Nintendo orders removal of Super Mario 64 strategy guide scans from 1996

Tomous wrote:

shy guy 64 wrote:i really dont see the point in taking it down. nor do i see the point in reading it the internet is plastered with guides to this

It's not about wanting a guide for the game, it's about appreciating the artwork.

And preservation. Something Nintendo give zero gooseberry fools about with their legacy lately.

KjGarly wrote:

Tomous wrote:

shy guy 64 wrote:i really dont see the point in taking it down. nor do i see the point in reading it the internet is plastered with guides to this

It's not about wanting a guide for the game, it's about appreciating the artwork.

And preservation. Something Nintendo give zero gooseberry fools about with their legacy lately.

Indeed

Tomous wrote:

KjGarly wrote:

Tomous wrote:

shy guy 64 wrote:i really dont see the point in taking it down. nor do i see the point in reading it the internet is plastered with guides to this

It's not about wanting a guide for the game, it's about appreciating the artwork.

And preservation. Something Nintendo give zero gooseberry fools about with their legacy lately.

Indeed

Correction: Nintendo don’t care about post N64 preservation. SM64 is available for all bar 3 of their consoles since then.

OrangeRKN wrote:

Captain Kinopio wrote:That Kickstarter for hand drawn gameguides for Metroid and Zelda got taken down and that was somebody just producing their own unofficial thing using their own original artwork.

On what grounds were they able to take that down? I didn't think you needed any licencing for game guides. Magazine shelves are still filled with "100% unofficial guide to Fortnite!" or Minecraft or whatever.

Technically, unofficial guides aren't illegal (this was last challenged years ago when Blizzard went to shut down an unofficial guide - before they settled out of court and reinstated the guide for sale.

https://m.slashdot.org/story/66754

Also, note that neither Mojang nor Epic, for example, have removed the *countless* unofficial Minecraft or Fortnight guides from sale on Amazon. They don't, because it's not actually illegal. It'd take a test case to prove otherwise. Instead, they simply tag their own as official.

However, the reality is that you'd need *serious* cash reserves or some IP lawyer ready to take your case on pro-bono to prove this in an actual trial (it never got that far with the Blizzard case). Until then, companies like Nintendo can abuse the DMCA knowing that there's bugger all small guide authors can do about it.

I once had Rovio request I take down an Angry Birds Halloween guide app from the iOS store, that I created and sold back in 2011. I said no and reminded them it was "fair use". They actually conceded. They tried again in 2014. I forwarded their response to the same request years prior, and left me alone again.

Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

The deluge of video guides on YouTube makes it somewhat ironic that some companies will agressively pursue printed/digital guides, but won't pull down monitised YT videos (with some on 1+ million views per video).

Nintendo hasn't been cool since Iwata stopped confirming things

Andrew Mills wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

The deluge of video guides on YouTube makes it somewhat ironic that some companies will agressively pursue printed/digital guides, but won't pull down monitised YT videos (with some on 1+ million views per video).

dont nintendo give money to people who frequently post such videos?

shy guy 64 wrote:

Andrew Mills wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

The deluge of video guides on YouTube makes it somewhat ironic that some companies will agressively pursue printed/digital guides, but won't pull down monitised YT videos (with some on 1+ million views per video).

dont nintendo give money to people who frequently post such videos?

They had a creators program a while back in which they would claim the ad revenue on videos, and then give the creator a percentage of that, but that was binned a few years ago. Nowadays creators use YouTube's own partner program and claim ad revenue from that.

Chocolate-Milk wrote:

shy guy 64 wrote:

Andrew Mills wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

The deluge of video guides on YouTube makes it somewhat ironic that some companies will agressively pursue printed/digital guides, but won't pull down monitised YT videos (with some on 1+ million views per video).

dont nintendo give money to people who frequently post such videos?

They had a creators program a while back in which they would claim the ad revenue on videos, and then give the creator a percentage of that, but that was binned a few years ago. Nowadays creators use YouTube's own partner program and claim ad revenue from that.

Ah ok

Andrew Mills wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

Remember in 2000 when Sony (possibly in conjunction with Future Publishing) decided it suddenly wanted to enforce its trademark and didn't want any magazine to feature "PlayStation" in its masthead, thus began the process of unofficial magazines all changing their name.

KK wrote:

Andrew Mills wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Thanks for the explanation, genuinely interesting!

No worries. I found it easier over the 20+ years I spent creating game guides to simply "stay under their radar". Games mags had a "gentleman's agreement" with the publishers when it came to their unofficial guides (especially their covermounted books).

Remember in 2000 when Sony (possibly in conjunction with Future Publishing) decided it suddenly wanted to enforce its trademark and didn't want any magazine to feature "PlayStation" in its masthead, thus began the process of unofficial magazines all changing their name.

I'm afraid not. I was still only doing guides for GamesMaster magazine at that point (so I never paid any attention to PS mags that far back). I didn't do any official PS mag guides until a few years later.

Interestingly, Prima still runs (with a new owner) in an unofficial digital capacity only.

FWIW, I'm looking to move more into the printed guide scene, by doing something no-one else has ever done before. I don't need the crazy margins that Prima needed from offset printing (there's reasonable margins to be had via Print on Demand services). Just doing some Affinity Publisher training now to learn some solid coffee table book layout skills...

What game(s) do you plan to cover?

Hello Andrew, nice to see you back.

Herdanos wrote::o What game(s) do you plan to cover?

Going to begin by covering my favourite games of my childhood (Metroid Prime, Super Metroid, Zelda LttP, Goldeneye, and a few others).

Full hardcover, glossy page guides, glitches, Easter eggs, speedrun coverage, and enough to make each of them more like self-contained mini-encyclopedias of each game.

I'll be streaming their production from planning, to playing, to writing, screenshot taking, editing, book layout, checking proofs, etc. The entire workflow from start to end.

If my "Legacy Collection" gathers any momentum, then we'll see where it can go from there.

Victor Mildew wrote:Hello Andrew, nice to see you back.

Thanks Victor, it's good to be back.