Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Momotsuki]

I was sent this by a friend. In case you’re wondering what specific manual that comes from, it’s actually Super Smash Bros. Melee. It specifically states you cannot make a copy of the software.

The way I think of it is this. Remember those Bill Nye videos you might have watched in school? Those usually have a copyright warning in which it states that you CANNOT make a copy and distribute it for money. Similarly, if I made copies of a book made by another author, and sold it to people, that is illegal.

Thanks for your very collected take on the matter (Not sarcasm). Your point regarding ROMs is a bit greyer then you present it as being, however. Obviously, downloading a ROM off of the internet is illegal. About as illegal as jaywalking, but still illegal. Making copies of your own purchased games and reselling it is also illegal, as you cover here. There's no discussion to be had there. But where it gets a bit murkier is dumping your own legitimate game disc and emulating it, keeping it purely to your own personal use.

Here's a look at 17 USC 117[1], the section of US copyright law relevant to the matter.

Spoiler: Legal rubbish

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation.—Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.

I'm not a lawyer but I'm not illiterate either. "that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner" seems to be pretty explicitly in regards to emulation. As far as I can tell, dumping your own game ROMs and emulating them is legal so long as you continue to possess the physical media. Meanwhile, sharing your ROM, or selling it, is illegal unless you get permission from the copyright holder. Fat chance, yeah.

Now, let's not kid ourselves; most people using Slippi are probably using a ROM they found online. But the fact remains that you can fully utilize Slippi without breaking any US laws in the process.

Sources:
1. Chapter 1 - Circular 92 | U.S. Copyright Office

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Source Gaming did a Puyo Puyo content video.

 

[SharkLord]

This thread for the entirety of tomorrow: "Boy howdy do I hope we see the 8th fighter pack for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for Nintendo Switch! Who could it be?"


Nintendo probably:
View attachment 294658

Yes, Nintendo Switch does have games. Or at least, it will soon.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Setting aside Smash, you are going to get this game I am not asking

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Yes, Nintendo Switch does have games. Or at least, it will soon.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Setting aside Smash, you are going to get this game I am not asking

Is that one of the Metroidvania fangames? All I experienced about Touhou is playing one of the games at a friend and him losing his **** because I was surprisingly good at pattern recognition and avoided a **** ton of bullets

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Thanks for your very collected take on the matter (Not sarcasm). Your point regarding ROMs is a bit greyer then you present it as being, however. Obviously, downloading a ROM off of the internet is illegal. About as illegal as jaywalking, but still illegal. Making copies of your own purchased games and reselling it is also illegal, as you cover here. There's no discussion to be had there. But where it gets a bit murkier is dumping your own legitimate game disc and emulating it, keeping it purely to your own personal use.

Here's a look at 17 USC 117, the section of US copyright law relevant to the matter.

Spoiler: Legal rubbish

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation.—Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.

I'm not a lawyer but I'm not illiterate either. "that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner" seems to be pretty explicitly in regards to emulation. As far as I can tell, dumping your own game ROMs and emulating them is legal so long as you continue to possess the physical media. Meanwhile, sharing your ROM, or selling it, is illegal unless you get permission from the copyright holder. Fat chance, yeah.

Now, let's not kid ourselves; most people using Slippi are probably using a ROM they found online. But the fact remains that you can fully utilize Slippi without breaking any US laws in the process.

Honestly part of it also may have to do with entry fees for players. In that sense, a copy of the game, illegal or no, is being used and earning money through use of it. This makes it murkier on that end, because even if the copy isn’t being sold, money is involved.

Basically, I’d argue that even if it’s murky you’re being asked for the big company to shut it down. Corporations aren’t our friends, they’re corporations that have a lot at stake with their IPs.

What comes across as “bullying” or “being jerks” on the fanbase’s end is likely “protecting our IP” to Nintendo, regardless of the capacity their content is used. Folks point to SEGA, but I’d argue SEGA is not exactly comparable to Nintendo at this point in time based on sheer size and success.

SEGA, however, leverages their fans. Nintendo should do the same. The fact that Slippi has better netcode than Nintendo can create suggests, to me, that that person should be enlisted to improve their online. If one dude can do it, then the collaboration between Namco and Nintendo should provide ample opportunity...well, one would think anyway.

 

[MooMew64]

Yes, Nintendo Switch does have games. Or at least, it will soon.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Setting aside Smash, you are going to get this game I am not asking

YOOOOOO Luna Nights is coming to Switch? Been eyeing it on Steam for a while now, guess I'll have to grab it on Switch now.

 

[TheCJBrine]

In regards to the topic of legality, I guess I can understand Nintendo going against TBH for “piracy reasons” and TBH complying because they don’t want to bother checking to see if everyone has a copy that’s of their own disc or not, if they even can.

Though, since they may not be able to prove it, I still think Nintendo’s reasoning is bullcrap. And modding games for your own use is also legal, as established in the Nintendo v. Galoob case, not to mention that Slippi is a modded Dolphin emulator anyway and idk if it even injects any code into your Melee iso.

Also, in regards to protecting trademarks, it seems companies do not, in fact, have to go to the extent Nintendo does:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

you are going to get this game I am not asking

Make me

 

[Schnee117]

Is that one of the Metroidvania fangames? All I experienced about Touhou is playing one of the games at a friend and him losing his ** because I was surprisingly good at pattern recognition and avoided a ** ton of bullets

Yeah that's the Metroidvania starring Sakuya

 

[SharkLord]

Is that one of the Metroidvania fangames? All I experienced about Touhou is playing one of the games at a friend and him losing his ** because I was surprisingly good at pattern recognition and avoided a ** ton of bullets

Yep, this one's a metroidvania. A bit on the shorter side, but it's got great sprite art and it stars literally Touhou DIO. Though, I do believe it has some crazy projectiles in there in some parts.

 

[SKX31]

I like fan creations and also think Nintendo should leverage fan relationships. However, what is being asked is to let folks do things that BY LAW aren’t allowed. Random people who do not have credentials of any sort, to handle some of the most profitable IP on the planet.

It may make Nintendo look bad, but can you blame them entirely? When you put things into perspective, yes, it sucks, but I find it to be entirely expected.

While I do agree that one can't blame them entirely, there's a major counterpoint to be made that Nintendo's not handled the situation well enough to warrant the benefit of the doubt. The response has been very much emotional, yes (it's telling when prominent Melee players are outright calling for mutiny), but the relationship's between Nintendo and the hardcore Melee fandom specifically has always been chilly at best. This chillyness has started to spread to the competitive Ultimate, Splatoon and ARMS communities recently too, partly because they see Nintendo's support as way too insufficient.

The competitive Melee scene is and has always been 100 % grassroots - they've also had a strong independent streak because the first decade or so of its existence was without Nintendo even raising a peep officially. There's always been a strong undercurrent of them staying independent because of that. But the pandemic did effectively force an online solution.

Several prominent Smashers have argued that Nintendo does not have people "on the ground floor" so to speak taking pulse of what the fan communities are doing. I'm inclined to believe that since Nintendo's actions have mostly been on the legal / marketing side. They do have several prominent Smashers as Brand Ambassadors (one reason I don't think they'll leave the scene entirely), but there's not been any real leveraging here.

Had Nintendo been more active here, they could've mitigated the situation by hosting limited tournaments or whatever else. Instead, well, the recent allegations about them undermining potential circuits do not help, since that fuels the calls for mutiny.

At first I agreed; nothing would come of it, Nintendo would shrug it off. But seeing them act like big slimy babies over the Splatoon 2 fiasco kind of had me feeling otherwise. It was clearly a response and not only that, a really pathetic and cowardly one. "Executional challenges"? Really? Showed to me something I didn't think was going on; that this is getting to them.

Yeah, that's where the the recent uproar has landed a bodyblow on Nintendo. I'll give context since there'll be people who did not hear of that (or all of it). The blow is not enourmous, but consider that the prizepool for the NA Open was this:

• The team ranked 1st will receive the Grand Prize - Each member from one (1) Grand Prize Winning Team will each receive a Splatoon 2 North American Open December 2020 Champion Trophy (ARV $200 US each)
• The teams ranked 2nd –4th will receive the First Prize - Each member from three (3) First Prize Winning Teams will each receive a Splatoon 2 North American Open December 2020 Top 4 Trophy (ARV $150 US each)
• The teams ranked 5th – 8th will receive the Second Prize - Each member from four (4) Second Prize Winning Teams will each receive 2,500 My Nintendo Gold Points (ARV $25 US each)

Total I believe is $3750. Problem is, the trophies don't help to pay the bills, so they've garnered a reputation as practically worthless. And thus the whole "Nintendo only offers Gold Points" assertion was born. So when the livestream was cancelled over the "Executional Challenges"... the Top 4 teams went on to organize the Squid House on the day the NA Online Open's livestream was supposed to take place and joined that instead together with the Splatoon stream producers EndGameTV. The rest of the Top 8 simply quit and the NA Online Open didn't finish.

So a Splatoon Online Open was cancelled and the tournament that replaced it raised $28K through crowdfunding, with $3K of that going to charity since the tournament had a $25K cap. Prominent Smashers and Splatoon members helped fund this, and I believe I saw Youtubers like ChuggaConroy also contribute money towards the Squid House. If one counts the trophies as having its advertised value, then the Squid House had ca. 6-7 times more money involved than the NA Online Open.

It's not a huge setback for Nintendo, no. But it's a warning that their methods of handling competitive events are not working as they intended, and there's a real demand from pro players for something other than Gold Points and trophies. Money is crucial to competitive scenes because players (and others involved in the scenes like EndGameTV) gotta pay the bills somehow. And as long as Nintendo's not budging and allegations about them undermining the scenes continue to swirl around (not helped by this)... those people are going to look elsewhere. It's the case with Ludwig Ahgren, who's hosting his own Slippi charity tournament right on the date the Big House was supposed to take place and has garnered more than $50K so far. Smaller third party orgs are ready and willing to fill and grow the void.

The thing is, Nintendo does not want to completely ignore e-sports either. They've used it continously for marketing (and this is one aspect of the allegations, that Nintendo's only slapped ads onto tournaments and undermined efforts to grow the competitive scenes in more subtle areas, such as denying tournament circuits). So them losing one NA Online Open is not that big of a deal, but what if it continues? Then it might become slightly more of an issue. Don't get me wrong, it's not going to be enourmously disasterous for Nintendo, but it's still something they'd not want to see continue I'd imagine.

Sure, 95 % of a game's playerbase is not going to care that much about what happens in the competitive scene (this is the case for LoL too, which is the game most associated with that), but competitive people are often also prominent voices and can reach a lot of the 95 %. Which compounds the PR issue further for Nintendo - they'll have to deal with people who are very influential to their scenes and are now angry at Nintendo for past events.

I'll end on this note:

I really, really doubt Nintendo is going to backtrack on any of their recent claptrap. However... I don't think that makes this whole thing a waste of time. Flaming Nintendo is a means to a probably unreachable end, yes. But, it's also a pretty nice end in and of itself, when people are angry and upset.

I really doubt they'll backtrack any time soon, but if they start to lose ad space / control over the situation outlined above, I could see them moving or even backtracking. They'll not budge regarding Slippi due to how they view the IP situation (but that might mean that the Melee community will go start their own Slippi circuit with blackjack and hookers) or mods, but I could see them backtracking a bit on in-person Melee / Smash tournaments. The pro Smash players are likely going to be adamant about a circuit, and that's one concession Nintendo might make now that cat's out of the bag on that.

One of the problem for Nintendo now is that this has spread to the Splatoon scene - a scene Nintendo toots their own horn about - so they might backtrack there too. Not saying it's certain they'll backtrack - it isn't - but there is a chance now that the issue has gotten bigger than Nintendo intended it to be.

In regards to the topic of legality, I guess I can understand Nintendo going against TBH for “piracy reasons” and TBH complying because they don’t want to bother checking to see if everyone has a copy that’s of their own disc or not, if they even can.

Though, since they may not be able to prove it, I still think Nintendo’s reasoning is bullcrap. And modding games for your own use is also legal, as established in the Nintendo v. Galoob case, not to mention that Slippi is a modded Dolphin emulator anyway and idk if it even injects any code into your Melee iso.

IIRC Slippi itself doesn't, but includes previously existing mods like UCF and the UnclePunch training pack. UnclePunch himself is also a part of the Slippi dev team.

While I haven't watched it myself, GameXplain uploaded their predictions for The Game Awards, and they talk about the possibility of Fighter 8.

Based on the video description, they also talk about BOTW2 and Metroid Prime.

The character what was discussed the most was Crash (incl. a hypotheoretical stage appearance).

Overall it's very difficult to say how TGA will turn out - there's absolutely a chance that FP8 won't be revealed there. Still, it is certainly possible that TGA could come along with a character announcement. I'm not going to commit to exact percantage chances because

 

[Droodle]

]

Ill just say this #freemelee, #freesplatoon, ect **** is emaberessing. People out here treating a video game like its ****ing BLM

I'm fine with people spamming #freemelee, #freesplatoon, but at the very least people should do that only towards Nintendo's tweets towards their own games. People shouldn't go spamming in promotional tweets for 3rd party games like P5S, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, or NEO: TWEWY; because frankly those games have little to do with the situation at hand, and other companies probably asked Nintendo to help them with promoting their series. I dunno but checking replies for NEO: TWEWY or Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 and just seeing Smash and Splatoon brought up in 90% of the replies just annoys me, and doesn't really make me sympathetic towards the cause.

And yeah people are treating it way too religiously when I guarantee that it's not really going to do anything. Nintendo's done worse and hasn't really bothered acknowledging it, they won't care this time. This isn't the first or the biggest stunt they've done, and if you follow them closely you know that they're insanely protective of their games. Competitive Smash, while popular in a vacuum, still is small fries to Nintendo. I mean Smash Ultimate has sold around 20 million copies, and I'd say less than 5% of that comprises the dedicated competitive community (the people that play in tourneys + watch CONSISTENTLY). On top of that we're talking about Smash Melee which has sold even less, and Nintendo's strategy doesn't really benefit them by helping Melee grow.

This reminds me of the #DEXIT situation in which I sort of got why the initial backlash occurred. But then it kept on getting spammed for weeks, and the fanbase treated it like they themselves had been dehumanized. After a while of seeing it spammed in things completely unrelated to Pokemon, I honestly got more annoyed at the fanbase rather than the company.

If #freemelee or #freesplatoon is really important to you, then just make a singular statement and stop buying Nintendo's products. If the impact is big enough, then they'll be forced to acknowledge it. Now the problem is that 95% of the people outraged on Twitter will still buy the next Pokemon/Mario/Zelda, despite saying "Nintendo is the worst video game company, #freemelee, #freesplatoon, #savesmash".

 

[metalhydra273]

The fact that Slippi has better netcode than Nintendo can create suggests, to me, that that person should be enlisted to improve their online. If one dude can do it, then the collaboration between Namco and Nintendo should provide ample opportunity...well, one would think anyway.

NIntendo hire this man!

NINTENDO! HIRE THIS MAN!

FOLLOW THIS MAN: https://twitter.com/ChrisVoiceman

www.youtube.com

ok but actually tho please improve netcode, at least appear to be trying

Also with all the melee drama I think it's time to stop asking for a melee port. I promise you NIntendo will never do it. They actively want people to stop playing the game seeing how it overshadowed Brawl and future smash games. They feel that porting melee would "hurt" the sales of smash ultimate, a 2 year old game. Also Nintendo straight up prob hates us. God bless Japanese Disney

Nintendo Is The Worst Video Game Company

This is the greatest no fun company of All Time

www.youtube.com

 

[Al-kīmiyā']

It's been weeks since TBH was C&D'd. Why are you guys talking about it now?

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

The concept of a Melee port does kinda make me question things.

Would Nintendo really cater to a small group of people, and develop the game when they have a current Smash Bros game that is clearly more lucrative to sell?

I get why people suggest it, but I don’t think it makes much sense. Ultimate has nearly everything Melee had, but a different gameplay system. That in itself will not make the same money Ultimate has.

 

[metalhydra273]

I get why people suggest it, but I don’t think it makes much sense. Ultimate has nearly everything Melee had, but a different gameplay system. That in itself will not make the same money Ultimate has.

Well the idea is that they would start porting other gamecube games as well for potential virtual console, since they're starting to get old. Similar to N64 on the WiiU

 

[True Blue Warrior]

The concept of a Melee port does kinda make me question things.

Would Nintendo really cater to a small group of people, and develop the game when they have a current Smash Bros game that is clearly more lucrative to sell?

I get why people suggest it, but I don’t think it makes much sense. Ultimate has nearly everything Melee had, but a different gameplay system. That in itself will not make the same money Ultimate has.

Ultimate doesn’t have Poke Floats.

 

[SKX31]

The concept of a Melee port does kinda make me question things.

Would Nintendo really cater to a small group of people, and develop the game when they have a current Smash Bros game that is clearly more lucrative to sell?

I get why people suggest it, but I don’t think it makes much sense. Ultimate has nearly everything Melee had, but a different gameplay system. That in itself will not make the same money Ultimate has.

The solution is, of course, simply an Ultimate DX port with all four previous games included in full (both 3DS and Wii U too) alongside rollback netcode for all five (six?) games. Now people can once again enjoy the glories of breaking Subspace in two with (now with online co-op too).

 

[Perkilator]

It's been weeks since TBH was C&D'd. Why are you guys talking about it now?

Not even that many weeks ago.

 

[MarioRaccoon]

I think that Nintendo will start selling some emulated gamecube hd ports in the near future ( think something like Mario Sunshine on Mario 3D All-Stars), with maybe online options.

Of course, a great candidate would be Smash Melee as its a flagship NGC game. The idea is to fill some requests from fans.

Example #1: people complain that we did’t get a traditional Mario RPG? Well, now you can play Paper Mario TTYD with HD resolution!
Example #2: do you want a new F-Zero? Revived the classic F-Zero GX with online features!

 

[SharkLord]

It's been weeks since TBH was C&D'd. Why are you guys talking about it now?

I think it started because we noticed people in Nintendo's Twitter comments were a mess as usual. Then Scol pointed out that Nintendo is legally in the right to do a takedown, and the situation's not as black-and-white as some make it out to be.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Nintendo work on their own wavelength. It's a good and a bad thing.

In their mind we want to have access to every single Mario platformer ever made but at the same time will happily take Mario Kart 8 over F-Zero and that only the most recent Smash Bros matters.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

I don't think the solution is just asking for a single game to be ported, but rather promoting the entire library for NSO. It's not JUST Melee that is prone to $2000 Ebay prices and severe hardware decay, it's 90% of the Gamecube Library. I'm personally satisfied with Ultimate when it comes to Smash, so I wouldn't care at all if they ONLY ported Melee while still ignoring all the other gems the Gamecube had, like F-Zero GX, Paper Mario TTYD, Kirby Air Ride, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Eternal Darkness, etc.

 

[Al-kīmiyā']

Not even that many weeks ago.

What do you mean?

I think it started because we noticed people in Nintendo's Twitter comments were a mess as usual. Then Scol pointed out that Nintendo is legally in the right to do a takedown, and the situation's not as black-and-white as some make it out to be.

It's pretty black and white. The people at Nintendo who made the relevant decisions are *****.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Legacy content in general is pretty poorly handled by Nintendo. Various other companies would have had N64/Gamecube/Wii titles on a Virtual Console service for Switch from day one.

With Nintendo we're counting ourselves lucky if we get compilation collections that aren't timed limited releases.

 

[Miles of SmashWiki]

The NSO emulator apps for NES and SNES games have online multiplayer functionality added. The Switch recently got a first-party Gamecube game ported, with a follow-up patch adding full Gamecube controller support including analog triggers.

What do these two have to do with each other? Well, if Nintendo were to hypothetically release Gamecube games with online functionality in an analogous way to the current NSO offerings, Melee is a major candidate for such a thing. Even if they don't have an immediate plan to do so, I can absolutely see how, from a strictly business angle, they want to reserve that option for themselves and preemptively discourage any kind of competing service. After all, if you're playing Slippi to play Melee online, you're not paying them for the privilege of doing so on Switch.

Whether one thinks it's a good idea from a PR angle or not, from a business angle I have to assume it was a no-brainer for whoever made the call.

 

[Deleted member]

Awful lot of non-DLC discussion going on here. Wouldn't this be better suited for its own thread? Or maybe just the general discussion thread?

 

[Perkilator]

What do you mean?

Exactly as I said.

...Okay, yeah, it has been a few weeks, but not even that many. Only about four.

 

[GoodGrief741]

In regards to the topic of legality, I guess I can understand Nintendo going against TBH for “piracy reasons” and TBH complying because they don’t want to bother checking to see if everyone has a copy that’s of their own disc or not, if they even can.

Though, since they may not be able to prove it, I still think Nintendo’s reasoning is bullcrap. And modding games for your own use is also legal, as established in the Nintendo v. Galoob case, not to mention that Slippi is a modded Dolphin emulator anyway and idk if it even injects any code into your Melee iso.

Also, in regards to protecting trademarks, it seems companies do not, in fact, have to go to the extent Nintendo does:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

This is both true and untrue.

First off, the case that's cited in that article is juridically much different than anything that Nintendo's done. It's a company barring people from using trademarked assets (company name, company logo) when discussing the company from a purely informative or journalistic standpoint. The equivalent there would be if Nintendo sued IGN for, say, mentioning their games in a monthly sales breakdown. It's one of the most basic protections that free speech has under the First Amendment, and it doesn't even require getting into the gray area that is Fair Use.

As for the question of whether a company has to constantly enforce its ownership of its IP lest it lose it, the answer is more nuanced than that article makes it out to be. The short answer is no, like that article mentions, the requisites for IP abandonment are pretty strict, so obviously Nintendo isn't at risk of Melee becoming public domain if they allowed everything to happen. However, while it might not be enshrined in law, it is true that courts usually see inaction as a kind of forfeiture of certain types of legal actions.

Let me present an example to make it clearer: say Nintendo allows some fans to make a Pokemon fangame, call it Pokemon Orange and Purple. It's very much on-brand, fans like it but it doesn't cannibalize the real games' sales, so Nintendo figures "sure, let's leave it alone". A couple of months later, a different fangame comes out, Pokemon Nuke and Napalm. It's an attempt at a "mature" Pokemon game, so it's bloody, gory, has adult humor, sexual references, it's like the Postal of Pokemon games. Nintendo obviously doesn't want that associated with their brand, so they sue. But then the question becomes "Why should these guys not be allowed to make the game when you tacitly allowed the other guys to make theirs?" If Nintendo can't prove there was an explicit damage to their brand - something that won't be easy to prove - the lawsuit would be thrown out as capricious, whereas it wouldn't have been if they gave the same treatment to every fangame no matter how harmless it was.

So you see, it's not a matter of losing the IP, but rather about losing the ability to properly enforce it in court. A company's past behaviour can and will be taken into account with these kinds of lawsuits, and it's very hard to put the genie back into the bottle once it's been let out. Other companies can afford the luxury of being lax because they haven't cultivated the family friendly image that Nintendo thrives on.

 

[7NATOR]

Could Nintendo Reveal Characters out of Order, so if the Next character isn't TGA Material, but the character after them is, they reveal that character instead

I Believe Joker's Trailer was thrown together heavily last minute. yes?

 

[GoodGrief741]

Could Nintendo Reveal Characters out of Order, so if the Next character isn't TGA Material, but the character after them is, they reveal that character instead

I Believe Joker's Trailer was thrown together heavily last minute. yes?

Well no that's literally what the order is for. I think it's pretty obvious that once the selection is set, the order is decided based on reveal dates and venues. I doubt that it just happened that Joker was first in time for a TGA reveal and Hero and Banjo-Kazooie happened to be the exact order required to open and close E3.

 

[Deleted member]

Could Nintendo Reveal Characters out of Order, so if the Next character isn't TGA Material, but the character after them is, they reveal that character instead?

I Believe Joker's Trailer was thrown together heavily last minute. yes?

Cant speak for the Joker trailer, but I don't think it's impossible. That would imply, though, that they're close enough on at least two different characters that they could just release one before the other. That seems strange though considering the 2-3 month gap between each character; even in Fighter's Pass 1.

At the same time, though, the Game Awards have been around roughly the same time of year since its inception; don't you think they would have planned a certain fighter to be available to show off around that time if they intended to show one? Why would they have the need to switch reveals if they knew the time of the ceremony?

It's a good thought, but doubtful. They know whether certain characters they have would be hype-inducing or not and they would have already been developing them accordingly; they wouldn't need to alter the release schedule. The only reason they'd shift something would be if a certain character was timed to go with a certain game reveal as a kind of Tie-In.

As much as Smashboards likes to accuse each and every character as being a 'Shill Pick', I think that to this date, Corrin was the only one that was almost a direct tie-in/promotional character pick.

 

[Goombaic]

It's been weeks since TBH was C&D'd. Why are you guys talking about it now?

It's an ongoing ordeal, people won't stop talking about it all of a sudden.

Could Nintendo Reveal Characters out of Order, so if the Next character isn't TGA Material, but the character after them is, they reveal that character instead

They could, but that's a practice that rarely ever happens and will probably never happen with Smash Bros. Most recent occurrence I can think of was with Gogeta and Super Broly in Fighterz (And I guess it also happened with UI Goku too as he was revealed before Kefla technically).

 

[Perkilator]

Could Nintendo Reveal Characters out of Order, so if the Next character isn't TGA Material, but the character after them is, they reveal that character instead

I doubt it; that's what the order is for in the first place.

 

[7NATOR]

I Only ask in the Case of Change of Plans, especially with the Pandemic, since I don't think the Reveal order was made with the Pandemic in Mind

And It could be a Case like UI Goku and Kefla. UI Goku was revealed First, but Kefla came out Sooner because she was the next character

 

[TheCJBrine]

This is both true and untrue.

First off, the case that's cited in that article is juridically much different than anything that Nintendo's done. It's a company barring people from using trademarked assets (company name, company logo) when discussing the company from a purely informative or journalistic standpoint. The equivalent there would be if Nintendo sued IGN for, say, mentioning their games in a monthly sales breakdown. It's one of the most basic protections that free speech has under the First Amendment, and it doesn't even require getting into the gray area that is Fair Use.

As for the question of whether a company has to constantly enforce its ownership of its IP lest it lose it, the answer is more nuanced than that article makes it out to be. The short answer is no, like that article mentions, the requisites for IP abandonment are pretty strict, so obviously Nintendo isn't at risk of Melee becoming public domain if they allowed everything to happen. However, while it might not be enshrined in law, it is true that courts usually see inaction as a kind of forfeiture of certain types of legal actions.

Let me present an example to make it clearer: say Nintendo allows some fans to make a Pokemon fangame, call it Pokemon Orange and Purple. It's very much on-brand, fans like it but it doesn't cannibalize the real games' sales, so Nintendo figures "sure, let's leave it alone". A couple of months later, a different fangame comes out, Pokemon Nuke and Napalm. It's an attempt at a "mature" Pokemon game, so it's bloody, gory, has adult humor, sexual references, it's like the Postal of Pokemon games. Nintendo obviously doesn't want that associated with their brand, so they sue. But then the question becomes "Why should these guys not be allowed to make the game when you tacitly allowed the other guys to make theirs?" If Nintendo can't prove there was an explicit damage to their brand - something that won't be easy to prove - the lawsuit would be thrown out as capricious, whereas it wouldn't have been if they gave the same treatment to every fangame no matter how harmless it was.

So you see, it's not a matter of losing the IP, but rather about losing the ability to properly enforce it in court. A company's past behaviour can and will be taken into account with these kinds of lawsuits, and it's very hard to put the genie back into the bottle once it's been let out. Other companies can afford the luxury of being lax because they haven't cultivated the family friendly image that Nintendo thrives on.

What if they were to set fanwork guidelines/rights/whatever in a EULA or something, though? Or would courts still ask "please prove how doing this would hurt/infringe upon your brand?"

(I mean, I guess they would, and idk if "our family-friendly market could see it and be bothered/confuse it for us, and stop paying for our products" probably isn't a good answer; I just know Hololive has fan guidelines for the vtuber characters, idk how this stuff works in a legal sense unless they're able to protect certain restrictions under copyright law, and it seems other companies have policies for fan content as well; Epic Games states fan content must be appropriate for the audience of their IP, which sounds like something Nintendo could do to prevent the situation you stated with the very mature Pokémon game)

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I think it's clear that Nintendo needs to restructure and reconsider a lot of things.

I just tire at the non stop anger. People should be upset. But they're not targeting it at the right places or showing it in the right ways.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

To get back on topic with Smash stuff- question for some of you.

I recently watched a Delzethin video where he goes over potential Challenger Pack 8 picks. The “likely” picks were essentially the same as they always are, being BWD, Lloyd Irving, Geno, Rex and Pyra, Sora, Ryu Hayabusa.

Then, Crash, Dante, Master Chief, Doomslayer, and Monster Hunter were put into “red herrings”.In other words, “people think they’re happening but no”.

Here’s my beef with the video. Bandanna Waddle Dee is propped up on a basis of, “What if there’s a new game on Switch?” and “He’s a popular request!”...which is also a reason folks use for Crash, Dante, and Monster Hunter.

The Red Herring concept is also used to say, “People talk a lot about them so they’re probably not that likely/ happening”. But if that’s the case, why is it characterized as “long term/highly popular fan want” for the characters he chooses, especially like Hayabusa (who I also agree is likely)? Hayabusa has been in more fake leaks than I can count on hands and feet!

I think some points are good, but seemingly inconsistent. If reasoning supports one character, how does that same reasoning not support another? While it’s not objectively a bad thing, there’s usually a Nintendo-centric bias in these videos so I can see where certain characters end up where they are... if it were a wishlist. But it’s meant as a speculative piece, and slants toward the “Nintendo connection” narrative, which I don’t think has enough of a foundation this time around in DLC.

What are some thoughts here? I’m not nearly as invested in speculation lately but I still am interested in who gets in. Curious to see what others think!

 

[PacificFun]

Holy hell, its already been 64 days since Steve was announced. Maybe we'll get a TGA teaser akin to Joker and Terry (no gameplay) and a Sakurai Presents in January. Nintendo could use some good PR right now, haha.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

To get back on topic with Smash stuff- question for some of you.

I recently watched a Delzethin video where he goes over potential Challenger Pack 8 picks. The “likely” picks were essentially the same as they always are, being BWD, Lloyd Irving, Geno, Rex and Pyra, Sora, Ryu Hayabusa.

Then, Crash, Dante, Master Chief, Doomslayer, and Monster Hunter were put into “red herrings”.In other words, “people think they’re happening but no”.

Here’s my beef with the video. Bandanna Waddle Dee is propped up on a basis of, “What if there’s a new game on Switch?” and “He’s a popular request!”...which is also a reason folks use for Crash, Dante, and Monster Hunter.

The Red Herring concept is also used to say, “People talk a lot about them so they’re probably not that likely/ happening”. But if that’s the case, why is it characterized as “long term/highly popular fan want” for the characters he chooses, especially like Hayabusa (who I also agree is likely)? Hayabusa has been in more fake leaks than I can count on hands and feet!

I think some points are good, but seemingly inconsistent. If reasoning supports one character, how does that same reasoning not support another? While it’s not objectively a bad thing, there’s usually a Nintendo-centric bias in these videos so I can see where certain characters end up where they are... if it were a wishlist. But it’s meant as a speculative piece, and slants toward the “Nintendo connection” narrative, which I don’t think has enough of a foundation this time around in DLC.

What are some thoughts here? I’m not nearly as invested in speculation lately but I still am interested in who gets in. Curious to see what others think!

Delzethin may be biased towards Nintendo characters in terms of speculated chances, but there are just as many biased towards third-parties seeing as only one Nintendo character (Rex) is ranked within the top 10 most likely on RTC despite Min Min being the first DLC pack, as if only one Nintendo character has a plausible chance of being in said pass. No-one is free from bias, including you.