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Nintendo Technology

Nintendo Squashes Super Mario Commodore 64 Port Which Took Seven Years To Make (eurogamer.net) 202

Posted by msmash from the hitting-lows dept.
Last week, after seven years of work, Nintendo fan ZeroPaige finally released a working port of Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64. The achievement -- and hard graft behind it -- caught the eye of C64 fans, who praised the effort of recreating one of gaming's greatest masterpieces for the much loved home computer. But then -- of course -- Nintendo swung into action. From a report: Four days after its release, Nintendo began taking it down. The file has been removed from the its most prominent hosting sites -- and from the Commodore Computer Club website, where it was hosted.
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Nintendo Squashes Super Mario Commodore 64 Port Which Took Seven Years To Make More

Nintendo Squashes Super Mario Commodore 64 Port Which Took Seven Years To Make

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  • Fuck Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @04:47PM (#58479184)

    Another idiotic company that doesn't understand the concept of free advertising.

    Does Nintendo have ANY plans to release SMB on the C64? No? Then stop holding culture hostage with this parasitic greed.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by LittleNegative ( 993936 )
      I'm assuming that they had to do this to protect their IP, as otherwise it could set a bad precedent. Maybe that's giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure if it's better or worse, at least for ZeroPaige and the port.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 )
        That's exactly it. If they don't protect their IP here, the next time someone wants to use Mario for their own use they can point at this example and tell Nintendo that they didn't do anything to those guys so why wouldn't they think it's okay?

        If the developer and had created the "Superb Nario Siblings" or something to that extent, Nintendo would have no cause to do any of this.

        It doesn't matter either way though. Once something is out on the internet, it's there forever. It might be a little harder t

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          If the developer and had created the "Superb Nario Siblings" or something to that extent, Nintendo would have no cause to do any of this.

          Why not? Nintendo had The Great Giana Sisters [wikipedia.org] pulled from stores.

        • If they don't protect their IP here, the next time someone wants to use Mario for their own use they can point at this example and tell Nintendo that they didn't do anything to those guys so why wouldn't they think it's okay?

          Only if they have a JD from DeVry. That applies to trademarks but not copyright.

        • You're confusing IP with trademark. And even with trademarks, selective enforcement is fine. It's very hard to prove that a trademark has been abandoned.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by meglon ( 1001833 )
            Trademarks always have to be defended, or you give the infringer the opportunity to claim a defense of laches if you ever do decide to take them to court. However, whoever (whomever?) has a trademark could offer a zero cost license to a secondary group for specific purposes.

            Have to be honest, though... if i was going to put in 7 years of work on a project, i'd make damn sure anyone who had the IP, trademark, or copyright knew before hand and had given permission.... in writing (and maybe notarized and si

      • Re:Fuck Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:06PM (#58479312) Journal

        Wouldn't licensing the C64 port to the developer for a small fee (like $1) also protect their IP?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The problem is copyright law itself. If Nintendo allows this to slide the actual litigation they do care about can weaken. Judges have more important things to do, Nintendo has more bad PR to create.

      Your overall sentiments go straight to my heart if it helps.

      • The problem is copyright law itself. If Nintendo allows this to slide the actual litigation they do care about can weaken.

        Citation needed? How does that make sense, seeing as the right holder has the right to decide how their works are used, just because some uses could be OK'd doesn't magically prevent a company from going against those who indeed use it in a way they disapprove of.

    • Trademark law - protect it or lose it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:08PM (#58479326)
      Copyright isn't a problem. You can enforce your copyright only when you choose, and still retain full copyright control. You can even choose not to enforce it, then change your mind later and begin to enforce it.

      Trademarks are different. You must protect your trademark or you risk losing it [wikipedia.org]. And Mario is one of Nintendo's biggest trademarks. If this had been some one-shot game that Nintendo was never going to port or remake, they probably would've been OK with it. But it being Mario put them in a position where they had to take it down, or open the floodgates to anyone wanting to sell a Mario clone using Super, Mario, and/or Brothers and the associated characters and game elements.

      The better move would've been to grant a one-time license for the port. But most companies are only willing to do that if you approach them first, propose your project, and ask for permission. If you do the port and release it before asking for permission, they decide you're already untrustworthy and don't care about IP, so will deny you the license as a matter of course.

      Bottom line is, if you're going to pour your heart and soul and hundreds or thousands of hours into a project like a game, don't use someone else's game. Make up your own game [wikipedia.org]

      • Re:Trademark law - protect it or lose it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by darronb ( 217897 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:32PM (#58479456)

        Sure, a one-time license would be better for everyone in this case... but granting a license is WAY more authority than whatever corporate lawyer that was tasked with protecting trademarks has. What's easier for the people actually tasked with protecting Nintendo's trademark here:
        1) Find trademark infringement (their direct job), and address it directly within their authority (send cease and desist letter)
        2) recognize this is a potential marketing win for Nintendo (marketing is not their job), run it up the organization to someone with that kind of authority (wow, really?), and track the progress of all that to make sure it doesn't get lost risking real damage to Nintendo's trademarks (can someone say HIGH RISK?).

        The game fan modding community lives in a bubble. The corporate lawyers live in their own bubble. People tend to think of organizations as single entities that act as an individual, when in fact organizations are made up of a whole lot of different individuals all with their own groups, responsibilities, and goals. People will act within the scope of what their job is first.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mentil ( 1748130 )

          Sega manages to pull this off in regards to Sonic fangames, so it's definitely possible. OTOH, they did have a Streets of Rage fangame shut down, and that IP is basically dead.

          • No doubt that Nintendo *could* pull this off the same way that Sega did. Sega probably has somebody whose *job* it is to deal with fangames. Nintendo probably doesn't. Maybe after this, they will. Maybe they will decide that it's not worth the effort. The OP is pointing out that, the way Nintendo is structured right now, they are very unlikely setup to be able to handle this.

        • Sure, a one-time license would be better for everyone in this case... but granting a license is WAY more authority than whatever corporate lawyer that was tasked with protecting trademarks has. What's easier for the people actually tasked with protecting Nintendo's trademark here:

          You forgot option 3 bro.

          3) Recognize that there is an issue here that "The Boss" should look at and make a decision on.

          Seriously, the lawyer has enough authority to generate bad press for Nintendo but not enough wisdom to speak to someone with the authority to possibly license the materials? That is a possible situation, but I am going to go with the leadership at Nintendo just being too authoritarian with their sense of ownership.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by darronb ( 217897 )

            That's just restating #2.

            Hoping the people at the bottom will act outside of their stated job assignment for the potential good of the overall company is... not very likely.

            Basically, the way a company STOPS doing this is for them to experience a public backlash and have someone from the TOP change the low level people's goals.

            Again, companies (especially large ones) do NOT act as a single entity that knows everything that's going on to/around them.

            Another thing... if the lawyers have any kind of metrics on

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Or just make it, release it onto the internet, and it's gonna be there forever.

        Nintendo will spend the rest of eternity trying to get rid of this.

        And they will fail.

        It'll be torrented to eternity and back within hours.

        The guy is not selling it either, but has already given it away for free, so chasing him will achieve nothing. (I suspect he knew this would happen anyway.)

      • I wonder what in this case would be sufficiently close to capture the spirit of the original game but not close enough to trigger Nintendo's legal team? E.g. changing the name, making slight changes in character appearance, minor level differences...?

        Though then the fans would probably complain that it is not the same as the original.

      • You must protect your trademark or you risk losing it.

        If it was as urgent to act on fan made games as you seem to imply, why has SEGA not lost any trademarks to their Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, despite ROM hacking and fan game communities existing for > 20 years now?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        And Mario is one of Nintendo's biggest trademarks. If this had been some one-shot game that Nintendo was never going to port or remake, they probably would've been OK with it. But it being Mario put them in a position where they had to take it down, or open the floodgates to anyone wanting to sell a Mario clone using Super, Mario, and/or Brothers and the associated characters and game elements.

        That's not how that woks. As long as the trademark is used with permission, there is no risk to Nintendo. Heck, as long as it's clear that the Mario in the C64 version is Nintendo's Mario, there's no risk to Nintendo.

        The better move would've been to grant a one-time license for the port. But most companies are only willing to do that if you approach them first, propose your project, and ask for permission. If you do the port and release it before asking for permission, they decide you're already untrustworthy and don't care about IP, so will deny you the license as a matter of course.

        Companies that like their fans grant such licenses, when it's obviously not competing with them. Heck, they often go farther and hire the devs. But Nintendo has a long history of not liking their fans, or at least totally not getting modern gaming culture. They're the most hostile large co

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The best solution would be an exemption for non-commercial use of trademarks, and a three strikes system for companies that try to abuse it by sending take-downs anyway. After three strikes the trademark is lost.

        Actually that would work quite well for copyright too. Three meritless copyright claims and you lose it.

        • The best solution would be an exemption for non-commercial use of trademarks

          One, define non-commercial. Are charities commercial or not?

          Two, if I drink some "non-commercial" Fanta at a school fundraiser and it kills me because it's contaminated with botulism, that sort of damages Fanta's reputation a bit doesn't it? This is, in fact, the purpose behind trademarks: that the consumer knows what he's getting and can trust the source.

          So no, it wouldn't be the best solution.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Charities are easy to define as commercial use.

            The exemption would not cover products being deceptively marketed as something they are not. To an extent that already exists - it's possible to use trademarks in a variety of contexts as long as there is no likelihood that people would be confused and think that they were buying the real thing.

            For example: https://youtu.be/zAKopCwGlcc [youtu.be]

    • Setting aside arguments about trademark (which are stronger but have already been eloquently made by others), they currently make it available via subscriptions to Nintendo Switch Online. They also sell it for the 3DS. There's also the NES classic. Why wouldn't they block a port to another system for a game that they're currently actively selling, on multiple platforms no less?

      And, yeah, they aren't likely to make it for the Commodore 64. They aren't likely to make it for the Xbox either. If someone start

    • And obviously you don't understand the legal requirements to protecting trademarks.

      One "aw shucks you can go ahead and use shit unlicensed" and your billion dollar trademark goes up in a poof of ones and zeroes. Nintendo isn't going to let that happen, and have a long and storied track record of protecting their software, characters, and licensing.

      If they spent 7 years reverse engineering a product of a company that is famous for protecting their legal property, why didn't they spend a couple of those year

      • "aw shucks you can go ahead and use shit unlicensed"

        Well, right about the time they say "shit" there's a license.

    • Actually, a company that understands a trademark must be actively enforced to remain valid. If you don't actively protect IP still in use you potential lose rights to do so in future.

    • Sorry but none of what you said makes any sense:

      Nintendo does not need "free advertising" for it's Mario franchise. It is the most heavily and carefully marketed franchise they own, and no amount of "free" is better than maintaining image control.

      Also deciding on what platforms to release something on is not "holding culture hostage". Nintendo does the exact opposite of holding culture hostage constantly porting and releasing it's heritage for newer platforms. You want SMB right now? Go buy it. It's availab

  • You know there is something I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @04:50PM (#58479198)
    By now it has been clear that most company, especially nintendo, take down such project as soon as they are aware of it - protecting their trademark (and copyright) rabidly. I understand the thrill of making such a project... But that seem pointless when you know as soon as it is in the open, a company will DMCA it to oblivion at best, at worst could put you in legal trouble.

    • An obvious solution is to get written permission before you start a project that uses someone else's IP.

      Companies often respond better to a respectful request than to a sudden and unexpected public release.

      If you don't get permission, you should spend the 7 years of your life working on something else.

    • First, fans of something will do it anyway. The word is derived from fanatic after all. Second, they know that it'll still be around and that other fans will be willing to go through the extra set of hoops to find it. Third, most aren't trying to profit from this, so the DMCA request isn't hurting them at all in that sense.
    • you can easily find it right now and there's tons of YouTube streamers showing it off.

      If you're making it because you want to and because you want people to enjoy it then it's still Mission Accomplished. You release the project and it gets mirrored everywhere. You'll have no trouble, for example, finding that Metroid remake even though the authors "shut it down".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There are a lot of hacks for Nintendo games, particularly Super Mario World. There is a pretty decent editor for it called Lunar Magic.

      The new games are distributed as patches to the original ROM, so are not themselves infringing and Nintendo can't do anything about them. Obviously it would be much harder going from a SNES ROM to a C64 game, but not impossible... At the very least an XOR "patch" could be used, since that can convert any arbitrary data to any other arbitrary data.

      BTW, if you are interested i

  • Yep (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ChromeAeonuim ( 1026946 )
    That's Nintendo, they've done this sort of thing before, and they'll do it again. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it should be expected by now that they'll try to take down and unlicensed fan made things (no matter how much sense it doesn't make), so you're going to need a decentralized means of distribution.

  • Licensing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stolovaya ( 1019922 ) <skingiii&gmail,com> on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @04:54PM (#58479224)

    Nintendo really should approach these people with a licensing agreement.

    • Re:Licensing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:15PM (#58479370)
      It's the other way around. The guy should've approached Nintendo first about his project and asked for a licensing agreement before he ever began work. Asking for a license after you've completed the (unauthorized) port and released it is almost always going to get you denied a license. You've already demonstrated that you don't care enough to get permission from the IP holder before releasing their IP to the public. Why should they trust you now that you say you'll abide by a licensing agreement.

      If someone broke into your home and started cleaning it, you'd be freaked out and ask that they leave. If they then asked for permission to come back and clean your house for free again, you'd probably say no way - they already broke the law the first time, who knows what else they might be capable of doing. OTOH if they approached you first and offered to clean your house, you'd be more inclined to accept their services.

      • I'm not saying it makes sense to do it every time. But this? This isn't going to break or hurt Nintendo in anyway.

        Okay, if you want to be like Disney, go for it. I'm saying that there's a path that doesn't make Nintendo look like a bully at every step.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        How much you wanna bet that Nintendo would have licensed it? They rarely do, which is why people choose to keep their projects underground instead of pursuing legitimate licensing.

        • How much you wanna bet that Nintendo would have licensed it? They rarely do, which is why people choose to keep their projects underground instead of pursuing legitimate licensing.

          Then they should not be surprised or upset by being met with court orders and cease and desist letters and potential legal costs etc.

  • Deleted, from the Internet? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Did nobody host it elsewhere or torrent it?

  • Nintendo. Good but undeserved name (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    My last console from them will be the wii u honestly.

    Nintendo has a really good name in the market but they are literally worse than Apple and are so arrogant that they don't deserve my money anymore.

  • Why not issue a free license? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Aqualung812 ( 959532 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @04:56PM (#58479238)

    Before all the hordes of people come running to explain how poor old Nintendo needs to protect their IP, please understand that nothing at all prevents Nintendo from reviewing something like this and voluntarily issuing a retroactive free license for it.
    They could even take an afternoon and write a set of guidelines on what they would be willing to consider for this free license, and also explain that they reserve the right to arbitrarily deny a free license.

    • for it's Sega Genesis games. Heck, Christian Whitehead made fan games before Sega hired him to make Sonic 1&2 for Android (the Android ports are actual ports, not emulation, and they're amazing) and Sonic CD + Sonic Mania.
    • and before you go out defending this poor developer. Their was nothing stopping him seeking approval to use their trademark BEFORE he embarked on a 7 year effort that was a blatant violation of the companies rights.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      The saying "it's easier to beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission" doesn't usually work on corporate lawyers.

      Besides, even if the guy promised to release it for free and got no ad revenue from the website that hosted the file, someone else would take the file and put the download link on a page littered with ads. There's always one greedy asshole that ruins it for everyone.

  • How'd he do this "port"? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What did he do, take a binary version of SMB that runs on a 6502 processor and patch the I/O so that it would run on a Commodore 64?

    Or did he extract the images and build a clone version around them?

    The technical aspects of how he did this are more interesting than the copyright squable. I'd like to see how this came to be, and work was involved. Pretty dedicated hacking in any case.

    • He did everything from scratch by looking at how it looks like on a NES. This is also how lots of the ports where done back in the 80:ies since the original creators never shared source or graphics files.

  • With the way copyright and trademark rules work, Nintendo didn't really have much of a choice. I'm pretty sure Mario is almost a Trademark for Nintendo and being a trademark, it's something you have to protect or you'll lose it. To stay out of trouble, you have to make something closer to a parody instead of just plainly copying IP.

  • Not surprised (Score:5, Funny)

    by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @05:13PM (#58479354)
    Think of all the NES sales they would miss out on if they allowed this.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You jest, but I honestly wonder how much money Super Mario Bros now draws in annually (not sure how you'd figure in Switch Online subscriptions). Of course, this is the same country that spent decades hamming it up about the evils of emulation. It's things like this that make me feel we should have a yearly "10 most evil gaming company" chart. This thing with SMB? Doesn't even register. Nintendo pushing content creator copyright claims against Modern Vintage Gamer for Switch hacking videos--even going

    • You mean the NES that they keep on releasing mini versions of and the SMB that they keep on marketing as a major draw card for sales to that mini console?
      Or maybe you meant SMB instead of NES in which case what about the fact that it is a currently active and on sale game?

  • They stopped having new ideas 30 years ago, and ever since they have been living off rehashing the same trite franchises again and again, selling what they used to sell to the spoiled brats of the 80s to their even more spoiled children of the 2010s.

    No, it's not a question of trademark, copyright or law - that fan-made game is not for sale and it doesn't even run properly on unmodified hardware (the NES CPU is faster than the C64 one). It's just Nintendo being what they want to be.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • They stopped having new ideas 30 years ago

      Wow someone hasn't played a Nintendo game for 30 years.

      that fan-made game is not for sale

      Umm yes it is. It is on sale on current platforms. It's on sale on official copies of past platforms. It keeps being put on sale on new platforms. If it wasn't clear that you know nothing about Nintendo from the opening line of your post, you made it damn certain with this line.

      • This sense of annoyance that you feel, that compels you to ignore reality [wikipedia.org] and react with anger to a comment that wasn't meant to offend you, is called "cognitive dissonance".

        It's normal, it's part of the behaviour of us human beings, and you will be free from it as soon as you accept the fact that the company you obviously care so much about doesn't reciprocate your loyalty at all: they're just an amoral entity, are only interested in your money, and will throw you under the bus as soon as you stop being

  • As soon as I saw the post for this release in the first 24 hours I grabbed a copy. With Nintendo's past record, I knew it wouldn't take long for them to do just this.

  • I distinctly remember a SMB knock off on my C64 decades ago. I didn't even know it was a knock off till I played the original.

  • Trademark violation, Copyright violation, "Copyright 1985 Nintendo" on the title screen that can be construed as misleading people into thinking the port was made by Nintendo...

    It gave Nintendo so many reasons to take it down.

    The dev needs to learn how to skirt those issues like, starting by using a different *ahem* totally-not-Star-Fox *ahem* name
    *ahem* https://hackaday.com/2019/01/0... [hackaday.com] *ahem*

  • So how does this get their wrath when I can go to the mall and find at least 2-3 kiosks selling those bullshit NES mini classics that contain dozens of pirated games?

  • Anyone know how this was done? It seems to me there are too many subtleties involved to do this as a black-box reproduction. Was it a machine-level conversion, converting disassembled code to C64 assembly? Surely it can't be running inside of any kind of emulator. Does it use the original ROM image for the level data or was that re-encoded into some other data structure? Is this process in any way universal allowing other NES ROMS to be converted based off this work?

    • The processor in the NES (Ricoh 2a03) is actually quite similar to the one used in the C64 (6502). So there was probably quite a bit of code that would run relatively unmodified after the memory and ROM functions had been rewritten. Since it took 7 years, there was obviously still a lot of work.

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