Nintendo Ruins Things Again, Striking Down ‘Dreams’ Content Creators
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa is pictured delivering a speech during a briefing of the company's financial results in Tokyo on Jan. 31. His company is coming after 'Dreams' creators over intellectual property infringement. | Image: Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP
- Dreams players are creating content with Nintendo IP.
- Nintendo, as usual, is coming in to stop the fun.
- The company is overusing its power once again.
Nintendo’s relentless grip over its own IP strikes again, as the company is now going after ‘Dreams’ content creators.
Since the game’s release last month, players have made everything from a recreation of Fallout 4 to actually decent Sonic levels. But with Nintendo-related creations, the company has to ruin the fun as they usually do.
One Twitter user, Piece_of_Craft, claims his project was taken down via copyright strike. What did it include? Well, Mario himself. Apparently, that’s enough to disgruntle Nintendo’s lawyers.
Dreams Should be a Safe Space (for Now)
Considering Dreams is essentially a game-creation engine, gamers will, of course, recreate their favorite IP. It’s all in good fun, considering nobody can profit from Dreams creations (at least, not yet).
Dreams will absolutely inspire some kids to go into game development. You know what those kids are probably playing aside from Dreams? Nintendo’s family-oriented games like Mario or Zelda.
Of course, those kids will want to build those IPs in Dreams, and Nintendo taking them down could very well drive those kids away from development.
Part of the brilliance of games is how creative its players can be. Look at the modding scene for Skyrim . Valve literally hires on modders who expand their games. For Nintendo to shut down potential developers getting into the scene with Dreams, it’s just sad to see.
A History of Ruining the Fun
This isn’t the first time Nintendo came after fans of its IP. The company has taken down a variety of fan games , for example.
It’s understandable if people were profiting illegally off of Nintendo’s IP, but they’re not. These are free projects made from fans who love Nintendo’s creation.
Fortunately, some developers are getting around Nintendo’s obnoxious control in other ways. Temtem developers, Crema, have circumvented the Pokemon IP entirely, creating a similar, better game than the recent Pokemon Sword and Shield.
Maybe more developers should do just that: create original, better versions of Nintendo’s IP. These teams can have complete control, express their creativity, and avoid the Big-N completely.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.
