Nintendo Lawyers vs Pokemon Fan Games

DidYouKnowGaming looks at a handful of interesting Pokemon fangames that ran into legal trouble with The Pokemon Company and Nintendo's ninjas. We speak to several hobbyist developers about their experience having their projects impacted or forcibly cancelled.

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Special thanks to all the fan game creators and website owners who spoke to us, and proofread this video to make sure everything was accurate: Sheep, JV, Oripoke, Entity Unknown, Koolboyman, Kip, Greaseball, Slimebox, Lucbui, TrainerX493, Sloo, ExtremeEevee, Marin -- as well as Eurasia for footage capture.

Narration by @moon-channel
Research/Writing by Dr Lava
Video Editing by TheCartoonGamer

Sources/Further Reading:

Most information in this video was learned from the fan game developers first-hand, and (except for a few creators we couldn't reach) each fan game's video segment was proofread and approved by the fan games' creators. A few source links are omitted due to legal concerns, so as to not draw unwanted attention their direction.

#pokemon #pokemonfangames #fangames

[DidYouKnowGamin]

Note to viewers: Every fan game in this video had its creators interviewed, and they proofread the script to make sure everything was accurate, and they're okay with this information being presented in a DYKG video (this is the case for almost all interviewees in all DYKG videos). The only exceptions were Sky (from Flora Sky) and Dragon (the Pokemon FPS guy), who we couldn't get in touch with.

Note to video game news sites (Kotaku, IGN, etc): please do not write an article about this video (as you sometimes do with DYKG videos). Pokemon and Nintendo lawyers have Google Alerts set up so they'll see your articles almost immediately, because they'll likely contain numerous terms that'll trigger the alerts. We always appreciate your support, but we're happy to miss out on those extra views this time. Google Alerts don't work on YouTube videos though, so as long as this video doesn't get summarized into a news article, unwanted attention shouldn't be drawn.

[diebesgrab]

“AI-driven DMCA”

God, if ever there was a wake up call that we need to change copyright law, this is it.

[moon-channel]

The video turned out great! It was truly a pleasure to work with all of the fine professionals at DYKG: thanks for inviting me to participate in the fun! If I get any scary emails in the near future, I'm forwarding them to your legal department.

[Trowelhands]

Reminder to shut up, develop in secret, dump your game and disappear before they tell you to stop.

[DJIVision]

I'm the guy who wrote this video. Some YT comments are saying this video shouldn't've been made, because the fan game creators don't want attention.

I understand the inclination, but I interviewed about a dozen fan devs over several months, for almost every game (a couple were MIA, see this video's pinned comment). They all helped with, and approved the final wording of the script. Many of them were thrilled to have their stories told, and see this video get made. They don't wanna be invisible, never to be acknowledged even in a YT video. A lot of em spent years making these fan games. That said, a couple fan game creators preferred not to have their games mentioned, so them and their games weren't inckuded in the video (that's stated towards the end of the video).

[GameboyLuke]

“footage by gameboyluke” on the first clip got me feeling like that one spongebob meme

[tsunderecat]

this video went from "oh okay, that's understandable. still sucks, but i get it." to "the future of copyright law is not looking good, and if artificial intelligence truly is the future in this regard, then i am very afraid."

[linkex]

2:49 - Even outside his own channel, Moonie cannot escape Brazil.

[safebox]

I'm a modder for Morrowind but I started out romhacking with Pokemon.
Something I remember the Pokecommunity (and Relic Castle before it got taken down) discovering slowly over the years was that Nintendo's policy towards fan content seems to be with regards to misrepresentation by general audiences who might not know any better.
This would include:
- using official assets
- naming the game Pokemon
- selling the final product
- distribution of a finish ROM
- significant media coverage and attention

It's that first and last point in particular that we think has their lawyers go after Pokemon Essentials and Pokemon Uranium respectively, while leaving other projects alone for the most part.
Another significant factor that saved Pokecommunity from a full takedown that Relic Castle didn't heed the warning of was that romhacks are only allowed to share a patch now and the tools to update the ROMs.
But sharing the ROMs itself are a guaranteed death sentence for a project, as there is almost none that survive for long once advertised.

No fangame is guaranteed to be safe from DMCA, of course.
But Pokecommunity (and romhacking communities for other Nintendo games) seem to have figured out the unofficial policy of Nintendo's lawyers; keep your head low and don't allow the product to be confused for the real thing.



Edit: One of my mods for Morrowind is actually a Zelda-themes one which adds the Master Cycle.
And I've managed to skirt Nintendo's legal team by proving that the asset didn't come from the game itself and was custom made, and that the only mention of the phrase "Zelda" is in relation to the mod's inspiration.
It's still up to this day, thankfully.

[epicponedge]

The use of AI to fill DMCA's is horrifying. There is no thought or logic behind it, it'll just decide "Eh, your game's title is close enough to the real thing, shut it down." That explains why the four games with Giratina/Distortion World ideas and Relic Castle were shut down.

[ChaoticMeatballTV]

Good to see this on the 20th anniversary of (I think) the oldest fully-custom region hack in Pokemon Brown. Also, a perfect choice of narrator here.

[Infindox]

Have a bad feeling IGN is not gonna listen to that pinned comment. Time to start collecting some fan works or making sure places have it that don't have many eyes on it, i guess.

[javidg]

Upload patches, not ROMs and NEVER, EVER monetize

[abdelali]

That Pokémon FPS guy is somewhat right, if Palworld wasn't making legally distinct Pokémon mashup characters, would it have had the traction it got if it used generic or non Pokémon lookalike creatures?

[NovusDundus]

The short solution for any dev seeing this is to not announce anything until you're ready for playable builds AND to open source your project.

Oh and don't try to make money on it.
That won't end well regardless.

[Guilmonvr]

I do think that if artwork made by an AI has no copyright, then maybe an AI shouldn't be able to issue legal notices.

[TheBitLeafeon]

A common pattern I've noticed from nintendo in the past couple of years is that their timing on DMCA takedowns, even when they use a takedown bot, is based on when they're planning something that they want all eyes on or can use to appease angry fans (a recent example would be the Gmod takedowns right before TTYD's release), and I can only imagine pokemon is the same case.

I have no idea what this is going to entail for the upcoming 30th anniversary, but it should be a good warning for all pokemon and nintendo fangame creators and modders to keep a low profile when a game is about to release, so they aren't on any headlines at the wrong time.

[DragonmistX]

I like this recent trend of DidYouKnowGaming answering why things happened, even if the why isn't a answer people enjoy hearing. Like with Crash 4 not selling enough for some insane standards or Nintendo thinking GO will have competition in fan games.

[TylerTheNintendoMaster]

Who else got an ironic pokemon bootleg game ad?

[HaruSkage]

Considering how the Youtube AI already tags Pokémon Uranium to this video, I feel like eventually it'll fall into the wrong hands. I was very much entertained though, you guys are top notch video game journalists.