Thankfully, Nintendo gets it.
One thing about them, they might be assholes when it comes to game preservation and whatnot, but they always did their own thing based on what they think gamers would like.
They’re a toy company. That’s how they think of themselves. The fun comes first. That’s why they also try new gimmicks in games and then most of the time never do it again. In their minds they already made that toy.
Which is honestly something I love about their games. I play Nintendo for some casual gaming fun, then I go to Steam for my preferred niches.
The one glaring exception here is Pokemon, but that’s technically Game Freak instead of Nintendo proper, so I guess they’re okay making the same toy over and over because it’s a gold mine.
Yeah Game Freak is their own thing really.
Best part of the timeless Nintendo games is they’re all extremely easy to emulate and play forever. (Switch online subscription can suck my toadstool)
What do you mean by that? That the games are easy to emulate, or that volunteers have spent countless hour getting Emulation to work so now it’s possible?
That… actually explains the logic of this lawsuit for me. I still disagree and think they’re overly litigious fucks, but I think I might understand a less malicious argument for it. If someone mods a see 'n say to have a different audio track and slaps some new stickers on it, that’s still a see 'n say, right? The mechanism is fundamental to the product - a see n say is the spinning wheel -> random noise and Pokemon is video game where you throw balls at wild not-animals to catch them and use them to battle people. There’s a difference between a toy that’s heavily inspired by another one and being an edgy five year old with a firearm sticker pack who gives them to the cows and chickens and sheep.
I really have more of a games as art philosophy though, and I’ll just point to the works of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp to make my argument here, my edible just kicked in.
Oh they’re absolutely litigious fucks, don’t get me wrong.
Games can definitely be art. They can be a lot of things, which is great. I agree with you.
No reason to make Mario galaxy 3. They already did that toy twice.
I think Galaxy 2 was unfinished levels from the first one, wasn’t it? Something like that.
I can definitely respect a company making games cause they’re having fun with making them and not making them out of desire to please investors.
If Nintendo weren’t such pricks about their IP, they would be a perfect company. They don’t chase short-lived trends, they don’t make live-service slop or loot boxes, their DLC is usually great (without feeling necessary), they constantly experiment and innovate, and most of their hardware is incredibly durable and reliable (joycon drift being the big exception). But if you make a fan game or host a tournament using one of their games, even if it’s been out of print for 20 years, even if you’re not monetizing it, they will come after you. It’s the one thing I really hate about them.
If Nintendo weren’t such pricks about their IP, they would be a perfect company
They also have some atrocious work culture. Managers screaming at people. Developers routinely overworked to burnout. Leads can be egomaniacal in their pursuit of a particular vision.
The IP attitude is deeply rooted in a company culture of strict control and authoritarian attitudes.
That said, they produce some incredible art and style. So it’s hard to argue with the results.
Wish people would be more comfortable simply feeling inspired by Nintendo and doing their own things, rather than trying to harvest Nintendo IP and fight them for control. Would make everyone happier over the long term.
That’s more of a Japanese company thing than something specific to Nintendo.
Not that it makes it OK, but this is a country that looked at how workers are treated in America and decided the problem was not going hard enough.
Wish people would be more comfortable simply feeling inspired by Nintendo and doing their own things
The PalWorld devs did that. Nintendo sued them anyway.
I believe the Palworld devs got caught plagiarizing in their own internal messaging.
I mean that’s literally exactly what PocketPair did with Palworld and look what’s going on with that.
I honestly feel like Nintendo simply can’t let people do what they do, better. They can’t allow it for whatever bullshit company-wide egotistical reason.
I honestly feel like Nintendo simply can’t let people do what they do, better.
Palworld was very explicitly cribbing from Nintendo IP. Down to the lead developers caught on record demanding that certain existing Pokemon be used as models for their content.
Also, the game was a bit of a flash in the pan. Idk if I’d conclude they “did it better” so much as they capitalized on a couple of popular trends to catch a surge of early adoption. Pokemon’s been chugging along since 1996. Lets see if Palworld can survive a full three years, nevermind the next 30.
The Palworld suit is not an IP suit because whether or not Palworld was “cribbing” from Pokemon they were well within the bounds of the law. They don’t even have to claim parody - their designs are their designs, despite the clear inspiration.
The lawsuit is over software patents, most likely the patents that Nintendo has for throwing a ball in a virtual space to capture a creature and riding on a virtual creature, aka absolute specious bullshit.
How were they stealing from Nintendo? And even if there is a record of some Palworld devs saying they want to use Pokemon in the game 1:1, that’s not what ended up happening at all. The only ones who actually think PocketPair used 1:1 Pokemon designs are actually blind Nintendo fanboys.
Arguing with the results is the reason we had WW2. Slaves built pyramids, but I wouldn’t like going bavk to that way of work.
Slaves built pyramids
Skilled craftsmen built the pyramids, slaves were mostly relegated to less prestigious work like farming.
Just out of curiosity, do you have a source for your claims that Nintendo has a bad work environment?
I’d love to learn more about it and verify this claim.
They seem to have really high employee retention:
Nintendo’s employee retention rate is 98.9%, surpassing the national average of 70% thanks to factors like brand strength and a strong employee welfare program.
That said, it’s a Japanese company, and Japanese work culture is very different from western work culture (read: a lot more stressful), but they seem to be doing reasonably well vs their peers.
I was trying to look more into game dev crunch at Nintendo and the most recent articles I could find were about Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask (all for the Nintendo 64) and Metroid Prime (for the GameCube). From what I can tell all of their recent games have been delayed instead of forcing crunch.
That being said the difference in work culture means they probably still have longer hours but they aren’t giving their developers actual PTSD like EA and Activision. It is really sad that the bar for AAA game devs is not having devs hospitalized from overworking. Hopefully more game dev and software dev companies can meaningfully unionize to combat that.
I seen a video yesterday about how people in Japan hire people to quit their jobs. The girl said she spent a lot of time being grilled and felt like she owed the boss an apology.
Not Nintendo, still, I found it interesting.
Oh, I’m sure sure their culture is terrible, but that’s also about what I expect from any game developer in 2024. At least they’re not like Microsoft, buying up small studios, working them to death, and then shutting them down for short-term profit. But you’re absolutely right, that is a shitty thing about their company that I completely glossed over.
Also, to he fair, Palword tried to do something cool inspired by Pokémon, and The Pokémon Company and Nintendo are suing them on what seems like a bullshit patent-troll claim. I actually think some of their character designs do seem like blatant rip-offs, but the idea that those games are too mechanically similar is nonsense.
Has anyone told them they can probably use AI to search for opportunities for lawsuits?
Nintendo sues OpenAI after determining it infringes on its patent (JP2002-905518) for a “dystopian AI assistant” used in Metroid Fusion.
I can’t tell if this is legitimate or not. Lol
Might as well be these days.
They already do that. I think it was Did You Know Gaming channel’s video about Pókemon ROM hacks and they mentioned that few of them were likely taken down because they were targeted by an AI crawler.
Nintendo Lawyers realizing some of their IP is represented in LLM training data and outputs.
Oh, If love it if their lawyers tore a big strip out of Open AI (not that OpenAI need any help operating their massive money furnace.)
That’s cool now could you tell your lawyers to go in a different direction with respect to mods and fan games?
Pokemon effectively makes them all the money they need and all they need to do is sick one of the rabid lawyers they keep in the basement on anyone even remotely infringing upon what they think they own.
They’re like a litigation equivalent to McDonald’s land ownership twist to company financial equivalency.
They want AI to get to a point where they can sue it.
Nintendo n…
Wait they did a good thing? huh, that’s… new
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I mean morally good, if Disney didn’t suck total dogshit now, I’d call Nintendo the Disney of Gaming
Fuck Nintendo
Care to expand? They seem like one of the best video game companies out there, even though they are traditional Japanese patriarchy
- throwing copyright strikes left and right at fan videos
- threatening developers of fan games with lawsuits
- actively working against game
preventionpreservation and emulation
It’s also worth noting that recently console modding became illegal in Japan. It’s obvious who pushed for it
Edit: fucking typo lol
You forgot:
- retroactively patenting game mechanics and suing companies for them
No, they’re for game prevention, and against preservation.
Dunno why people down voted you for asking, but personally while I love some of their games and the creative direction they take their consoles - they just have way too many anti-consumer practices.
From recent memory, they’ve DMCA takedowned YouTube videos of people playing modded versions of Breath of the Wild before Tears of the Kingdom released. This isn’t the firs time they’ve DMCA takedowned videos they didn’t like, including videos showing emulation in the past. Their online service, despite costing money to play games online, primarily relies on peer to peer networking when their console has a very weak networking chip, meaning most online games have to account for very poor connections. They have been very aggressive in shutting down websites distributing Roms for games that no longer have a way to be accessed or played. It stinks that you have to pay for their online service if you want any form of save data backups, and even those are iffy because they really don’t want you putting it on more than one console. Their handling of joyconn drift has left a lot to be desired. They replaced them… Sometimes… And when they did you had to wait a while and usually the replacement would develop it, too.
This decision is based, but fuck Nintendo in general for suing palworld and everything Nintendo does legally
They’re constantly suing people just for existing on a day that ends in Y. It’s just really twisted that a company that exists to make fun toys is so cartoonishly evil.
For me, it’s their greed regarding old titles. I bought some older games on the Wii and/or 3ds stores. Well, those go away and you don’t get a license for that same game on the new system (even though, presumably, all the porting/emulation work has already been done). Little things like that
I was going to reply but the other replies have covered everything already!
Good thing happens:
Lemmy: Yeah but lawsuits am I right?
Can’t you people be happy for one goddamn second?
SadlyNo
No, it’s fucking Nintendo
We have not once encountered a corporate shitstain as aggressive as them.
They make some good games, that’s all. Everything else about them sucks.
We have not once encountered a corporate shitstain as aggressive as them.
Are you kidding? You can’t think of a single company in the modern games industry worse than Nintendo? Do EA, Ubisoft, and Activision Blizzard not exist in your reality? What did they do in your eyes that makes them worse than sex abusers and slave drivers?
not to mention like fucking Nestlé, Montsano, Blackrock, Northrop Grunman
I didn’t even realize that they didn’t specify gaming companies until you pointed that out. In that case I wouldn’t even put Nintendo in the top 50.
I would agree, knowing that they started the company 135 years ago with a product that was illegal at the time, for silly reasons.
Yeah. Nestle is responsible for the deaths of several million infants (that’s not an exaggeration) and owns slaves.
Like, I’m no fan of Nintendo’s stance on a lot of things, but they’re not the Devil.
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It’s too early. In 10 years Nintendo will, it’s the Nintendo rhythm.
You don’t have to shove AI into everything but it allows for a lot of amazing and crazy things. Gameplay first and I don’t think we need AI for this, but a lot of side elements can be handled by AI. Be it sounds, dialogues, voices, randomness in monster or level design etc. In general, AI could be good with filling games with content without it being generic. It will help to elevate content past obviously identifiable “random” content. Same way an AI image doesn’t look AI if it’s well made. However, we’ll get a lot of shovelware stuff of lazy companies, no one needs those.
There is already a lot of work in generative game design that doesn’t involve AI, including a lot of procedurally generated items. There is also a lot of bad generated designs as the inputs allowed to be changed are not sufficient enough to create enough variance.
I mean, look at No Man’s Sky. It’s not Ai but some algorithm creating the world and it looks really generic and the same everywhere.
I hope using AI can make worlds like that feel actually different.
Yeah that semi randomness of NMS is what I had in mind. AI could improve that a lot.
I know it was funky in its initial release, but I miss when openAI had free api access so a bunch of games temporarily had chat with NPCs. It was really cool.
Spacebourne 2 had an AI ship computer you could ask questions or whatever. Craftopia had all NPCs and monsters with chat capabilities which was kinda hilarious because a goblin that’s attacking you would tell you it’s peaceful and would never hurt anyone lol
It’s one thing I’ve wanted forever to be in a video game, the ability to communicate what I want to communicate and to get dynamic responses, not just some dialogue wheel or whatever
They can’t automate the legal team yet.
Maybe the ‘what the customer wants’ route would have been more successful?
Massive massive W for once
Huh. Time to buy some stock.
If the “different direction” to sue everyone who liked them before?!
