Not all suits but threatened suits. Nintendo claimed ownership of world maps in platform games ala Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World. If you were making a game that had one in the early 90s and you were shipping in Nintendo you got a letter that in so many words said, "Change your game or get sued AND lose your permission to publish on NES/SNES/Gameboy"
Nintendo also claimed a patent on showing a ghost image of your previous race (the ghost car in Mario Kart)
Game companies do this all the time. Namco had a patent on the idea of "a minigame playable during a loading screen". Splatoon on the Wii U had a minigame you could play while waiting, but as it was during the multiplayer matchmaking process, not loading, it avoided the patent.
But there is no IP in the gaming industry more vigorously defended than Tetris. The Tetris Company LLC has:
* trademarks on the name Tetris, the wordmark, and the word "tetrimino" to refer to the pieces, of course
* trade dress rights on otherwise generic elements, such as the shape of the tetromino pieces themselves and the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki", when used in video games
* copyright on the concept of "a video game where tetromino pieces fall and you must arrange them to make lines". You'd think that this element would not be copyrightable, but Atari v. Philips, which concerned Pac-Man and clones thereof, established that a video game is copyrightable as a form of audiovisual performance, not just program code, which means that if a game looks and behaves enough like a copyrighted game such as Tetris ("substantial similarity"), it can be infringing. And it's near-impossible to make a falling-tetromino puzzle game without making it look and behave like Tetris. Henk and Alexey have retained some of the best lawyers American capitalism can buy, and they've successfully litigated copyright actions against cloners of Tetris and have had "Tetris clone" material seized at the border on copyright grounds.
Google AI Studio by mistake let me generate this image of mario hanged, I know it was by mistake because further attempts always throwed unspecific legal reasons, even if nothing that could be perceived as violent was included, I think I am gonna put it on a t-shirt soon, if for any reason someone here wants it here it is: https://i.imgur.com/j4ebG2D.png
I think this falls under the fair use doctrine for being a satiric piece (says "nintendont" instead of nintendo) but you never know these days.
While this page comes close, I've always wished there was a structured wiki containing information about every known instance of playable "fan" romhacks/games which have had some public release (whether in development beta or complete) but were at some point shut down by Nintendo. Of course most of Nintendo's DCMAs shovelware, but there has been some really high quality work in the past that is too easily lost to time.
Nintendo has to compete in the world that English Common Law made where lawsuits are _the_ mechanism for detailing regulations, renewing ip copyrights, and establishing contract language. Furthermore *relative to other major game corps* Nintendo is a small privately-held company and can't afford to _not_ play active-defense. It sucks because our market regime sucks.
"Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, alleging patent infringement related to game mechanics similar to those in Pokémon games."
Sony should have been mentioned in this description. Last I heard, they've been backing Palworld, in an attempt to get a lucrative not-Pokemon on their platform https://www.ign.com/articles/palworld-dev-signs-deal-with-so... It's an interesting proxy war
In Spanish, we can say super shorthand for supermercado which is super market.
Costa Rica has many expats due to its retirement marketing. It’s a very easy country to reside in permanently and legally for people of any background. Mario is not that unique of a name.
Your post just shows how ignorant you can be of different cultures as well as having being very /r/hailcorporate. You can love Nintendo all you want, but it does not give them exclusivity to the name Mario.
And to state the obvious: Nintendo lost the suit, the founder named it after him self and the super has been in operation for over 50 years.
I submitted this post because on another thread, multiple people were telling me a company can't sue you if your identical business name or brand is operating in an unrelated industry. Supermarkets are not exactly in the gaming industry.
Mario is a name in Spanish as well as Italian (and several other languages). There are probably many Marios in Costa Rica; and yes, the supermarket owner is one.
This doesn't seem exhaustive though I guess I'd be super impressed if it were. For example I watched a pokemon dataset get taken down then go back up under a new name a couple times from huggingface sometime in 2023-24, fairly certain they were getting c&d
There's a distinction to make: they are not only being "protective" of their IP, they are also very actively attacking the people that doesn't know legalese. Similar story with Oracle, if you need some reference to solidify what they're constantly pulling.
And what about this is novel over how Xbox and PlayStation handle things?
Xbox has been permanently banning consoles from online, like Nintendo, for a decade and a half. Anyone remember the 2009 mega ban wave? One million Xboxes permanently banned simultaneously and Nintendo is somehow uniquely evil with the Switch 2 and we’ve never seen anything like this. Malarkey.
I’m guessing this is just cherry picking cases that go against the mood of the community. I bet there’s a mountain of C&Ds not listed for less objectionable violations such as the Mario shovelware slop littering app stores for years.
Not all suits but threatened suits. Nintendo claimed ownership of world maps in platform games ala Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World. If you were making a game that had one in the early 90s and you were shipping in Nintendo you got a letter that in so many words said, "Change your game or get sued AND lose your permission to publish on NES/SNES/Gameboy"
Nintendo also claimed a patent on showing a ghost image of your previous race (the ghost car in Mario Kart)
Game companies do this all the time. Namco had a patent on the idea of "a minigame playable during a loading screen". Splatoon on the Wii U had a minigame you could play while waiting, but as it was during the multiplayer matchmaking process, not loading, it avoided the patent.
But there is no IP in the gaming industry more vigorously defended than Tetris. The Tetris Company LLC has:
* trademarks on the name Tetris, the wordmark, and the word "tetrimino" to refer to the pieces, of course
* trade dress rights on otherwise generic elements, such as the shape of the tetromino pieces themselves and the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki", when used in video games
* copyright on the concept of "a video game where tetromino pieces fall and you must arrange them to make lines". You'd think that this element would not be copyrightable, but Atari v. Philips, which concerned Pac-Man and clones thereof, established that a video game is copyrightable as a form of audiovisual performance, not just program code, which means that if a game looks and behaves enough like a copyrighted game such as Tetris ("substantial similarity"), it can be infringing. And it's near-impossible to make a falling-tetromino puzzle game without making it look and behave like Tetris. Henk and Alexey have retained some of the best lawyers American capitalism can buy, and they've successfully litigated copyright actions against cloners of Tetris and have had "Tetris clone" material seized at the border on copyright grounds.
A nice sequel to https://killedbygoogle.com/
Google AI Studio by mistake let me generate this image of mario hanged, I know it was by mistake because further attempts always throwed unspecific legal reasons, even if nothing that could be perceived as violent was included, I think I am gonna put it on a t-shirt soon, if for any reason someone here wants it here it is: https://i.imgur.com/j4ebG2D.png
I think this falls under the fair use doctrine for being a satiric piece (says "nintendont" instead of nintendo) but you never know these days.
Somehow expected to see way more cases given the page covers even the ancient ones (1989).
Some of the cases are so ridiculously evil, I'm beginning to think they have black marketing division that mostly consists of lawyers.
While this page comes close, I've always wished there was a structured wiki containing information about every known instance of playable "fan" romhacks/games which have had some public release (whether in development beta or complete) but were at some point shut down by Nintendo. Of course most of Nintendo's DCMAs shovelware, but there has been some really high quality work in the past that is too easily lost to time.
Nintendo has to compete in the world that English Common Law made where lawsuits are _the_ mechanism for detailing regulations, renewing ip copyrights, and establishing contract language. Furthermore *relative to other major game corps* Nintendo is a small privately-held company and can't afford to _not_ play active-defense. It sucks because our market regime sucks.
>Nintendo is a small privately-held company
Nintendo is a TSE-listed public company with a market cap of about USD 110 billion.
"Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, alleging patent infringement related to game mechanics similar to those in Pokémon games."
Sony should have been mentioned in this description. Last I heard, they've been backing Palworld, in an attempt to get a lucrative not-Pokemon on their platform https://www.ign.com/articles/palworld-dev-signs-deal-with-so... It's an interesting proxy war
Nintendo is very sue happy, but the newest case of the supermarket named "Super Mario" is obviously infringing on their IP.
Unless the owner's name is Mario, but that would be a rare first name in Costa Rica.
In Spanish, we can say super shorthand for supermercado which is super market.
Costa Rica has many expats due to its retirement marketing. It’s a very easy country to reside in permanently and legally for people of any background. Mario is not that unique of a name.
Your post just shows how ignorant you can be of different cultures as well as having being very /r/hailcorporate. You can love Nintendo all you want, but it does not give them exclusivity to the name Mario.
And to state the obvious: Nintendo lost the suit, the founder named it after him self and the super has been in operation for over 50 years.
I submitted this post because on another thread, multiple people were telling me a company can't sue you if your identical business name or brand is operating in an unrelated industry. Supermarkets are not exactly in the gaming industry.
Don José Mario Alfaro González is the owners name.
The business has been named Super Mario for 52 years
Mario is a name in Spanish as well as Italian (and several other languages). There are probably many Marios in Costa Rica; and yes, the supermarket owner is one.
I didn’t realize Citra had been sued by Nintendo. This site says it shut down but it looks like you can still download it.
I’m surprised that litigation didn’t make the front page of Hacker News when it happened.
Didn't they have shared devs/infrastructure with Yuzu ? I think it was both at once.
This doesn't seem exhaustive though I guess I'd be super impressed if it were. For example I watched a pokemon dataset get taken down then go back up under a new name a couple times from huggingface sometime in 2023-24, fairly certain they were getting c&d
I expected to see way more cases considering Nintendo's reputation. Are there cases missing?
Are we allowed to call Nintendo the big N now? Asking for a friend.
> Are we allowed to call Nintendo the big N now?
You were; almost always, actually.
This really sucks. I can see why they are protective of the IP, but some fan games seems entirely harmless as long as it's not being monetized.
> I can see why they are protective of the IP...
There's a distinction to make: they are not only being "protective" of their IP, they are also very actively attacking the people that doesn't know legalese. Similar story with Oracle, if you need some reference to solidify what they're constantly pulling.
See Also:
Sacrifices to the Church of Nintendo [1], "Currently at Nintendo" [2], Attorney to Nintendo: WTF? [3], Nintendo tries a DMCA and fails [4]
as well as the various deluges of Switch 2 bans for used games[5].
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgKY9hmbfgo [2] https://youtu.be/wfBEj9BW_ok [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUce6irE3H0 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6gtmZI8oUU [5] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/scs5JU7s1hM?feature=share
And what about this is novel over how Xbox and PlayStation handle things?
Xbox has been permanently banning consoles from online, like Nintendo, for a decade and a half. Anyone remember the 2009 mega ban wave? One million Xboxes permanently banned simultaneously and Nintendo is somehow uniquely evil with the Switch 2 and we’ve never seen anything like this. Malarkey.
impossible to read.
I’m guessing this is just cherry picking cases that go against the mood of the community. I bet there’s a mountain of C&Ds not listed for less objectionable violations such as the Mario shovelware slop littering app stores for years.