So Junichi Masuda has spoken about the fangames

[LeonVermillion]

http://kotaku.com/heres-what-the-creators-of-pokemon-sun-and-moon-think-a-1787969002

What do you guys think about this? Personally I found this to be a good news, heck he even encourage the fangame developer to join his team

I'm not really good with words, so I can't really say much about this XD

[Azeria]

The dude's super chill about it and heck, even appreciates it. It's saddening Nintendo's lawyers are being overprotective though. The offer is really cool but it might be hard considering everything is in japanese....

At the very least, it's a really cool gesture and him not condemning fan-games is a glimmer of hope.

[Lucky98]

Yeah. I saw that earlier today. He obviously can't say he supports them, but he really does not seem to mind. Now if only Nintendo was like this.

[Sunbean]

Yeah, the opinions of developers are very different from an organization's actions. I'm sure most artists appreciate fan creations, as long as it isn't direct rip offs. That said, I'm sure they don't like to have to enforce copyright laws but it's their obligation as a trademark holder. It's sad, but the best we can do is stay lowkey and Nintendo will stay away.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

I wonder what would happen if the creator of a fangame that was targeted by Nintendo sent them the link saying Masuda is alright with it (not saying I think it'll be happening more; I think the storm has calmed for now, just curious). I kind of feel like Masuda's stance should hold more weight, since he's the one directing the games.

[Sunbean]

I wonder what would happen if the creator of a fangame that was targeted by Nintendo sent them the link saying Masuda is alright with it (not saying I think it'll be be happening more; I think the storm has calmed for now, just curious). I kind of feel like Masuda's stance should hold more weight, since he's the one directing the games.

The problem is most copyright law requires a company continue to take down infringing material in order to keep their rights or trademark. So no matter what their thoughts are, they have to issue takedowns if they find them. That's how I understand it, at least.

The good thing here is The Pokemon Company doesn't really go out looking for fangames actively, so they're more relaxed when it comes to fangames.

[Commander]

C&D is part of the unwritten contract fan-game/hackers sign whether they are aware at first or not. It's often why you should use a persona instead of your real name so that something doesn't get written on your record, but it's not that huge of a deal in the long run. In a way, this stuff is a form of flattery and interest in the series and helps people stay into it when they get pushed away.

Let me describe to you Pokemon in a nutshell and why things are the way they are. Most video game companies consider it a huge deal if they hit over a million copies sold. Some nintendo games don't even hit 2 million. Uranium hit 1.5 million DLs at one point (probably more now) which is likely the biggest number in terms of the hacks/fan-games since the only thing that could compare is Sacred Gold from memory. That is a freaking huge number compared to most fan-games if not all of them. Pokemon has like 14 million copies sold for each main game game sold. So 10%, while still small, is significant which puts it on the radar. The rest of us are small little dots which is why nintendo rarely takes action.

[HughJ]

The article was kind of sus

It reframed some of Matsuda's responses like when they said his opinions on content went "beyond fan games" and applied to "fan art, too"

I feel like for a game development company, wouldn't fan art be a comparatively smaller area of interest? If they were truly encouraging fan works in their franchise, wouldn't they lean more towards encouragement of fan games than fan art? The order of Matsuda's responses and the way he prioritizes the vague subject of "creating things" indicates that he might have been taking a more patronizing stance

Just saying I think they might have confused Matsuda's general encouragement of creativity in youth with a promotion of fan games

He didn't mention Uranium at all, and the best they could do was tie it to a single tweet sent to GameFreak's PR account

Kotaku is shady

[Dreamy]

The article was kind of sus

It reframed some of Matsuda's responses like when they said his opinions on content went "beyond fan games" and applied to "fan art, too"

I feel like for a game development company, wouldn't fan art be a comparatively smaller area of interest? If they were truly encouraging fan works in their franchise, wouldn't they lean more towards encouragement of fan games than fan art? The order of Matsuda's responses and the way he prioritizes the vague subject of "creating things" indicates that he might have been taking a more patronizing stance

Just saying I think they might have confused Matsuda's general encouragement of creativity in youth with a promotion of fan games

He didn't mention Uranium at all, and the best they could do was tie it to a single tweet sent to GameFreak's PR account

Kotaku is shady

good point, but wasn't there also the part about encouraging applications for gamefreak? that's something you you direct at fangame makers, not fanart creators.

[HughJ]

good point, but wasn't there also the part about encouraging applications for gamefreak? that's something you you direct at fangame makers, not fanart creators.

Again those were Kotaku's words, not his own. He related to potential applicants as "creators" and immediately before generalized the people he was addressing as anyone interested in "art projects"

It's intuitive to infer that fan game creators were the most likey target of Masuda's proposal to join a game design company, so that's why Kotaku did. But as far as I can see he was just talking about creative people in general, as the other philanthropic founders and leaders of children's entertainment companies often do

Anyway point is that I don't buy half the content Kotaku, IGN, or their ilk throw up on their sites and we should be wary of their inferences

Edited October 22, 2016 by HughJ

[CainReborn]

I think it was really cool that he encouraged fan game creators to apply for game freak. That's pretty awesome of him to say! Masuda's always been pretty relaxed in "rules" a company should have and loves what fans create. He's really nice,, even if people don't agree with everything he has done or said in creating main series pokemon games.

[Dreamy]

Again those were Kotaku's words, not his own. He related to potential applicants as "creators" and immediately before generalized the people he was addressing as anyone interested in "art projects"

It's intuitive to infer that fan game creators were the most likey target of Masuda's proposal to join a game design company, so that's why Kotaku did. But as far as I can see he was just talking about creative people in general, as the other philanthropic founders and leaders of children's entertainment companies often do

Anyway point is that I don't buy half the content Kotaku, IGN, or their ilk throw up on their sites and we should be wary of their inferences

its true that a very large portion of journalism/media is total crap.

[The darn 4th chaos emerald]

Theyre still taking our games tho ;(

[Lorac]

Yeah, the text is kind of vague, we can't really be sure if what he said means he is ok(or even encourages) with fangames, but it seems to be the case, at least for me. Maybe this was the very reason he didn't want to say any names, because he didn't want anyone to get in trouble?

You know, as much as I want the Reborn/Rejuv fandom to grow, I also fear that if they get too popular they will end up like Uranium did.

[Alistair]

Masuda seems chill, but he is also (understandably) very careful not to adopt a radical stance, be it in favor of or against fan games. The article doesn't tell us that much, but Masuda himself wouldn't tell much either.

Praising fan games? Obviously not cool with GF because that's basically encouraging copyright infringement.

Condemning fan games? Not cool either, because fan games are the expression of the passion and dedication of numerous individuals for the franchise. Telling your most dedicated fans to piss off would be a dumb move. On a more personal side, I'd feel damn proud to have inspired such amounts of creations if I were Masuda, hence wouldn't feel like lashing out on them.

So there is Masuda, kinda stuck in the middle. The best he can do to show appreciation is to (jokingly?) suggest talented fan games devs to join the staff. That's a subtle way of acknowledging the quality of some games and telling their devs to keep being awesome at what they do.

[OpalWardMusicFan]

My personal stance on this is as follows:

Considering that from what I understand of the law that Copyright is that if a person/company ADMITS its not their property, credits the actual company, etc, its NOT infringement, correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, please. I really do not get HOW Uranium was infringing anything when they used fakemon and gave all credit to GF and Nintendo.

[Commander]

My personal stance on this is as follows:

Considering that from what I understand of the law that Copyright is that if a person/company ADMITS its not their property, credits the actual company, etc, its NOT infringement, correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, please. I really do not get HOW Uranium was infringing anything when they used fakemon and gave all credit to GF and Nintendo.

Infringement is more or less using someone else's property as your own. I suppose the best way to understand it is to use an example this time about my Grandpa's backyard. When he was a lot younger than he is now, there was a boy who lived next door who kept crossing through his hard to see his girlfriend which he constantly asked to stop. Eventually he got sick of it and built a fence to keep people from crossing his yard (which a lot of people where he lives have fences due to the residential layout).

Using their materials is more or less going into their yard since it is their stuff. They have a right to kick you out of their yard if you are causing a little too much trouble, but it is a bit rude to do so. The same goes for people who walk onto the yard. They probably should be aware to try and not cross into the yard if they can help it, but sometimes it's unavoidable. You also don't watch your yard 24/7 to see who's stepping onto it or crossing through it as most of the time it's no big deal. It's only when someone is damaging it you start paying attention.

This whole fan-games getting taken down issue isn't going to go away until the copyright and fair use laws address it (because those things really need revised at this point). Here's the thing though: the Pokemon "hacking" (basically put hacks and fan-games into the same categoery) is much bigger than any other community that is so advanced at this point it's impossible to uproot it. It's also gone so far that GF could start hurting in sales due to so many game being higher quality (because back in the day the greats and best are meh to today's standards).

[Zumi]

4 minutes ago, GS BALL said:

 

c. The most important part. I saw nowhere an apology or something of sorts, for heartlessly shutting down 9 years of dedicated work and crushing mercilessly talent, passion, dedication.

 

 

Allow me to show you something. This was in the C&D notice for Prism.

 

 

It's not an apology, but they do acknowledge the hard work people have put in their creations. Everything else that's been brought up in this message is also very relevant, however, so there's a very good reason as of why these things are happening to fangames.

 

The removal of fangames of copyrighted nintendo brands that were nominated for the game awards were removed for this very same reason.

It's a legal matter. And fangames happen to be extremely in the grey zone of legality-- ROM hacks much less so, and are definitely illegal. The way Nintendo responds is perfectly natural. Yes it sucks, and as someone who's also working on a fangame, of course I don't want my game to be shut down either-- But if it does happen, I will accept it. It's a risk people are taking by creating these games, and this is a risk people have to accept that they're taking.

 

It's okay to be bitter about that someone else's work got shut down, especially if it's years of work. It's not fun, and I'm pretty sure the creators are saddened by this as well whenever such a thing happens, but it's a risk people are taking.

You shouldn't be getting mad at Nintendo for trying to protect their brand even though it gets outclassed by fanworks often oops

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Although I do wonder if it's something they have to do, since apparently Sonic creators gave their permission for people to make Sonic fangames.

[Zumi]

4 minutes ago, Ice Cream Sand Witch said:

Although I do wonder if it's something they have to do, since apparently Sonic creators gave their permission for people to make Sonic fangames.

 

I think it's because Pokémon has a (most likely much) bigger fanbase, that fangames may create a bigger risk for the official games and their sales. What if fangames become more popular than the actual brand and become more attractive for people because 1) they're free to play and 2) they're better than the main series? With a big fanbase, news of it will spread much faster, and because the numbers of people who know about the games will be so big, it may actually truly influence the sales and popularity of the main series if such a thing gets out of hand.

 

I'm not saying I agree with what they're doing of course, but from an objective standpoint I can definitely see why they'd be so wary of fangames.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

23 minutes ago, Zumi said:

 

I think it's because Pokémon has a (most likely much) bigger fanbase, that fangames may create a bigger risk for the official games and their sales. What if fangames become more popular than the actual brand and become more attractive for people because 1) they're free to play and 2) they're better than the main series? With a big fanbase, news of it will spread much faster, and because the numbers of people who know about the games will be so big, it may actually truly influence the sales and popularity of the main series if such a thing gets out of hand.

 

I'm not saying I agree with what they're doing of course, but from an objective standpoint I can definitely see why they'd be so wary of fangames.

Oh, okay. I haven't really played Sonic (other than a demo of Sonic Heroes), so I didn't know Pokemon had a bigger fanbase. I assumed it was similar size to Pokemon just based on it being a well-known series. I used to disagree with the point that fangames might take away people from the main series since whenever it was brought up there were people that would either say "I still buy the official games" or "Fangames actually introduced me to the series", but lately I have seen people claiming that they didn't go back after fangames because they liked fangames more, and that makes me sad because it makes Nintendo's fears seem legitimate and might make them more aggressive  (no offense intended to those people though) 

 

At this point my life wouldn't even be the same if fangames ceased to exist. Even though I only started playing them in 2014, I've gotten so much attached to some of them it would cause a void in my heart that wouldn't be easily replaced. What would I spend all that time doing that normally would've been spent playing Reborn, Rejuvenation, etc., or working on Spork? I think I'm safe since my contact information isn't public so they can't email me a C&D (not that I'd see it anyway since I don't check my email) and I'm 12 so even in worst-case scenario they couldn't sue me if they gave a C&D and I just put it back up, although thinking you're safe might be the first step towards becoming not safe, so. I honestly don't know what I'd be spending that time otherwise doing. 

[Azeria]

39 minutes ago, GS BALL said:

 

Honestly, after i have tested myself some certain fan-games, i can vouch for this statement of yours, as well. More serious setting than your average, never changing, childish fest, superb fakemon that you can easily mistake for canon ones, or exactly what reborn has to offer and most fans have always sought (1 version to offer EVERY catchable pokemon)... I come to think seriously, that the real reason Nintendo ordered those close-downs, was to actually not get laughed at! Handful of amateur people with much free time can sometimes surpass full teams of professionals!

 

Just gunna put this here but note that Pokemon's target audience is, has been and likely always will be children. Complaining about it being 'childish' is kinda weird when the games are mainly for children. 1 version providing every Pokemon in the franchise is something they will likely not do if only because one of the trademark aspects of the franchise is interacting with others and trading with them. It's a design choice to promote trading.

 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

10 minutes ago, GS BALL said:

 

Wrong? Gen 1 for example had some things like the death of Gary's Raticate 

That one's just a fan theory. It's also possible he deposited it in the PC, since he did catch a lot of Pokemon and built his team around being able to take on any type according to what he said in the champion battle. (I'm not sure if his team actually does have complete coverage, but since Raticate would be a second Normal type to Pidgeot and Normal isn't super effective against anything, it makes sense he'd switch out)

[Azeria]

1 hour ago, GS BALL said:

 

Wrong? Gen 1 for example had some things like the death of Gary's Raticate and plethora of other hints, or things that got redesigned. Too lazy to search and list, there were many articles back in the day. Or gen 1 leaders working for giovanni and actually being evil, helping in team rocket plans as well (that games and anime never showed). 

For the latter, that's a decision made by the guy that creates the main version of the manga, Pokemon SPECIAL, not the games or anime.