So, looks like some apparently important sites are shut down

[Bregalad]

[...] people just download stuff they owned as a kid like Mario, Zelda, or Super Metroid and want to re-play without having to rebuy the game at $99 each.

Not to mention that if the option of downloading them is removed, the demand will sharply rise; and the prices with that. In an hypotetical world where dumped ROMs and Emulation never existed (so neither did the Virtual Console), old games would cost probably twice or thrice as much as they do today.

[Chronosplit]

Not to mention that if the option of downloading them is removed, the demand will sharply rise; and the prices with that. In an hypotetical world where dumped ROMs and Emulation never existed (so neither did the Virtual Console), old games would cost probably twice or thrice as much as they do today.

This is in a way what happened in Pinball recreations outside of Visual Pinball.  With arcades becoming more rare, unless you knew a place or bought your own it was almost impossible to play a table.  Sure, PinMAME existed but there's more to Pinball than its ROM.

In comes FarSight's (yes, the Action 52 guys) Pinball Arcade with licences and the like to recreate them virtually, and they would charge what turned out to be basically 50 bucks a year due to yearly seasons (otherwise you would lose out in either "pro" stuff or would be paying out your bottom for every table you want individually).  The physics and looks weren't exactly there all the time, and IIRC Pro Pinball still rules the roost in the IRL feel of pinball the closest, but people gathered around for playing the classics again in spite of it's flaws.

Just today however the Williams/Bally license switched to Zen Pinball.  They typically charge around two dollars per table, but for a usually more stable and polished product when compared.  Was the public loud enough to convince them to go to greener pastures, or was there a better deal on the horizon?  Who knows until stuff's unveiled?

[Zeality]

Some people are not convinced it was really Nintendo that did that, some say it was a hoax.

Apology for thread necro, but was updating the Compendium and replying to this has been on the to-do list for ages. I'd wanted to post more about this here back when it happened, but every single thread on the subject was immediately locked.

We kept the original PDF C&D letter as e-mailed to us, but are reluctant to share it as:

• It has the real names of the principal developers in it, including our physical addresses in May 2009
• The metadata in the PDF shows the author, who was one of Square's attorneys at the time as verified on LinkedIn

I've uploaded it as it still looks sitting in my inbox here, and will quote the header below (note, the IP address originating the e-mail is now registered to Sprint):

Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.216.8.129 with SMTP id 1cs114123wer;
        Fri, 8 May 2009 13:03:06 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.100.128.15 with SMTP id a15mr7900309and.70.1241812981332;
        Fri, 08 May 2009 13:03:01 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from carbon.na.co.square-enix.com (carbon.square-enix.com [204.248.181.18])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id c1si137537ana.7.2009.05.08.13.02.59;
        Fri, 08 May 2009 13:03:00 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning na.legal@square-enix.com does not designate 204.248.181.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=204.248.181.18;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning na.legal@square-enix.com does not designate 204.248.181.18 as permitted sender) [email protected]
Received: from silver.na.co.square-enix.com (204.248.181.19) by carbon.na.co.square-enix.com (172.31.70.23) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 8.1.240.5; Fri, 8 May 2009 13:02:46 -0700
Received: from Mercury.na.co.square-enix.com ([172.31.0.120]) by silver.na.co.square-enix.com ([172.31.0.121]) with mapi; Fri, 8 May 2009 13:02:56 -0700
From: SEI Legal <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "(removed; my university e-mail address)" <(removed; my university e-mail address)>, "(removed, Agent 12's personal e-mail)" <(removed, Agent 12's personal e-mail)>
CC: SEI Legal <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 13:02:55 -0700
Subject: CEASE & DESIST:
  Chrono Compendium, Crimson Echoes
Thread-Topic: CEASE & DESIST:
  Chrono Compendium, Crimson Echoes
Thread-Index: AcnQF/m+jh1Z8T7fSKqotLzt68DNqA==
Message-ID: <FD3E367A90F0[email protected]>
Accept-Language: en-US
Content-Language: en-US
X-MS-Has-Attach: yes
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
acceptlanguage: en-US
X-TM-AS-Product-Ver: SMEX-8.0.0.1181-5.600.1016-16628.005
X-TM-AS-Result: No--13.377500-8.000000-31
X-TM-AS-User-Approved-Sender: No
X-TM-AS-User-Blocked-Sender: No
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="_004_FD3E367A90F059489821EFD5A402F76418D7E1CF29Mercurynacosq_"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Return-Path: na.legal@square-enix.com

--_004_FD3E367A90F059489821EFD5A402F76418D7E1CF29Mercurynacosq_
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_FD3E367A90F059489821EFD5A402F76418D7E1CF29Mercurynacosq_"

--_000_FD3E367A90F059489821EFD5A402F76418D7E1CF29Mercurynacosq_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

It's impossible to share more without revealing personal information, or putting the poor attorney (who's probably a fan of the game, RPGs, and Square in general) at risk of being doxxed. I hang out at TCRF/Hidden Palace pretty heavily these days and if someone wants an attestation from a neutral, trusted party seeing the original (like drx or someone who can be trusted to keep it confidential), I'm easy to find on those Discords. We've shared it with members of the press before, the last time being for this article: https://the-magazine.org/23/the-everending-story#.X1heCu17kuW -- which we're comfortable doing since there are usually journalistic standards at work.

[Jorpho]

It's impossible to share more without revealing personal information, or putting the poor attorney (who's probably a fan of the game, RPGs, and Square in general) at risk of being doxxed.

I reckon that even if there's a demonstrably verified PDF, the conspiratorial-minded would still insist that said attorney could have been deliberately badgered into sending said C&D. But there will always be such theories.

[line2666]

Do companies still actively C&D or threaten ever since then? All I can recently remember is "Another Metroid 2 Remake" (2016) and "No Mario's Sky" (2016).

[Jorpho]

Do companies still actively C&D or threaten ever since then? All I can recently remember is "Another Metroid 2 Remake" (2016) and "No Mario's Sky" (2016).

Pokemon Uranium
Mario Batle Royale
Pokemon Essentials for RPG Maker

I think I'm still forgetting something.  Maybe one of the Mario 64 "ports"?

[Chronosplit]

Do companies still actively C&D or threaten ever since then? All I can recently remember is "Another Metroid 2 Remake" (2016) and "No Mario's Sky" (2016).

It was mostly a convenient rash of C&Ds at the time that had people in a panic, I kinda called it.  Sites have switched, Prism still gets maintained, the Gigaleak happens, so goes the circle of life.

The only one that was actually recent was the compiled version of the Super Mario 64 PC port, but we all kinda called that.  There have been a few others not so recent but they've all been fan game related (and let's be real, when making a nintendo fangame being shut down is fully expected).

[andrewmcm]

Who knew that putting ads on a site that distributes ROMs would attract the stink-eye from the most litigious publisher in the past century?

I don't think its about putting ads at all. I've seen even newer sites with no ads that have been taken down from Nintendo. I don't understand the reason behind this as all the ROM sites are actually helping keep all those classic games alive ...

[Jorpho]

I've seen even newer sites with no ads that have been taken down from Nintendo.

Do you have an example?

I don't understand the reason behind this as all the ROM sites are actually helping keep all those classic games alive ...

Ugh, this argument has been made a gazillion times already. If they openly tolerated people giving away stuff for free, then they wouldn't be able to sell it anymore, and even if they tried they couldn't stop all the people from "preserving" everything.
September 23, 2020, 06:27:27 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Here's a new one:
Peach sex game 8 years in the making hit with Nintendo takedown

I'm sure Nintendo has figured out the Streisand effect by now. One really has to wonder what might have pushed them this time.

[Jorpho]

So the comments in this new video about Super Mario Flashback led me to this interesting Twitter thread (via one of the dev's tweets) that lays out a good case for Nintendo maybe not actually being as bad as they may seem?

I was not aware that Nintendo only took down supermariobros dot org and did not squash Super Mario Bros. X directly.