Project M Ceases Development: v3.6 To Be Final Release

We report this news to you today with a heavy heart. As announced on the official Project M website, development for the game has been finished. Project M v3.6 will be the last release of Project M. Here is the official statement from the development team.

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Hello friends,

Six years ago, we started a journey born out of our shared love for competitive fighting games. Eventually, the electrifying passion that coursed through us arced out and drew in more people until our small circle of friends grew into a team, and that team grew into an international community. Project M and its community have grown larger than any of us ever anticipated, and it’s truly heartwarming to see all of the unforgettable connections and friendships that have been forged through this project.

Unfortunately, we’re here to say that we’re at the end of that road.

We’ve learned so much in the process of making Project M—accumulating life-changing lessons in communication, team work, professionalism, work ethic, and more—but there’s only so far we can take those skills in a volunteer project. With this in mind, we’ve made a difficult business decision: We’re ready to finish development here and move on to bigger and better ventures.

We realize that this will come as a shock to many of our fans. Please, forgive us. Again, it’s been an excruciating call to make, but it’s been made a bit easier by our satisfaction with the previous and final release, v3.6. We’ve spent six years polishing Project M, and rather than let it drag on through another several years of dwindling development and change-fatigue in the competitive circle, we’re going to consider our work complete.

In the mean time, we plan to be hard at work on new projects, built from the ground up. We can’t spill the beans just yet, but know that we’re looking towards a fresh start with brand new designs. Rather than splitting our focus, many of us want to dedicate ourselves to this new venture fully. In this way, we hope to maintain the level of quality and professionalism you’ve come to expect from us.

In summary, we are ceasing development of Project M (effective immediately) and will be making no further releases as we turn our attention towards an entirely new venture. As the PMDev team will be formally disbanded, please forward all official communications regarding Project M to video game attorney and business consultant Ryan Morrison. We appreciate your support and your understanding.

One final time,

PMDev

Thank you for playing!

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What does this mean for the future of Project M at tournaments? What exciting project could the Project M team be up to next? Let us know in the comments below and share your favorite memories from the game's various releases. From Demo 1.0 to v3.6 it has been an incredible ride and we at Smashboards wish the Project M Development Team the best of luck in all future adventures.

Writer's Note: Hey guys, SmashCapps here. I know this has some folks sad and shaken up but I wanted to make sure everyone knows that Project M no longer being updated was not because a cease and desist.

To clarify: We weren't contacted, issued a C&D, threatened or had legal action taken against us in any way, but we want it to stay that way.

— Ryan Morrison (@Morrison) December 2, 2015

Hope that clears things up! Thanks for reading as always everyone!

 

If funding was an issue for the PMDT this is the first I've ever heard about it. I would gladly donate to further development of Project M. Hell, I would tell everyone even my parents to donate to a worthy cause. I would go door to door to keep this alive

 

If funding was an issue for the PMDT this is the first I've ever heard about it. I would gladly donate to further development of Project M. Hell, I would tell everyone even my parents to donate to a worthy cause. I would go door to door to keep this alive

That would be a horrible idea, actually.
If they received donations, Nintendo could then actually do a Cease & Desist or even threaten a lawsuit since they are, in a way, being paid for using other Companies' IPs.

 

Based on this tweet https://twitter.com/MrRyanMorrison/status/671943222848069632 it appears that the decision to abruptly stop development on Project M and take down the download link was entirely one of the dev team so they didn't have to worry about a C&D in the future. If this is the case then that's... honestly kinda disappointing.

Project M to me was always braving the sands of copyright, that it was made by people who full well knew that at any given point all of their work could be legally taken away. It was honestly a little inspiring to see PMDT risking so much in order to create something they loved for the community. I get that they want to move on to new projects, heck I agree with the move completely. But to leave it like this? Leaving Project M where there is still very obviously work to be done on it?

Project M was already close to the end of development. Really, all the PMDT needed to do was release the costumes, bug fixes, and some minor balance changes, call it 4.0 and boom, PM has a happy ending. Instead everyone's guessing and left in the dark, and instead of a farewell party some people are having a funeral. The PMDT risked everything for years, and then when the finish line is in sight they stop and say it's good enough? I really hope we get just a little bit more information on what happened, because otherwise this is going to become a major disappointment for a lot of people.

 

I don't think anyone here thinks Nintendo is evil or actively malicious. I am however of the opinion that they aren't very bright with regards to being in touch with their fanbase. You certainly remember the legal action that Nintendo tried to take against Melee at EVO 2013 and the backlash that resulted. Shutting down PM will ultimately do more harm than good for Nintendo as their relationship with the Smash community (At least the Melee and PM portions) was already hanging by a thread.

A key thing that people tend to forget is that Nintendo does not care about the hardcore Smash Community outside of Smash 4(which helps promote and sell that game). Their target audience for Smash Bros has always been casual or general players of Smash who love the game, but aren't hardcore fanboys.

If Nintendo had their way, they would give Melee the boot from tournaments as well. I believe that they want nothing more then to get people to stop playing a 15-year old game, and make Smash 4 the main focus at tournaments.

But they have to accept Melee because the fanbase to that game is very loyal, and it tends to be one of the biggest draws at tournaments.

I don't see this hurting Nintendo in the long run. In their eyes, who cares if they upset Melee and Project M fans? To Nintendo, they are nothing more then fanboys who can't get past a 15-year old game and a mod that makes another game play like Melee.

Nintendo can read the same comments everyone else can, and there are legions of Melee and Project M fanboys who hate Brawl and Smash 4 for how they play.

Nintendo will get a day or two of bad press about this, but in the long run they won't be hurt. Because people will see more of Cloud or the other DLC characters in a few weeks anyway.

In about a week or two, hype will build towards the new DLC content for Smash 4.

Project M has been a thorn in Nintendo's side for awhile, and they have taken steps to remove it from the public eye. Even if Nintendo did not directly order a Cease and Desist on the mod, at some point the effort becomes pointless when your game is blacklisted at any tournament that Nintendo sponsors, and Nintendo does everything in their power to keep you off video streaming sites. Why bother making a mod for tournament play if you can't play it at any of the big tournaments?

That is the double edged sword of getting Nintendo to sponsor tournaments and support the community. Tournaments now have to play by Nintendo's rules, and they lose the freedom they once enjoyed.

 

Question is the download link for 3.6 gone forever as well

http://smashboards.com/threads/all-official-project-m-builds-available-for-download.424919/

 

I really thought that they were going to release knuckles, Isaac, and the fire emblem chick after the melee and brawl cast were well balanced. Also secretly hoped for zero and X

 

Sad Day.

 

A key thing that people tend to forget is that Nintendo does not care about the hardcore Smash Community outside of Smash 4(which helps promote and sell that game). Their target audience for Smash Bros has always been casual or general players of Smash who love the game, but aren't hardcore fanboys.

If Nintendo had their way, they would give Melee the boot from tournaments as well. I believe that they want nothing more then to get people to stop playing a 15-year old game, and make Smash 4 the main focus at tournaments.

But they have to accept Melee because the fanbase to that game is very loyal, and it tends to be one of the biggest draws at tournaments.

I don't see this hurting Nintendo in the long run. In their eyes, who cares if they upset Melee and Project M fans? To Nintendo, they are nothing more then fanboys who can't get past a 15-year old game and a mod that makes another game play like Melee.

Nintendo can read the same comments everyone else can, and there are legions of Melee and Project M fanboys who hate Brawl and Smash 4 for how they play.

Nintendo will get a day or two of bad press about this, but in the long run they won't be hurt. Because people will see more of Cloud or the other DLC characters in a few weeks anyway.

In about a week or two, hype will build towards the new DLC content for Smash 4.

Project M has been a thorn in Nintendo's side for awhile, and they have taken steps to remove it from the public eye. Even if Nintendo did not directly order a Cease and Desist on the mod, at some point the effort becomes pointless when your game is blacklisted at any tournament that Nintendo sponsors, and Nintendo does everything in their power to keep you off video streaming sites. Why bother making a mod for tournament play if you can't play it at any of the big tournaments?

That is the double edged sword of getting Nintendo to sponsor tournaments and support the community. Tournaments now have to play by Nintendo's rules, and they lose the freedom they once enjoyed.

I feel as though the only reason Nintendo supports the hardcore community is because the hardcore community has grown large enough and loud enough to the point where it's very hard not to ignore them (and probably not a good idea to do so in some cases). It's a community that Nintendo never wanted to deal with in the first place, but Melee's "competitive" community put a bullet hole in that. Super Smash Brothers was designed and meant to be the anti-traditional fighting game (i.e. technical-heavy fighting games that require a lot of muscle memory and frame memorization, meaning virtually every other fighting game) and the hardcore community wants it to be the opposite of that. Melee is the most technical-heavy SSB game to date, there's no denying that, and Project M(elee) is effectively on par with most traditional fighting games. SSB with the reputation of traditional fighting games is something Nintendo never wated and thus Sakurai Masahiro created Brawl and 4 the way they were in response to SSB getting such treatment after Melee [and the repeated attempts to snuff Project M(elee) out is also due in part to this].

Nintendo can accept the fact that Melee has gained a sizeable (though not major by any means) and loyal fanbase, but what they do afterward is completely up to them. I just hope they don't cave in to fanbase pressure this time around.

Really, this has been a losing battle from the start. Whether or not Nintendo had anything to do with Project M(elee)'s cessation of development and production, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm honestly surprised that Nintendo didn't flat-out order a cease and desist sooner.

This is the last I'll speak of the "competitive" community before I dro my mic for good and get out. I just hope the community doesn't get worse because of this and I sincerely hope that the devs will find another venue that is less stress-inducing than SSB.

 

That's the thing, though. Fan-games don't hurt anything and only support the business...

I love how SEGA actually embraces the modding the fans do. They never thwart their fans projects and just let them exist because, guess what, it keeps people interested in the product of the company...

None of this stuff harms Nintendo.

So, that's actually a bit of a common misconception. Just because something doesn't make a profit doesn't mean it can't hurt a business. Let's say someone that really likes an author decides to consciously support the author of the book by sitting out in front of a store where they're doing a book signing and hands out free copies of their personal fanfiction for the author's universe. By that argument, this can only be good for the author.

...Except. What if the free product is awful? Like genuinely terrible. How do you think people will react?

Well, the typical reactions are:
1. The person is new to the series and thinks, "This must be an indication of quality of the series."
2. The person is new to the series and thinks this is an official product.
3. The person isn't new to the series and, due to proximity, thinks, "The author must be endorsing this person."
4. The person isn't new to the series, but the work sours their perception of it.

You would, in this scenario, kick the person handing out the free copies despite their best intentions. They wanted to help, but they did, in fact, end up hurting sale. This is called, "protecting your IP".

Here's the problem, though. If you do it for one person, you have to pretty much do it for anyone. This is because if a company doesn't actively protect its IP, it loses the right in a court of law to protect it if it didn't show the effort. Most companies do this by only targeting high profile cases of IP infringement; arguing that they weren't aware of the smaller ones due to the scale of their product. And this is usually enough.

That's what all those project had in common though. They became high profile. They became hard to reasonably ignore. One was trying to become a wide-scale MMO, one was releasing as a free app to the mobile market, and one was actually released in theaters. It doesn't matter that they didn't make money, and it doesn't particularly matter if the product were really good or not (although, a lot of comments seem to indicate the Legend of Zelda movie was REALLY bad).

Some companies won't pursue this nearly as heavily because it's hard to hurt their image. Microsoft wants people to promote their games because their characters are not nearly as iconic. As popular as Master Chief is, his actual personality does not hold the same cultural weight of a link, mario, or sonic. In this case, you're right, they have little to lose if they just go after the big sheep. The people that try to profit.

But... Let's talk about Sonic. You know how the Sonic community is, whether earned or not, treated like a den of sexual deviancy, a haven for uncommon fetishes, and an unsafe fandom? This is EXACTLY because Sega didn't police these kinds of things. Mind you, in Sega's case, since they fell to the wayside against Nintendo, probably saw every single work as free publicity, but it has, in the long run, ended up hurting their IP and their fanbase. Sure, there's a diehard group that won't go away, but it's often hard for them to get new fans into the franchise that aren't also interested in the seedier parts of the fanbase. And hell. Even with Nintendo's mettling, there's still some dark things that become "fan head canon" for mario. Ever seen some of the more violent mario shorts? The idea for those came from somewhere.

So, all that said, it's not the BEST thing that Nintendo does these things, but it's not like they're stupid. There is, sadly, a reason for it. If they don't enforce their right to protect their IP, they lose both legal authority over it and often lose control over the image of their icon.

 

Exactly.
Smash 4 have awful ledge mechanics and everybody is great at recovery = worse air combat in the franchise.
Smash4 is the groundest Smash game, with that damn tilt strings and bnb combos from throw everywhere. Projectiles are almost useless too, so let's take out a portion of gameplay, because why not ?I
t's because isn't like Brawl that we need a mod.

I had to much fun emulating and adding the Melee experience with P:M, and I can only dream have a great game as P:M emulating my Brawl experience.

Projectiles aren't useless hello? If you don't like Smash 4 there is Melee and 64...

 

How we will get those new costumes now? ;_;

 

I'm so sad to see the project ending and wish good luck to the ex-PMDT members' next project. I'll always keep hope that they'll come back one day. If not, at least put out what they had finished for 3.7 (alt costumes, any new stages) for fans to use so at least the last bit of care they where using won't go to waste.

Cheers.

 

you guys pulling a Gravity Falls, ending it at the time you wished to end it.

I have nothing but respect for that.

 

Noooooo this sucks, rip Awakening Roy and other things that were coming out in the next patch.

I smell something fishy with Nintendo, even if the PMDT denies they were issued a C&D. They had so much new things coming, that it would make no sense to end it now.

And the download link was removed...

Regardless, thank you for everything, PMDT and best wishes for the future.

 

Well... Bowser will stay bottom tier, Links grab will stay broken, Skyworld will keep its dumb ledges, Jigglypuff won't get her bandana back, and of course we'll never see PAL...

But we'll still have this great game. Thanks, PMDT.

 

Has anyone ever wondered why Project M hasn't tried to work with nintendo and monetize PM? It has had tons of downloads and nintendo sees it as competition for their new game.

I realize there is some bad blood between the two groups, but it seems like there is a big market for it and nintendo could at least make their successful competition their ally

 

Has anyone ever wondered why Project M hasn't tried to work with nintendo and monetize PM? It has had tons of downloads and nintendo sees it as competition for their new game.

I realize there is some bad blood between the two groups, but it seems like there is a big market for it and nintendo could at least make their successful competition their ally

There is a reason for it, Smash 4.

They didn't want PM even more so how tricky it can be to pick that up.

 

Question is the download link for 3.6 gone forever as well

yes but i found a website to download it a guy made it here is the link for you guys http://projectmirror.no-ip.org/ your welcome

 

Thank you PMDT, for all that work that you've done for us. Your mod has been the greatest one that I've ever played.

I'll follow whatever project you plan to release in the future, and you can bet on your soul that I'll support it with my wallet.

 

This is coming from an outside perspective, but I really don't understand the reaction to this. The game's still there, right? Why are people acting like it's dead? It's no more dead than, say, Melee, which has gotten exactly 0 updates (unless you count the PAL version).

 

This is coming from an outside perspective, but I really don't understand the reaction to this. The game's still there, right? Why are people acting like it's dead? It's no more dead than, say, Melee, which has gotten exactly 0 updates (unless you count the PAL version).

Exactly. We can still play the game as if nothing happened. It just means there won't be any more updates.

 

Real shame to see this happen. Project M is one of my absolute favorite Smash mods and it's the Smash game I play the most aside from Smash 4.

I'll definitely still continue to play it, though. While there won't be any more updates, we can still enjoy it like we always have. It's only dead if we let it die.

 

great news

 

Project M really was an experience. It was basically a game that the community wanted and they put thousands of hours into making it as enjoyable as possible. Thank you PM, thank you so much.

 

I loved this game. It was a big part of how I got into the competitive scene and met tons of people on here and in real life. For all the complaints it got, and what was considered jank and wasn't, the majority of the game was well-polished and pretty smooth fighting wise. The hard work to completely overhaul Brawl's fighting system while keeping the charm of its cast and even some of its mechanics was not lost on me, nor was the hard work of the graphic reworkings done by people like Nanobuds. I haven't been able to play it in a while, but this game--yes, GAME--will always hold a special place in my heart. That being said, it doesn't mean it's dead per se. It's up to the players to keep the game alive, and to scrunitize and learn things far after playing so many hours, just like Super Smash Bros. Melee

 

Slightly sad... I just got into Project M. Not even two months ago... now this happens.

 

If it is a C&D, it could be from any number of companies involved. Heck, it could of been the actual Russian government because the Tetris songs are Russian folk songs. (Well actually I don't know who actually owns the songs but you get what I'm saying.)

Chances are that it's because a member of the PMDT wants a job in game development and had to cut all ties to the potentially troublesome mod. Perhaps a PMDT2 could exist in the future depending on the nature of the contract... Or somebody could just "steal" the mod and rebrand it or something else. Again, depends on how close people want to skirt the legal issues.

It would be awesome if Nintendo bought their concepts and ended the program so we can get some Project M-inspired DLC like alternate costumes and new modes for this next update.

There'd be some legal ramifications if they tried to use PM's content and concepts... Wether or not they did give the PMDT credit.
That and I want PM Pit as far away from SSB4 as possible.

 

Really sad to see this go, but it had an amazing run! I wish you all the best, and I'm sure your future endeavors will be just as awesome if not more so! Project M will live on through our playing and further personal modding. You have created something of a legacy, I believe. :D

 

Wow. I'm really sad to see this go.
I think without it, vBrawl would be even less popular.

Rest in peace PM. You will forever be remembered.
Also, RIP PAL.

 

Maybe now I will invest time in it knowing that the game is fully "complete"

 

I was actually thinking of downloading for the first time yesterday, but thought "meh, I'll just get it tomorrow."

WHY?! ;-;

 

You guys, quit saying "RIP PM" or "farewell" like it's gone anywhere. We've still got the game, it's just a little harder to obtain unless you know where to look and it won't get updates anymore. That's all. If you still like it, keep playing it - that's the only way.

 

Let's be real that was never going to happen lol

From what I've heard it was being worked on before PMDT ceased development so don't give me that.

 

Honestly, I'm with the group that says this was likely because their lawyer advised them to take it down to save Project Wavedash; since an attachment to a previously infringing work can be connected with their current works. If Nintendo had issued a C&D, the most they could possibly do was MAYBE ask them to not talk about it (C&D's don't really do that, but they might have tried to strongarm some silence), but we've been explicitly been told it wasn't a C&D... Which there's no real way to force someone to lie about that. The Project M team gains nothing by lying about the C&D if true.

The other possibility is that they did get hired by a company, and they needed to take the old work down to qualify, but they can't talk about it because of an NDA.

I suppose the third possibility is that their lawyer is just awful at his job and told them to lie eventhough a C&D should only contain a requirement to cease distributing, not specifically say it wasn't a C&D. I wouldn't put any money on that bet though. It'd be a bit silly to hire an IP lawyer for your new venture only to have that lawyer destroy your work for no reason.

hey first off just wanted to say
LOVE your videos, they inspired me to do alot of stuff with smash and how I play the game.

that out of the way, part of being C&D could be a "we wont charge you if you agree to a non-disclosure agreement" which would mean that HAVE to deny it. however as you said, it is more likely that they are moving on to wavedashgames and can't have connection to projectM anymore out of the possibility of nintendo being able to claim that wavedashgames is using stolen code,(or code that was used as part of a mod for one of their games, which would be part of the legal gray area). this **** makes me ****ing depressed. all of the content they were working on out the window.

 

If it is a C&D, it could be from any number of companies involved. Heck, it could of been the actual Russian government because the Tetris songs are Russian folk songs. (Well actually I don't know who actually owns the songs but you get what I'm saying.)

Chances are that it's because a member of the PMDT wants a job in game development and had to cut all ties to the potentially troublesome mod. Perhaps a PMDT2 could exist in the future depending on the nature of the contract... Or somebody could just "steal" the mod and rebrand it or something else. Again, depends on how close people want to skirt the legal issues.



There'd be some legal ramifications if they tried to use PM's content and concepts... Wether or not they did give the PMDT credit.
That and I want PM Pit as far away from SSB4 as possible.

PM Pit >

 

I don't understand how the game no longer being updated, or having to get your copy from sources other than the original creator now is an automatic death for the game.

Melee is never going to be updated. You can't buy a copy of Melee directly from Nintendo anymore. Damn, I guess that, by everyone else's logic, means Melee is just as dead as Project M.

Yeah, this means no fix for Link's grab. No updated physics to get a headband Jigglypuff. We're not getting that new Snake taunt. We're not getting that new Zero Suit Samus work. So? There's plenty of stupid jank and ****ty costumes in Melee, SmUsh, USF4, and MKX, but they're not dead because of it.

Saying that Project M is dead because it's never going to be updated again and that it's slightly harder to get is asinine.

If Project M is dead just because of what's happened:
RIP Project M (That had bigger tourneys this year than ever before)
RIP Melee (That continues to grow despite its age and almost broke 2000 entrants at EVO 2015)
RIP UMvC3 (That is still fighting despite being tossed under the bus by Disney, with no future Vs. title in sight)
RIP Skullgirls (That will no longer be updated, even though the newest DLC characters are completely unbalanced, yet still draws in significant numbers in side-tourneys)
RIP KoF '97 (That had hundreds of thousands of people watch tournament streams, at one point have one stream break 500,000 simultaneous viewers)
RIP every game that the final version has come out for and will no longer receive updates and support from the publisher.

If the rest of the community wants to accept something like this as the end of the game, then I'm ashamed to say that I was ever a part of a group that would just let something so insignificant as the game being finished completely destroy what it loved.

"RIP Project M" - Community
Yeah?
I guess that means y'all have been bustas all along then, huh?

Keep on smashing.

 

hey first off just wanted to say
LOVE your videos, they inspired me to do alot of stuff with smash and how I play the game.

that out of the way, part of being C&D could be a "we wont charge you if you agree to a non-disclosure agreement" which would mean that HAVE to deny it. however as you said, it is more likely that they are moving on to wavedashgames and can't have connection to projectM anymore out of the possibility of nintendo being able to claim that wavedashgames is using stolen code,(or code that was used as part of a mod for one of their games, which would be part of the legal gray area). this **** makes me ****ing depressed. all of the content they were working on out the window.

Heh. Thanks. Always nice to meet a fan.

Couple of things: 1. Apparently the PM team isn't related to Wavedash. The point that it's probably to protect them on the next project still stands. Figure I'd correct my earlier posts on that.

2. C&D's aren't actually agreements. That's specifically why it's not likely a C&D. A Cease and Desist is a first measure before legal action and negotiations happen. If the people served the C&D listen, then that's it. The company can't pursue legal action. It's the company saying "Cut that out." They can't even force anything as all a C&D is is a notification of intention. It's saying "Stop infringing or we will pursue legal action". Since it's not actual a legal order, you can't really ask people to do things that aren't infringing on your IP. So, if it was a C&D and they listened, nothing would be stopping them from saying so.

 

It's a real shame that this happened. It feels like just yesterday when my friend told me of this "Brawl mod that had Mewtwo in it" and we decided to check it out. I may have moved on to Smash 4 after it came out, but I still would return to PM every so often and I will still continue to do so. I just feel sorry for the developers of the game. They poured six years of love into this masterpiece and the competitive Smash community will not forget your efforts. Thanks for all of the fun times we've had with this game!

Now, that being said, all of this Nintendo hate is completely unwarranted. Yes, I know it's sad that Nintendo possibly took down PM, but they had no choice. Project M consisted of unlicensed use of Nintendo characters and, as a result, Nintendo had to protect their copyright. They can't give Project M a pass because, if they did, they'd have to give all fan projects a pass, which basically eliminates the copyrights of their franchises. In addition to this, there are third parties involved with Brawl (SEGA and Konami) and Nintendo could get in hot water with them if they essentially allow an unlicensed use of characters they don't even own. Nintendo had no choice but to shut down PM. They likely didn't hate the mod at all. In fact, I've seen things that have said certain people at Nintendo were actually impressed with the PMDT's work. But, at the end of the day, legal business is cold and emotionless.

 

Guys, I just got into PM, and I loved it so much. I never had a chance to download it in my house. I mostly play PM in college, but now that the development is done, I can't download it anymore. Is there a way to download PM now or...? Can someone help me? I really want to play PM so badly...!

 

Guys, I just got into PM, and I loved it so much. I never had a chance to download it in my house. I mostly play PM in college, but now that the development is done, I can't download it anymore. Is there a way to download PM now or...? Can someone help me? I really want to play PM so badly...!

Here's one method:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150919194229/http://projectmgame.com/en/download