[quote="P-Star7"] The reason I'm going on about this is because I didn't know it was disobeying Nintendo until a couple months ago, and now that that's said it means this website is promoting illegal and unethical behavior. I'm asking you guys this because I don't want a site that I've admired for many years to not take the high road. My question to other people is, do you agree with Mors?[/quote] You're very clearly passionate about this subject, and to a great extent, I understand you. As I've said before, I'm formerly very religious and I actually gave up MFGG for a long time as a result of it. Fangames are indeed "illegal" but the more that you learn about the law, the more you see how gray and malleable it is. Let's Play videos were a legal gray area for a minute there. But I feel like everybody has agreed that they're fine. Even Nintendo (well sorta; they take some of your profits, which is like them flexing their muscles and saying "you won't take us to court for this"). If you ask onpon, they seem to think that fangames are legal unless they're a remake (unless I'm misinterpreting them?) And people's interpretations of the law are going to differ. New York City had a law until like last week that made it illegal for an establishment to have more than three people dancing at one time without a dancing permit. Of course, this law was silly and was only used in recent years to give officers just cause to barge into clubs where they thought other illegal stuff was happening. Florida recently repealed a law making it illegal to live with your significant other unless you're married; nobody has been charged on that for a long time though. It was "illegal", but was it really illegal if the government didn't do anything about it? Public opinion has a very strong influence on how authorities react to laws being broken. For instance, it's a lot harder to go to prison for marijuana than it is for heroin, mostly because most Americans think marijuana is relatively harmless. It's no more legal than heroin, in a lot of states and also federally, but nobody cares that much unless you're an actual drug dealer. I know you see this as like, "Nintendo said fangames aren't allowed so they're not allowed" but it's a much trickier mess. US law is written with very specific words, different words than other countries, and Nintendo only has the rights that US law gives them. And if Nintendo was truly really against fangames, they'd have shut us down a long time ago. And you have Nintendo with its occasional takedowns, and Sega and Capcom with their endorsements, and other things happening because [i]nobody, not even the biggest companies, know what to do[/i] and everybody is scared to make a move. So for now, MFGG is not changing a bit. We truly and honestly do not care. You're 16 years too late to really do anything about this, buddy. I appreciate your passion, but if you're trying to help MFGG, I'm afraid that it's 100% misguided.

This subject again? Quoting myself from April: [quote="[url=https://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=506040#p506040]Techokami[/url]"]Fangames are basically fan fiction, but in the form of a playable video game. It's supposed to be a fun side hobby, or practice for making something more original. If you are seeing it as something grander than this, you've missed the point. So if you want to make a fun little Mario fangame in your spare time to release for free, then do it. If you want to make something bigger and more professional, take the time to develop your own IP and game design and make an original game [i]that isn't a fangame.[/i] That's it.[/quote]

[quote="Techokami"]This subject again? Quoting myself from April: [quote="[url=https://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=506040#p506040]Techokami[/url]"]Fangames are basically fan fiction, but in the form of a playable video game. It's supposed to be a fun side hobby, or practice for making something more original. If you are seeing it as something grander than this, you've missed the point. So if you want to make a fun little Mario fangame in your spare time to release for free, then do it. If you want to make something bigger and more professional, take the time to develop your own IP and game design and make an original game [i]that isn't a fangame.[/i] That's it.[/quote][/quote] This, definetly this

In terms of illegality, fangames are the most absolute fringe, if even that. They don't interfere with Nintendo's ability to sell games, though when you try to remake a game (Metroid 2 anyone?) there's more reason to take action. MFGG's been in this fangaming world since 2001, and as long as no one is trying to make redos of real games, it really should be ok. And even if Nintendo DID find out about MFGG, no fangame makers are going to get in serious trouble for it. (and really, many of the games on here aren't nearly going to be as good as anything Nintendo makes.)

[quote="Parakarry"](and really, many of the games on here aren't nearly going to be as good as anything Nintendo makes.)[/quote] Very true (except for Paper Mario World, no game could be as bad :laugh: ).

[quote="P-Star7"]The reason I'm going on about this is because I didn't know it was disobeying Nintendo until a couple months ago, and now that that's said it means this website is promoting illegal and unethical behavior. I'm asking you guys this because I don't want a site that I've admired for many years to not take the high road.[/quote] The high road does not mean what is legal, it means what is morally sound. A company being overprotective of their IP is not cool, so we are actually [i]better[/i] than Nintendo in that regard.

[quote="Techokami"]This subject again? Quoting myself from April: [quote="[url=https://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=506040#p506040]Techokami[/url]"]Fangames are basically fan fiction, but in the form of a playable video game. It's supposed to be a fun side hobby, or practice for making something more original. If you are seeing it as something grander than this, you've missed the point. So if you want to make a fun little Mario fangame in your spare time to release for free, then do it. If you want to make something bigger and more professional, take the time to develop your own IP and game design and make an original game [i]that isn't a fangame.[/i] That's it.[/quote][/quote] Look, I get that, and I still approve of the fan games on this site from a player point. The deal is that Nintendo asked us to not make fangames, and doing otherwise isn't a very nice thing to do, whether it's legal or if they're not being nice by saying that. And what I've been trying to get across is that you aren't allowed to. I know they're not meant to be big projects in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean that we're allowed to break the rules. I don't know if I've said this before, but a website predicated on breaking the rules isn't going to be very edifying for any of us. Instead of using this as an opportunity to pull a Robin Hood for a cause that isn't threatening anyone, we can use this as an opportunity to practice self-restraint and curate more original content. [quote="Willsaber"][quote="P-Star7"]The reason I'm going on about this is because I didn't know it was disobeying Nintendo until a couple months ago, and now that that's said it means this website is promoting illegal and unethical behavior. I'm asking you guys this because I don't want a site that I've admired for many years to not take the high road.[/quote] The high road does not mean what is legal, it means what is morally sound. A company being overprotective of their IP is not cool, so we are actually [i]better[/i] than Nintendo in that regard.[/quote] I agree, but you can't make a decision for someone or a company and say that the problem is taken care of. For example, if someone censored Breath of the Wild so that it appealed to me, it would still be disrespectful because no one on the team wanted it to be that way or condoned it, and the next game in the series would probably be like it and need to be censored... There would be no real change of heart and it's basically taking custody away from the company because you don't trust them. It's done this way because as the company who made the series, they get to have the say in it. As a Christian, if I were told to not mod the Zelda game to remove pagan content by someone who made it, it wouldn't be very "Christian" of me to ignore their wishes and do it anyways. This isn't an emergency situation where we are being persecuted for something that will be around for our entire lives, like race or religion. The company that makes Mario is telling us that we shouldn't make our own Mario games, and this isn't really a situation in my opinion that calls for breaking a rule. Like I said before, breaking rules as a matter of habit or for fun isn't going to be

[img]http://i.imgur.com/xaa4uhM.png[/img] Your arguments are for absolutely [b]naught[/b], we aren't going to change your mind, you aren't going to change ours, lets just move on and stop going around and around.

For one Nintendo never has said that fangames are not allowed; they've taken down specific fangames that they feel threaten their ip and/or sale of their products, yes, but theyve never made a statement saying that fangames are disallowed. Two, tying your morality directly to obeying authority is a super dangerous mindset to have that I'd get out of it as soon as possible if I were you as it is uncritical of how many rules put into place by those in power are unjust and are designed to keep power from those who lack it, and I'd go on but something tells me that a topic on how fangames can sometimes be legally grey isnt the best place to post a manifesto.

[quote="MoneyMan"]For one Nintendo never has said that fangames are not allowed; they've taken down specific fangames that they feel threaten their ip and/or sale of their products, yes, but theyve never made a statement saying that fangames are disallowed. Two, tying your morality directly to obeying authority is a super dangerous mindset to have that I'd get out of it as soon as possible if I were you as it is uncritical of how many rules put into place by those in power are unjust and are designed to keep power from those who lack it, and I'd go on but something tells me that a topic on how fangames can sometimes be legally grey isnt the best place to post a manifesto.[/quote] Well, Nintendo says on their website FAQ that they have a policy of not allowing licensing requests, and the email I recieved saidt that even if you had a Nintendo Developer Portal account, you still couldn't use their properties. And I agree in many cases, but I feel as though this event isn't that urgent and could be a learning experience. Another way to say it: what if I ripped sprites from Toad Strikes Back and gave Thunder Dragon credit? Wouldn't people say that I was stealing them even with credit? If you steal sprites from Nintendo, it's not okay because "They're the big guy" or "they should let us use them so I'll act like that's what happened" or "the community deserves it". I'm really sad about what this means for the fangaming community, but even fair use is shaky given that we have been directly asked to not use them. We haven't been prosecuted or thrown in jail, so this pales to a lot of the authorities in the world today who do that stuff that need to be disobeyed, and I think that we should take the initiative to not "strike back" or ignore the feelings of the company who made Mario.

Ripping sprites from a fangame and the fangame developer or community getting angry about it is a problem that exists with the community's view of our own properties, not necessarily with Nintendo's. I 100% agree with ripping from a fangame if the sprites aren't publicly available. It's fair and it's useful.

Someone should put YOU in jail for not knowing when enough is enough. You've made your points again and again, please put it to rest.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/LCvhDdE.gif[/img]

How long has this been going on for?!? 4 whole pages? On legality of fangames?!? {P.S. I might become infamous}

[quote="MoneyMan"]For one Nintendo never has said that fangames are not allowed;.[/quote] This crusade started because P Star asked Tech Support or someone if fangames are tolerable, amd Nintendo directly told him they aren't.

[quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=512692#p512692]Willsaber[/url]"][quote="MoneyMan"]For one Nintendo never has said that fangames are not allowed;.[/quote] This crusade started because P Star asked Tech Support or someone if fangames are tolerable, amd Nintendo directly told him they aren't.[/quote] That's not really "Nintendo" though. That's just the legal team run by Nintendo of America. I'd hesitate to say they represent the company as a whole. Hell, I'd wager the response he got was a canned robot response that just got sent to him after finding a few keywords in the e-mail.

"Feelings of the company" I'm havin a giggle. Companies don't have feelings, they have profit margins and they know explicitly saying "its ok to make unliscenced games for free" would risk cutting into them. However, they also know shutting down fangames is bad PR which ALSO cuts into their profit margin, which is why they only do it in cases where the game in question directly threatens their profit margin (A2MR potentially competing with their then unannounced Samus Returns) and in most cases, only AFTER the fangame has been released and had a chance to circulate so they dont have even WORSE PR of shutting down a game that was just about to release and flushing years of work down the drain. "Liscensing" a character involves paying for the rights to use it for profit, which isn't what fangames do. On top of that Nintendo's statements on fangames have been vague at best, and it's obvious no one on either side wants a court case about "are fangames ok" because it'd be a big waste of money on Nintendo's part that makes no one happy (profits lost by fangames on the whole are EXTREMELY minimal, and being the company that fought in court to make fangames illegal and won would be HORRID PR) and fangame developers don't have the monetary clout to fight them. What's best for all involved parties is to let things keep on like they have, and raising the question directly with Nintendo risks them being forced to take action out of fear that they will be deemed "unprotective" of their IPs (and as such having their trademarks invalidated, allowing ANYONE to use them, even for profit)

I just thought of this in words recently. I guess I don't like that this whole debacle comes about because forgiveness is easier than permission. Nintendo seemed to let AM2R go on for many years but they suddenly killed it. How awful would that feel to think that you're in the clear? Also, it doesn't really feel good for me to ask Nintendo BEFORE making a game and getting told "no" while almost everyone who doesn't ask and even holds Nintendo's stance in contempt gets to do it because the company isn't proactive about fangames. I know MoneyMan said it woulf be bad PR but I think that if they're going to say it's illegal they need to put their money where their mouth is. And in addition I feel kind of hurt that the website seemed to imply for many years that Nintendo fangames were legal, and when I find out that they're not almost everyone on the forums laughs it off and says they don't care. Sorry I just had to get that off my chest. Any thoughts?

I think you're just thinking about it way too hard. The law of the land is not the standard by which you should always live your life all the time. Most people do just by default; we don't usually kill people or steal stuff. But also people break little laws all the time. Ever listened to a song on youtube that wasn't uploaded by the band themselves, or by VEVO? Illegal. Watched a TV show on YouTube for free? Illegal. Bought a Nintendo shirt from RedBubble? Illegal. Drew a picture of Mario? Illegal. I'm sure if the government made Christianity illegal you wouldn't stop being Christian. It's the same for us, on a smaller scale. We operate in a legal gray area, we don't profit from the games, we're just a community that does it for fun. It's not in the company's best interest to shut us down, and we're not really hurting anything. We're [b]helping[/b] them make money, even. We're keeping interest alive in their old games that they've received decades of large amount of profit from. Basically: it's no big deal to us, or anybody else. Laws exists (at least in theory) to please everybody the most possible. We're de-facto protected by how hard it is to sue communities of your own fans.

[quote="HylianDev"]I think you're just thinking about it way too hard. The law of the land is not the standard by which you should always live your life all the time. Most people do just by default; we don't usually kill people or steal stuff. But also people break little laws all the time. Ever listened to a song on youtube that wasn't uploaded by the band themselves, or by VEVO? Illegal. Watched a TV show on YouTube for free? Illegal. Bought a Nintendo shirt from RedBubble? Illegal. Drew a picture of Mario? Illegal. I'm sure if the government made Christianity illegal you wouldn't stop being Christian. It's the same for us, on a smaller scale. We operate in a legal gray area, we don't profit from the games, we're just a community that does it for fun. It's not in the company's best interest to shut us down, and we're not really hurting anything. We're [b]helping[/b] them make money, even. We're keeping interest alive in their old games that they've received decades of large amount of profit from. Basically: it's no big deal to us, or anybody else. Laws exists (at least in theory) to please everybody the most possible. We're de-facto protected by how hard it is to sue communities of your own fans.[/quote] Thanks for the good reply. I had to mention a personal event so I PMed you. I guess the idea is that stuff like being free from racial persecution are rights that all humans hold, but Mario isn't something that everyone is entitled to. And that's why I feel like this law isn't extreme enough to break or makes me a better person from doing so. In contrast this situation feels like it's training myself to disobey rules only because I don't like them instead of because they are actually a moral concern. And I mean, if your only reason to disobey a law is "I was told no but I don't care" rather than "my dying grandma wants a rum and Coke but the doctor won't let me", doesn't that make it flat-out stealing, and isn't that kind of... wrong?