Back in August 2016, we informed you about Project AM2R. This free fan game, created by Milton Guasti, aimed to recreate Metroid 2 with updated graphics and gameplay. And as you may have guessed, Nintendo shut it down (though it can still be found for download on the Internet).
In an interview with Waypoint, Nintendo of America’s President and COO, Reggie Fils-Aimé, tried to explain why the company decided to shut it down. And his reasoning was not that convincing.
Reggie claimed that Nintendo feels the need to protect its IP when a project transitions to something that people are trying to monetize, to sell or to profit off. Which sounds reasonable, however Project AM2R was a free fan game. As such its creator never tried to monetize it or sell it.
As Reggie said when asked about AM2R:
“So, I think there needs to be clarity in what the line is, and, in our view, the line is when an initiative crosses from being an homage to something that is monetizing our IP. We allow homages to exist in a variety of different ways. And, for me personally, as a fan before I was an executive, I understand the attraction that you could have to our IP. But, when it transitions to something that… now, you’re trying to monetize, you’re trying to sell, you’re trying to profit off of, that is what broaches or breaks through that line for us, where we have to claim our IP protection.”
When pressured a little bit, Reggie concluded that AM2R was a commercial product, even though it was not charged.
“We have had conversations with entities that started as fans and became more of a business partner. Those conversations happen all the time, but again, when something transitions to a commercial product, and that’s what [AM2R] was—there wasn’t a charge, but it was now a commercial product.”
Makes no sense, right? Well, what Reggie wanted to say – but couldn’t due to the usual PR nonsense – is that AM2R would have stolen Metroid: Samus Returns’ thunder; a game that was unveiled at this year’s E3, is a remake of Metroid 2, and is coming to 3DS. And that’s exactly why Project AM2R was shut down.
It had nothing to do with Nintendo’s policies regarding fan games. It would simply compete with its commercial title, and could potentially have a negative impact on its overall sales.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Between this & Square Enix, I can’t decide who’s more hilarious.
Thanks, DSOG. I mean, really, even if you didn’t do it on purpose (which you probably didn’t), great timing ^^
I swear these companies must be competing with each other who can be the biggest
D*ck to their customers
which incidentally leads to their decline of sales
They don’t?/won’t care at all. You forgot the fact that these companies make most of their profits from consoles where they f#ck the gamers with their anti consumer policies and the best part for them is that they don’t even have to defend them their loyal(dumb) fans do that for them.
But come to PC and they get f#cked back, this time without the lubes. So yeah the point is they don’t care and this is the reason you still see them saying these stupid things. Especially when it comes to anything regarding PC platform.
strange i thought developers prefered to develop on PC because it’s not hardware limited like on console
i guess for Japanese companies it makes perfect sense
but honestly consoles are not selling like they used to be in the last gen
not to mention many games on console look absolutely abysmal
but you’re right about the sheeple mentality,conslows have literally no backbone and no way to fight these corperations
Na, they hate the hardware part of the PC, as there’s too many configurations, rather than just one, single, uniform configuration to work with. Which is understandable, but in the end also a little ridiculous.
Plus these days “not hardware limited” = “expected to put in extra effort”, so there’s that, too.
That is what I’m talking about. Al right just think what would you as a publisher who likes money prefer a community who use their brains and don’t just buy any of your bullsh#t just because you say so or the community who would not only buy your bullsh#t but also defend your bullsh#t to hell.
Now guess which type of community makes you as a publishers more money.
Also developers prefer to develop on powerful hardware but they are bound by publishers. Why do you think Platinum said they would love to make PC games if it’s up to them but final say is up to publisher.
“We allow homages to exist in a variety of different ways.”
Yeah, all those Pokemon games that get routinely DMCA’d are such a strong testament to this fact…..
“now, you’re trying to monetize, you’re trying to sell, you’re trying to profit off of, that is what broaches or breaks through that line for us, where we have to claim our IP protection.”
Who in the f*ck ever tried to monetise the AM2R project? Or any of the two, three-or-so dozen Pokemon projects that keep popping up? No, seriously, examples, please. Mr. Fan-Turned-Executive.
“and that’s what [AM2R] was—there wasn’t a charge, but it was now a commercial product.”
Is this man secretly a foreigner posing as an American? I mean, is English secretly not his native language? Judging by his name, he’s obviously not a Japanese, so that’s off the table, so, what, is he secretly a non-native English speaker that emigrated to America at some point? Because, that’s really the only thing I can assume at this point, unless he’s purposefully attempting to come off as either a troll, or an idiot.
“AM2R would have stolen Metroid: Samus Returns’ thunder; a game that was unveiled at this year’s E3, is a remake of Metroid 2, and is coming to 3DS. And that’s exactly why Project AM2R was shut down.
It had nothing to do with Nintendo’s policies regarding fan games. It would simply compete with its commercial title, and could potentially have a negative impact on its overall sales.”
Bam. As usual, can’t have a superior fan product be distributed for free, not when there’s an inferior paid-access official product to shove down people’s throats, instead.
What does it say about the quality of Nintendo’s games when they feel threatened by hobbyists making games on the budget of a ham sandwich?
That moronic sequel they made to the Metroid Prime Trilogy….
‘Nuff said.
Nintendo could’ve simply been transparent and say “Hey, we actually have a Metroid 2 remake on the works” but nah, they need, they must sound and look like the biggest douchebags on the planet by sh**ting on a fan’s 10 year passion project set to release on the series anniversary, which Nintendo themselves were not giving a single damn about.
I also doubt the doubt the fan remake would steal their remakes’ thunder, the fans are too desperate for more Metroid to risk it dying just because the fan remake have the possibility of being better.
Skyrim on Switch is looking nice
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd8398dbc2c9896115fba800a56145eb6239fb6a262027153dcb790145c8da33.jpg
that’s actually on PC, switch hardware is very powerful
Its a joke dude.
no
Funny.
I own a switch and yes its a nice portable but in terms of pure power crunching its around a shield tablet. 1.2Ghz A53 quad core with what? 4GB of 32GB bandwidth memory.
The GPU is around 512Gflops i think or worse which is half as powerful as a 940M.
Switch is not powerful at all but except for a few rare titles i’d never buy 3rd party on the system anyways.
switch is more powerful than PC
Depends on the PC. Maybe your BestBuy “Gaming” PC is worse than the switch lol
Obvious Troll is obvious.
They even adapted graphics to match newest zelda asthetic.
*Slaps 60$ pricetag!*
It would be awesome if they had the new Legend of Zelda Aesthetic
That is just like the TakeTwo and Rockstar trying to sugarcoat their mod ban as protecting consumers form “cheating”, when it’s just corporate greed and they don’t want to “lose money” to a San Andreas MP like mod.
Nintendo is a dead horse, nobody buys their $hitty hardware
they punish youtubers for making content to advertise THEIR OWN F**KINGS GAMES!
and their games are played better via an emulator (up to 4K!)
so what is nintendo’s importance to the gaming world of 2017? none.
they merely exist to be “that company” that nobody cares about anymore other than hipsters
You’re living in a cave if you think Nintendo’s hardwares aren’t selling well.
Nintendo is stupidly obnoxious when it comes to fan projects. Sorry Nintendo but we still can download and play it. Not to mention we got glorious emulators… beat that.
Yeah he wouldn’t be saying that if it were on their home console. Supporting fan homages…yeah right.
the fan project was too good, that was the problem, competition.
You are spot on with this answer. Nintendo was very uncomfortable about it because it ended up being popular enough to drive the direction of the Metroid IP:
“How do our creators, like Mr. Sakamoto, who created Metroid, and Nintendo control that intellectual property so that we can drive where it’s going, versus someone else driving where it’s going.”
Good job nintendo,you want metroid?buy a nintendo console and please nintendo shutdown the cemu and dolphin emulator!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43ddd96c38994fedb99c357aa578b16a198b2ba27f91f9f644ad4f0c2a2c01dc.gif
I need this gif in 144fps.
Wow you’re that petty. Pleeeease Nintendo…
It’s too late.
The official game looks like sh*t compared to AM2R.
Reggie, sorry to break it to you…but AM2R isn’t a paid game…
unless you’re referring “Support the Creator of said project”…
It doesn’t have to be a paid game to become a commercial product. It just needs to be capable of being sold.
Reggie even acknowledged that the game was distributed for free – “and that’s what [AM2R] was—there wasn’t a charge, but it was now a commercial product.”
And donations are a form of monetisation.
expect that people are donating the Creator’s work, rather than the product.
but whatever, legal is weird.
I see your point. But it’s the same difference. Money still ends up with the creator.
Was a free game but was “commerical” product. Just what he hell does that mean ? Had no reason to support Nintendo before and have just as little now.
??????????????
??????????????
But i see one: games you won’t play on Chinese gaming tablet.
why should i play on anything other than a PC?
as for “on the go” or to kill time on the train to the airport i do have a 3DS XL
because Fire emblem.
I wonder if Reggie is incapable of speaking normally without any pr. I mean, if you guys at nintendo felt that the reason why AM2R had to be shut down was because it would deminish your metroid 2 remake sale then just say it “we felt that by not shutting down AM2R we would be getting less sales on the new metroid remake we are working on”
The only way this project could be monetized is through donations. Coudn’t they just ask the developer if they are making a remake?
There is important missing text in this article that provides further context. Monetizing is not the only problem. Being able to control the direction of their IP is another and AM2R arguably drove it in a direction that Nintendo weren’t comfortable with:
“How do our creators, like Mr. Sakamoto, who created Metroid, and Nintendo control that intellectual property so that we can drive where it’s going, versus someone else driving where it’s going.”
“That’s where the line is very clear for us. And again, we could go on to YouTube and a variety of different places and see fans doing interesting things with our IP. But when it turns to driving the direction of the IP, or somehow monetizing or becoming a commercial project, that’s where for us, the line has been crossed.”
“control the direction of”? What?
Unless that’s their way of saying “raising the quality bar higher than we’re comfortable, with.”
Here is prob the perfect example of why AM2R had to be taken down. If Nintendo chooses to go a different direction with the remake, that’s their right as creators. AM2R created an expectation of how the gameplay should be like. Nintendo, as creators, wants to set that expectation themselves.
Eh, gameplay directions is one thing, overall game quality is another. A fan remake will always be a fan remake in terms of game design, but in terms of overall quality, that’s another question entirely, since no matter what direction Nintardo takes their Metroid game in, they’re still expected to deliver a product of a certain quality level.
Especially so after AM2R, a fan project, successfully delivered what it delivered while being “nothing more” than a fan project.
copyright…..duh.
A year later, AM2R is still regularly updated.
Companies like Nintendo don’t realize that fan-made games cannot hurt their product, but would only have a positive impact. Especially a game did as AM2R is. That only gets word about Metroid out to a wider audience which would in turn bring more customers to Nintendo’s doorsteps.