Do you remember that game from Mario Party where you have to tiptoe around the sleeping Wiggler as it snoozes to what very much sounds like the insect's funeral barge? Wiggler snoozes in a fragile dream land as bumbling Mario Party players try their best to work avoid the sure carnage that will erupt if this freak of nature is unleashed upon the land until the inevitable moment where one fat-fingered relative makes the wrong move and the last thing everyone sees is the red-hot steaming maw of Wiggler's last condemnation? Yeah, I'm starting to think that might have been a self-report on Nintendo's part pertaining to their own habits and peculiarities- or at least that is the sense I get looking at the way the big N conducts themselves whenever not trying to play the player-friendly façade during showcases- which is 99% of the year, for context.
All of us mortals try to sneak about carefully, trying not to step on the long roots of the Nintendo tree, but when one of us does- apocalyptic ruin upon us and our families as Nintendo deploys the sleeping drones to hunt us down in our sleep! See Nintendo won't just kill you- on no that's amateur hour! What they prefer to do is the 'catch and release' model. They identify the target and let them think they are safe and secure for as long as it takes to rope in as many like minded faces as possible. Oh are you forming a community? A community of people who love Nintendo games and want to share that passion? Oh, how adorable! Yes, Nintendo will be smiling today as they send their men knocking on your doors. Their agents will come down upon you with the wrath of god to slap you with the kind of legal destruction that will leave you begging for an assassin's blade. Death would be a mercy for the kinds of people that Nintendo lock into Findom for the rest of their natural lives.
And why am I bringing all this up? This deep Nintendo lore that everyone already knows? Because Nintendo are back on their bull once again, of course! This time they've targeted one of the oldest communities known to gaming man- Garry's Mod. That's right, the Half Life 2 mod that likely introduced you to the concept of what mods even were? The clay from which countless hundreds of thousands of user generated assets have been formed and shared for no fee? Out of the spirit of creative freedom and sharing stuff you think is cool with other people who might also think it's cool? You know, that commune of expression and socializing that poses no threat to anyone anywhere? Yeah, that's Nintendo's target today. Because Nintendo seem eager to model themselves after the Gestapo. (Allegedly.)
As you'll find on any site that allows UGC- some of the stuff available to screw about with on Garry's Mod are characters from Nintendo games like Mario, Samus and Kirby. Assets that can be loaded in to replace player character models at your discretion. Or maybe you'll have a custom map that looks like the Mushroom Kingdom. These are free little constructions by fans, no more consequential than fan art, slapped together in an engine for the simple hell of it. Apparently Nintendo consider this an big enough threat to their continued profitability that they have slapped dozens upon hundreds of takedown requests on Garry's Mods servers to erase literal decades worth of content they had never touched before now. Which is just swell, ain't it?
So ludicrous of a proposition this was, that Nintendo would seriously sink this low, that people genuinely created a conspiracy theory that this was actually false DMCA claims issues by some down dirty vermin looking to use Nintendo's 'Good reputation' as a spittoon. How could it be that Nintendo seriously see a threat in a decades old game like that- right? Well as it turns out the threat appears to be very real. Garry's Mod team have pretty much verified the takedown requests, parroting the contentious point that 'it's their content and they have a right to take it down'. You know, as though people were going around and recreating Mario games using rip-off Mario characters. These are the sorts of situations where Copyright as an institution serves not as a shield, but a mallet for bashing out at others. One that Nintendo are all too giddy to use, given their track record with consumers.
Fans have responded in the manner that they usually do- flocking to try and preserve the content that Nintendo are trying to destroy in docs that the big N bloodhounds will no doubt pursue next. Archives like theses are fast turning into the only means by which a lot of gaming content exists, including some of Nintendo's own hosted games. Fans are footing the bill trying to keep classic titles entrusted to Nintendo alive in some form on the Internet, meanwhile the company themselves spend their money and time hunting down inconsequential fan content across the web- what does that say for the sorts of priorities across the industry right now? And how little respect people have for the big N when their next games starts leaking across the industry?
Nintendo aren't the only one's cracking down on supposed piracy. Denuvo, creators of the most maligned anti-piracy software on the market, have announced new invisible watermarks that can stamped onto pre-release builds of games and are unique to each version, making it easier to track down leaked footage to exact leakers. Another startling leap forward in accessibility for publishers to hunt down their consumers in order to get their oppressive 'lawsuit' fix. I no big fan of leakers either, although I do wonder about the use of such technology given that all the worst leaks, the really terrible ones, are typically done by outside hackers who announced their bounty readily, rather than developers slipping a little something to press. This is just an excuse to crack down on the little man and pretend that solves the wider genuine development-affecting breeches in security. It's a band-aid over the wrong wound!
The future that Nintendo want is one wherein all the world follows their beck and call to the utmost letter, precluding all creativity and ingenuity their products could spark. Most would say that art is a vehicle through which to inspire and encourage and to get to dream, but Nintendo loathe the idea of independent expression and thought- and seem to actively work against the fans who find inspiration from their projects. They craft a world of fear where art, in their lens, is a vehicle through which to generate brand value, and the esoteric and beautiful parts of creation of unwanted by products of an unwanted passion. So thanks Nintendo, for being the worst yet again.
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