"Another Metroid 2 Remake" By DoctorM64

[Zero Dozer]

ROM hacks AKA game mods (it's what they are) are not different from fan games on the legal sense. Companies will treat them the same: as piracy and unauthorized use. The same will go for fan translations and I've seen examples on this case.

The way you put it, is an incredibly poor excuse. We are actually lucky no companies go hunting for ROM hackers. You're trying to justify Nintendo acting like it's fucking Disney (and let's make that clear, I consider Disney as quite the villanious company), and that I can't concede.

[Scyzer]

If that's your logic I'm actually failing to even understand how in the fuck you have over 1500 posts here.

ROM hacks AKA game mods (it's what they are) are not different from fan games on the legal sense. Companies will treat them the same: as piracy and unauthorized use.

You're trying to justify Nintendo acting like it's fucking Disney, and that I can't concede.

If that's how you act around here, I'll be surprised if you make more than 15 posts.

Hacks are VERY different from fan games. Why? A fan game is usually a standalone thing which contains all sorts of copyright/trademark infringements.
Hacks are distributed via IPS patches, which usually contain no copyrighted material held by Nintendo. They contain only the changes made to an original file, and as such the IPS patch itself does not violate any laws of copyright or trademark, regardless of what it's intended use is.

[Zero Dozer]

You know, you could have taken the edited comment to answer me instead of the first, rough, brutal draft that I edited out just because I found it too aggressive. (Yeah, I know how to edit posts. I had quite the speech here as well, but I edited it out again.)

For the on-topic matter, I still see no difference. It's still counts as game modding, and if you want an example on how Nintendo treats game modding, you could just try to even type "Project M" on the Miiverse to see what happens.

[PonchGaming]

Zero Dozer, can you please keep all your complaining about AM2R takedown on the am2r forums. Metconst is not the place. There is no point in even complaining anymore.

[personitis]

As my last post on the matters, I won't deny that ROM hacks are fundamentally fangames, but Nintendo would have vastly different reasons for shutting such sites and projects down other than infringing on their copyright and/or trademark. To begin, what Scyzer has said:

Hacks are VERY different from fan games. Why? A fan game is usually a standalone thing which contains all sorts of copyright/trademark infringements.
Hacks are distributed via IPS patches, which usually contain no copyrighted material held by Nintendo. They contain only the changes made to an original file, and as such the IPS patch itself does not violate any laws of copyright or trademark, regardless of what it's intended use is.

The thing about an executable file is that these are easily obtained and take no thought to run. As for a ROM on the other hand, one must obtain a backup of the original game and acquire software in order to play the ROM, and this is where the waters get a bit muddy.

Having backups of your favorite video game is actually okay, so long as you're the one who dumped the ROM image and the ROM is suppose to be used for archival purposes only. With the stigma that ROM downloading is the usual way which ROMs are obtained these days, a company can not assume that's how somebody got their own backup of Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion, whether or not this person had actually dumped the image themselves or not.

Back to what Scyzer said for a moment about distribution via .ips/patch files: the reason hacks and modifications are released like this has a few upsides. For one, it turns out to be more efficient than giving someone a ROM every time a fair mod like spinjump restarting for Super Metroid or some bug fixes for whatever original game are made by somebody. Patches are also a smaller file size, which is a nice little bonus. Finally, it allows someone who's made all these changes beforehand to stay out of the legally wrong area of distributing ROMs when they'd like to release their hard work to the public.

Through .ips/patch distribution, anyone is not just releasing some C/C++/Python/what-have-you code which someone can easily insert into the original coding of the game. They are not putting the tilesets or other graphics out in the public as .png files which could easily be imported into Gamemaker or any editor of choice. These things are indirectly released, muddied down, only modifications of pieces or addendum to the original, which require additional programs and knowledge to make any sense of what the data at hand means.

Then there's the whole issue of whether or not the consumer has any right to break open something they own and tinker with it, which if I recall correctly, is a current matter of debate somewhere in the US legal system, Congress I believe. The basis is companies arguing against consumers being able to open their tech and make quick fixes like replacing a blown out capacitor with some simple soldering. The company has gotten my money and the device is in my possession, so why stop me from saving myself possible $100+ dollars (oh wait...) by not sending it back to the factory to be repaired when I'm capable of doing it myself and saving time? And this wraps back to ROM backups. If someone has a ROM which they may or may not have backed up themselves (no assumptions!), why are they not allowed to open up the game and what's stopping them from make changes their own if they can understand the mess that is all those hexadecimal values?

Whether or not you want to concede Nintendo being as evil as Disney is completely up to you. All I was doing is laying out why Nintendo is completely in the clear on what they did, excuses or not. They have the money. They have the rights. And they're flexing them, which seems to be what's upsetting people. That's okay if others want to be mad and combat such actions by a larger company, but it's not like the consumer doesn't have rights either or that companies don't try and dodge losing customers by giving the run around.

Keep a clear head, step back, and make decisions with little input from emotion (or none at all), if possible. It may suck shit, but that's how the cookie crumbles and unless there's something majorly wrong, no point in crying over split milk.

[Zero Dozer]

As my last post on the matters, I won't deny that ROM hacks are fundamentally fangames, but Nintendo would have vastly different reasons for shutting such sites and projects down other than infringing on their copyright and/or trademark. To begin, what Scyzer has said:

Hacks are VERY different from fan games. Why? A fan game is usually a standalone thing which contains all sorts of copyright/trademark infringements.
Hacks are distributed via IPS patches, which usually contain no copyrighted material held by Nintendo. They contain only the changes made to an original file, and as such the IPS patch itself does not violate any laws of copyright or trademark, regardless of what it's intended use is.

The thing about an executable file is that these are easily obtained and take no thought to run. As for a ROM on the other hand, one must obtain a backup of the original game and acquire software in order to play the ROM, and this is where the waters get a bit muddy.

Having backups of your favorite video game is actually okay, so long as you're the one who dumped the ROM image and the ROM is suppose to be used for archival purposes only. With the stigma that ROM downloading is the usual way which ROMs are obtained these days, a company can not assume that's how somebody got their own backup of Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion, whether or not this person had actually dumped the image themselves or not.

Back to what Scyzer said for a moment about distribution via .ips/patch files: the reason hacks and modifications are released like this has a few upsides. For one, it turns out to be more efficient than giving someone a ROM every time a fair mod like spinjump restarting for Super Metroid or some bug fixes for whatever original game are made by somebody. Patches are also a smaller file size, which is a nice little bonus. Finally, it allows someone who's made all these changes beforehand to stay out of the legally wrong area of distributing ROMs when they'd like to release their hard work to the public.

Through .ips/patch distribution, anyone is not just releasing some C/C++/Python/what-have-you code which someone can easily insert into the original coding of the game. They are not putting the tilesets or other graphics out in the public as .png files which could easily be imported into Gamemaker or any editor of choice. These things are indirectly released, muddied down, only modifications of pieces or addendum to the original, which require additional programs and knowledge to make any sense of what the data at hand means.

Then there's the whole issue of whether or not the consumer has any right to break open something they own and tinker with it, which if I recall correctly, is a current matter of debate somewhere in the US legal system, Congress I believe. The basis is companies arguing against consumers being able to open their tech and make quick fixes like replacing a blown out capacitor with some simple soldering. The company has gotten my money and the device is in my possession, so why stop me from saving myself possible $100+ dollars (oh wait...) by not sending it back to the factory to be repaired when I'm capable of doing it myself and saving time? And this wraps back to ROM backups. If someone has a ROM which they may or may not have backed up themselves (no assumptions!), why are they not allowed to open up the game and what's stopping them from make changes their own if they can understand the mess that is all those hexadecimal values?

Whether or not you want to concede Nintendo being as evil as Disney is completely up to you. All I was doing is laying out why Nintendo is completely in the clear on what they did, excuses or not. They have the money. They have the rights. And they're flexing them, which seems to be what's upsetting people. That's okay if others want to be mad and combat such actions by a larger company, but it's not like the consumer doesn't have rights either or that companies don't try and dodge losing customers by giving the run around.

Keep a clear head, step back, and make decisions with little input from emotion (or none at all), if possible. It may suck shit, but that's how the cookie crumbles and unless there's something majorly wrong, no point in crying over split milk.

I guess I can get your point there. I just feel so infuriated at all of this happening. It isn't even the first time that Nintendo did this, but now it has hit a big thing, an important thing. And then they started hunting down everyone who makes fan games.

I can't paint Nintendo in a good light, seeing those things happen. You indeed are right when you say they have the rights to defend their IP, but for an example, so does SEGA, yet they decided to be lenient with fans, even approving some of the material.

[MetroidX]

I think it's because Sega is not in the limelight anymore as Nintendo is. Nintendo is still a key console player and so still using their IPs to full use. Still, I don't see why they think AM2R will be competing against their Metroid games, like seriously, Metroid 2 is old as heck, only serious players will buy it. And even then, if anything, AM2R is like free propaganda: something their MEtroid series desperately needs now.

Anyways, I hope if anything Nintendo seriously considers making a new 2D Metroid series after seeing AM2R's success. If that happens, then we all win, even AM2R's creator, doctorM64

[Sheoldred]

All I was doing is laying out why Nintendo is completely in the clear on what they did, excuses or not. They have the money. They have the rights. And they're flexing them, which seems to be what's upsetting people. That's okay if others want to be mad and combat such actions by a larger company, but it's not like the consumer doesn't have rights either or that companies don't try and dodge losing customers by giving the run around.

They're definitely in the clear legally to issue the takedowns, but at least from my perception, they've probably lost more in fan good will than they would've lost in other tangibles or intangibles by just looking the other way. After all, fangames are very difficult and time consuming to make. I doubt AM2R being overlooked would've really caused a hundred or so other fangames like it to pop up that weren't already being worked on.

[Dark-SA-X]

Finally finished hard mode last weekend, damn metroid queen kept kicking the shit out of me.
Just a warning the video is about 7 hours long, 60gbs of recording mash down into 8gb by aiseesoft blu-ray ripper.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEbTwpTYqY

If I decide to rerecord hard mode it will be next year before spring.

[Zero One]

It's also important to recognise the fact that Nintendo almost certainly heard about AM2R long before it was released, and they very easily could've canned it during the development stages. Instead, they waited for it to actually be released and distributed, and then took action to protect their IP/trademark/copyright/whatever. They could've been much crueller about it and could've knocked it out before release, which they still would've had the right to do.

[MetroidX]

Does anyone know if there are multiple endings? I heard there might be depending how fast you beat it, or beating w/out gravity suit, etc.. I personally haven't seen it so I am wondering if anyone here knows of any multiple endings..

[PonchGaming]

There are 3 endings. One for under two hours, one for under 4 hours, and one for more than 4 hours. Those are the only endings, no special endings or anything.

[Zero Dozer]

There were supposed to be more, but then Nintendo started bullying him into their C&D.

[RealRed]

It's not personal.

Just business.