Nintendo have issued a cease and desist letter to the developers behind the popular Pokémon online mulitplayer game, Pokénet.
The Pokémon MMO game was work in progress, but that didn’t stop 7,000 players logging in just before the project developers received their cease and desist letter from Nintendo.
‘Pokenet’ players were able to catch, evolve and finally trade Pokémon across two in game regions called Kanto and Johto, with more expected to arrive at a later date. Completely free to play the developers were losing money on hosting the servers – never the less Nintendo clearly saw this as a threat to their IP and crushed it quicker than Pikachu hopes of freedom.
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Maybe if Nintendo saw the extreme potential of pokemon becoming an actual MMO, and satisfying perhaps millions of players worldwide. But, this is Nintendo we’re talking about. They’re too chicken to do anything truly profitable if it means defying their softcore gaming policy.
Even then, they should seriously think of handing an mmo contract to a developer that’s seriously experienced with that sort of thing.
yes but you wonder why it got shut down perhaps they are working on won like thay said generation would be unlike anything we’ve ever seen *cough cough
Got it! Thanks a lot again for hlpneig me out!
I want to echo what Latios sais and add that I have been looking for a downloadable Pokemon game for a couple of days, but have not been able to find what I thought of as a reputable or legal site. This has been VERY frustrating. I would be more than willing to pay, but it’s impossible no matter how much it might cost, there just isn’t anything available. I can download hundreds of games from EA, and I thought nintendo would be smart enough to follow suit. Guess I was wrong.
P. S. – Dear Nintendo, I am NOT buying a DS!!!!!! So there.
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Ah, nintendo ruining fan makings for fun… again. They messed up the hero of time, and now this. They NEED to be ok with fanwork. Its just rude. THEY A COMPANY THAT ENTERTAINS THEIR IDEAS HAVE FANS AND FANS LIKE TO MAKE THINGS BASED OFF STUFF THEY LIKE! THEN, THEY RUIN IT!!!! ITS TERRIBLE! IT IS!
Why do people believe that there is some back door to a multi million dollar corporation and that if you just make something with there products that they should just let you go on and continue? I’m not saying that Mega Corps should always squash the little guy, I’m just saying if you are going to use all that talent to create something that exist, why not just create something new.
Fact that people here are upset enough to at least claim that they’ll never buy another Nintendo system over this is amusing.
Nintendo IS okay with fanwork, but what they aren’t okay with are unauthorized games with high visibility and thousands using their copyrights and trademarks and reaching a point where the unlicensed game is competing for player time and possible retail sales with Nintendo’s own official products.
Another example is that feature length Zelda movie Nintendo shut down in January. Nintendo’s always embraced little skits and fan films based on Nintendo games, and have even featured clips of them in their E3 Presentations, but the feature length Hero of Time film was far more violent and bloody than anything Nintendo has ever associated with the Zelda brand, and additionally the makers of that movie had it screened in an actual movie theater for at least one film festival, possibly more but I don’t remember the specifics. (and aside from that, the movie sucked)
The difference here is pretty much the same as comparing some fan writing a Pokemon fanfic and posting it to Fanfiction.Net, and a fan writing a full length Pokemon novel, calling it “Pokemon: The Novel”, pitching it to publishers to sell in book stores, and making a professional looking website called “PokemonTheNovel.com”
Nintendo can’t allow anybody to use their brands and trademarks as though they were their own.
For an extreme example, there was a website a few years back that specialized in pornographic Pokemon fan art. Conservative Christian groups then used this site to claim that Nintendo was using Pokemon to lure children into pornography and even bestiality. Nintendo issued the C&D to the fansite owners pretty quick as you might imagine.
I’m not a fan of legal threats and C&D letters, and in cases of fanworks usually side with the fans, but when unauthorized fanworks begin to position themselves as competition to the official source material, the creators have every right to step in and stop it.
I love chris !!’s mention that they might be developing an MMORPG. I can only hope and they really should be as the tools and ground work for one–whether using the Mario universe or the very vast Pokemon world (both with great, extremely strong fan bases)–are there. Surely this Nintendo should’ve already a game like this already out years, years ago.
I mean Phantasy Star Online was on GameCube…and it wasn’t bad at all. MMORPGs are big money and if loyal games will pay for VC games and so pretty meh-to-good Wii Ware they’ll pay a monthly fee for a MMORPG on a beloved franchise. It’s really a no brainer.
I agree Nintendo and GameFreak should’ve pulled the plug on it since it is their property–but c’mon, these guys who created this MMORPG took a generally stale concept and made it fresh. Friend Codes in Pokemon does NOT equal the same thing and seeing the world Pokemon as an actual bustling, lively world with many trainers with badges and what not is how the games should be after over a decade.
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Eh, I don’t know what to think about this. I enjoy the Pokémon games on the DS, I’m currently playing through Soul Silver, it’s spectacular. I’ve talked with my friends about MMO’s, and creating a good Pokemon styled one, I’d love to see it happen, but I can understand where most people are coming from when they say “nintendo once again ruins the fun” But I think nintendo shouldn’t be in the wrong for shutting down an unofficial game on the internet if they didn’t agree to it.
You’re right, they really aren’t in the wrong for demanding a cease and desist as it is one of their top properties. I can only hope they ARE working on a Pokemon MMORPG at the moment for the Wii.
On the other hand, I don’t believe this fanbased MMORPG was making any money and so it wouldn’t be a threat to Nintendo competitively…although it could’ve taken away from Nintendo financially. I mean it’s a free game with a fresh spin of the Pokemon franchise using an old concept. I’d rather play that than a game I’ve played numerous times over. Of course it’s going to make Nintendo look like bully similar to Lucas Arts killing the free Star War Opening Crawl thing.
nko
Nintendo needs to calm down
Why are you people defending a multi-billion dollar company
I’m sure this online game wouldn’t have affected their sales that much
I can’t give away my strategy, but I can say that I generally focus on technical factors, including relative strength. I wrote excel macros for my models and put together a back-testing model and an allocation model. I download mutual fund and sector fund data into my database. Using a proprietary model, the program tells me which funds offer the greatest likelihood of performing well.
I bet nintendo is doing this to monopolize the pokemon series to their consoles but the fact that making a pokemon mmo lets say a full 3d game world where you can sail the whole continent seems to ambitious for the gaming company. X_X
IJWTS wow! Why can’t I think of tihnsg like that?
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