Nintendo takes down Super Mario 64 HD fan project

Demo looked good and was made in unity.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/03/31/nintendo-takes-down-super-mario-64-hd-fan-project

 

I do believe I called it in another thread.

 

Considering the video is monetised with over a million views, that's some significant commercial gain from stealing Nintendo's IP right there. Plus this indicates the project itself had significant interest.

It one thing to use some pirated IP in your own home. Its entirely another to start distributing it across the internet.

Good warning against pirating IP. If it becomes successful in any way, they will come for you.

 

Looks so cool! Wish Nintendo would never take it down.

 

Yeah but it was completely obvious it would happen just as it did with Chrono Resurrection.

 

I'm not surprised.
Nintendo showed numerous times that you better not mess with their franchise. Even if the game is free, it's still an infringement of their intellectual property.
I'm sure he hadn't any bad intentions with that. But it's always better to come up with something original. Even for demonstration purposes.

 

Being a student and making this remake would sure benefit him from the future. Like when some game companies (except Nintendo) approach him they be like: "This guy remade the whole Super Mario 64 game. He's quite talented. Let's take him!".
In other words, he can place it into his portfolio to show off big companies what he is capable of.

 

He duplicated part of a game from 1996. It may sound good in theory, but it isn't really that impressive. The concepts involved are basic enough that you should pick them up simply learning Unity.

 

I'm sure you can impress companies way more, when you come up with something unique.

 

Having publicity is probably a good thing in this business. The guys next release will probably benefit from the publicity.

 

Maybe it's about mistaking it for a real Nintendo thing? It's also quite strange IMO that the guy wouldn't have just made an original concept even if it was heavily Mario inspired.

 

Looked really good. So it really wasn't surprising that Nintendo took it down, either.
I really wonder why people still bother with such big IPs. Especially without explicitly written concent of the original developer.

 

Part of a game renowned for it's gameplay, and it seems like he got the controls/gameplay down pretty well. Which is rather impressive IMO. I am however not at all surprised that Nintendo took it down, and he could have used other assets to accomplish a very similar goal ("Hey, look at this Mario-inspired thing I made") but sure that would have been more of an effort.

 

Personally I felt he nailed the camera far better than anything else. Super Mario 64's camera, and the way it occasionally made walking across narrow platforms very difficult, was just awful.

 

On a side note: It's funnily enough that this project was super popular, got a lot of traction and media coverage across the world,....even with the personal edition splash screen

 

Would this have been the case without monetizing either the game or the youtube page? I was about to recreate super mario sunshine for a school project...

They were far too racist and jealous to be outshined by Unity3D and some guy they never heard of

I know anyone who watches RTU will probably support his next project just because of this lol. There's quite a few sore videos on nintendo take downs. They also recently said that they're going to take down anything people post nintendo related unless they're partnered with nintendo. And that partnership also dictates which nintendo IP you can make videos about, how much of the money you make goes to nintendo, and what (if any) non-nintendo related things you can do with your channel. Fun stuff.

Not to mention how quickly he assembled that entire project in Unity 5, given that my updates (and some other people's updates) from 4.x -> 5.x broke all the prefabs in the scene.

 

Lesson learned: "Intro doesn't matter"

 

This is why we don't talk about the nice things! :'(

 

I wonder how Mario 64 would look like in UE4 or Cry Engine...

 

This.
----------
ProTip: Using IP in your portfolio that is not yours, or that you didn't work legitimately is almost guaranteed to end your chances instantly.

 

Probably about the same but with a better default skybox (UE) or a lot more incorrect for the universe but highly detailed foliage (cryengine) lol.

Well the purpose of your portfolio is ultimately to make some money, so that's understandable

Kind of related... do communist countries have intellectual property things like copyright protection? Maybe the government owns everything? Maybe copyright / patents don't exist because the population is not considered unique or exceptional?

--edit

I found a download of it, huehue.

 

It seems like he designed the game to show off the character controller. He should sell the CC in the asset store, and Im sure he would have made a mint.

 

maybe because it was a personal project ?
with no intention to monetise or whatsoever

 

I've noticed at least one person who complained about the phrasing had only free game links in their signature.

 

If he would sell the character controller and would refer to the project or use any of the videos in marketing it would be direct IP infringement no matter if the remake was released or not.

 

Well, this is fan art, really is sad that Nintendo use their legal army against this developer, the source of the game is a great resource for learn third person camera use and other things, fortunately archive.org have a backup of the website files.

 

Also pretty sure nintendo went ape because he actually used models from super mario galaxy, ripped.

 

If you want his character controller, it is still available on this blog site.

https://roystanross.wordpress.com/downloads/

 

The gameplay looked neat, but Nintendo's reaction was completely expected. I can't imagine anybody thought Nintendo would let this slide.

 

People make stuff up a lot and think it'll be ok because it's free. I can't imagine why they do, since nobody's ever said that was legal.

 

Many people tend to be pretty ignorant of what is and is not legal from my experience.

 

I don't get it at all. While I definitely appreciate retro games I do not understand why people create them then make them publicly available. They usually say "it is for me and a few close friends" yet it is odd how a website goes up offering it to the world. If a person truly wanted to copy a game even making models based on the exact characters and kept it on their computer for their own play and to show their friends I can't see anything bad coming out of it. But when they copy a famous game and then share it with the world how can they not know that is a dumb thing to do? You might as well just write a letter to Nintendo or whoever and say "hey folks just wanted to let you know I copied one of your mega popular games and released it online... check it out here!"

Why not just make a game inspired by popular game instead of copying it? Different characters and enemies and powerups. Different level designs. Etc. Make something original. There is nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from a popular game but make yours unique. Don't just copy it outright, release it as your own and expect the original creators to be fine with that. Seems like that should be common sense.

 

If all world use the Nintendo logic all fan art will be illegal, make a song cover will be illegal, paint a fantasy character will be illegal, etc, really the actual Nintendo situation can be describe with a simple word, decadence.

 

It isn't fan art. The primary assets, namely the character and enemies, were stolen out of an actual Nintendo game.

 

well this change the situation, i hope that the developer make their own models and publish again the game.

 

Perhaps not "stolen" but used in making a game.

 

I guess it qualifies as theft if you take something without consent and use it for your own ends, free or otherwise.

 

Well everyone has their own views. If I wanted to try to paint a copy of a Diablo 3 character just for the practice and only I saw it I would see no problem with that. But I would not have it put on t shirts and start giving them away or otherwise share it (publishing it) because it is not my right to publish it. I don't own it. I copied it trying to stay as true to the original work (that someone else owns) as I could. For improving skills (education) with no intention of publishing in any form (at least outside my home) I would feel comfortable doing this. But I would not publish it in any form. Not on a website, game, t shirt etc.

 

Stealing a metaphysical object like an idea and using it for free to produce nothing is theft. Mind = blown. (with a shotgun, because that's just too depressing).

Is that all cases or questionable ones like this where assets from a not free product are being published for free?

 

Do the assets count only as ideas though? His blog has him admitting to ripping assets from Super Mario Galaxy.

 

The ideas / intellectual properties are protected. Not just the actual files. Check out Great Giana Sisters. It was a game created for the C64 long ago based heavily on SMB but using different characters, different power ups, different graphics etc. However the design of the first level was very close to SMB. The feel of the game was very much like SMB. Many people thought it was even better than SMB. They got shut down for infringement as I recall. It was long ago now so don't remember clearly. Nintendo has always aggressively protected their IP.

 

They made a new Giana Sisters a few years ago

 

I know. It looks very different from the original GGS and SMB games so they should be fine with this. I just shared the original GGS story to show what causes the problem. Basically just being too close to a copyrighted / trademarked game even if it has a completely different name, characters and so forth. Basically it seems like if you play a game and find yourself saying "this is a lot like..." you may be playing a game that is eligible for a C&D. Not every company does it of course but it certainly seems like they could in many cases. Many of the Flappy Bird clones for example if a big company had created it C&D letters would probably have been spammed out.

 

Great Giana Sisters is probably oldest example of Streisand effect - because it was taken down, it was widely circulated (especially in Poland, and I think Germany, though not sure). I don't think it'd be a cult classic otherwise.

As for SM64HD I got the sources. Though I'm not sure if I can put it up or not.

I couldn't care less about myself, especially since Mario64 didn't officially come out in Poland and thus isn't copyrighted (just took a peek on Polish tm & copyright office site and oldest Mario game that is copyrighted here is Sunshine), but I don't want to cause original author more troubles.

That being said, since I got sources, I'm making it into full-blown SM64 remake, 1:1. Probably will finish Bobomb Battlefield first, then do Peach castle. If Nintendo wouldn't take it down, I'd just think "cool demo" and go play something else. But now... Well, they fiddled with the wrong guy. Maybe I could be even done by 20th anniversary, though unless I have access to level designers who could prepare hd meshes for all the levels, basically a team, I don't think I can do it in time.

//edit: And when I say 1:1, I mean it. That includes messing with Mario's head.

 

This will be an interesting case study. I anticipate that whether they hold a copyright in Poland or not the company hosting your game's website will work with them to shut it down should you not comply with the inevitable C&D letter. But who knows really. It is just what I expect will happen one way or another... shut er down. Of course if it is not popular there will be no need to.

 

Why not create a platformer in the style of mario 64 without aping them. I remember there was a kickstarter that did it and was quite successful
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...time-3d-collect-a-thon-platformer/description

 

Well, that's the kicker, @GarBenjamin : Site won't hold the game, only will show info on how to get it. I probably won't put Webplayer/WebGL version either, but only because that only hosting I can afford is free one and this would kill the bandwidth.

Game would be distributed as a torrent, possibly with mirror MEGA just in case.

Anyway, if anyone is on board to do that and could help with making levels/coding it (I seriously want to get it done by 20th SM64 anniversary, just to rub it in), PM me.

@Aiursrage2k Well, that's the other project I'm working on, but it is a matter of principle.

 

Nope, it doesn't. It isn't full-blown SM64 remake (yet) and original creator never intended this to be one. People who would want to play "real" SM64 would either buy it on virtual console or get the cartridge and play it on their N64s. If anything, this was free advertising for Nintendo.

It'd make more sense if they'd take down games like Mario Forever, Super Mario 63 (that's not a typo), Super Mario Bros. Crossover, Mario Builder and thousand other mario games. Games that are full-blown games rather than 1 level demos