo announce Mario Maker

 

[tabzer]

why cant nintendo love how enthusiast and creativity of these guys..

They probably do. lol.

 

[TigerPuffs]

This is too bad. All fan creations really does is promote sales of the original material. It's like authors who tank fanfiction written in their universes. But it's their property, so I guess they can shoot themselves in the foot if they want to.