Fan games and selling... GBA cartridges?

DakeDesu · 2006-11-19T17:25:14

Well, from what I've read on distributing Nintendo games, and really all that 5000$USD License does is force you to make a game that has overly high goals. It does not even put the game on any shelves or advertise it (you still have to do that yourself). A little hard for us indy developers to do, ya think? Then I thought... maybe the rumours of video games in vending machines and convience stores in Nihon are not true. Are all Nintendo Doujinshi to be downloaded only? Then I remembered... what about all the hardware that did not pay Nintendo 5000$USD for their license. Mad Cat is notorious for this. Then an even bigger example hit me. Game Genie and Game Shark. Two things that, I am sure, if Nintendo had the power, would be off the market (otherwise they most likely would be Nintendo licensed). So I started thinking on legal defenses around getting Game Paks for the GBA, or any of Nintendo's hardware for that matter. ROMs are legal, piracy isn't though. So making the games is obviously fine. Nintendo does not own any of the hardware, other than possibly a few patents used in the game pak (hardware is owned by ARM, IBM, Motorola or SGI, depending on what piece of hardware you are talking about), and I really doubt a lot of hardware companies will complain about people developing for their hardware. Or atleast not sane ones that wish to stay in business. On top of that, a lot of the same hardware is not Nintendo exclusive. Making it hard for Nintendo to claim any ownership. Now how would it be distributed? The game that is. Well, most business would, and should still pay Nintendo if they can afford it, that explained later. So if I don't have the money for the seal of approval, I am not likely to be able to pay off Walmart to sell it nationwide. Nor would I be likely to convince 7-11 (a franchise of convience stores in NA, maybe also Japan) without money and the Approval. Well, what I suggest is make a mockup package, with maybe a box, flash cartridge with game preloaded, artwork for box and flash cart and a manual. Then sell it on E-bay. Simple, right? My notes on the approval: While Nintendo's Approval has been shown as not needed, if I could afford it, I would get it. If I can afford it, I am a target. If I cannot afford it, well I could further argue that Nintendo would not have gotten the money from me anyways, as I would have just developed for a different platform instead. Which would actually lose Nintendo on hardware sales. Also, Nintendo's Approval _-is-_ a seal of quality. It shows people the game is worth buy, maybe not for game play, but that it will not break as easily as something without the seal of quality. C+C?

Games Business and Law Business

Started by DakeDesu October 19, 2006 08:38 PM

11 comments, last by yaustar 18 years ago

DakeDesu

Author

100

November 02, 2006 11:54 AM

Well, I've talked to a few people who have researched Canadian Copyright, Patent and Trademark Law, (which is quite a bit different from USA Copyright Law), and we came to two possible civil charges Nintendo of Canada could lay on us:

1) Using the bootloader code
loophole a) You cannot copyright or patent code in Canada, there is another section of Canadian Law, that I am not knowledgable on that covers software. It is not a well known piece of law either. I am very sure I could get a judge to reasonably doubt I willfully broke it.
loophole b) In the states, a company has won a case against Nintendo blocking rights to the bootloader code. I cannot remember if it was Acclaim, Accolaid or Midway. I shall see if I cannot FAQ including the information.
2) Mentioning in some way that it is not an official Nintendo game.
loophole a) Take Nintendo's red code. shift it by ten values (Nintendo cannot own _all_ shades of Red, and I am sure a Judge would recognise how silly that would be), take the square nintendo is in and remove the rounded corners replacing then with nonround corners. Replace the Nintendo text with "DOUJINSHI*". Put text on the box that says something to the tune of "*: Doujinshi literally means fan based works, and is not associated with any company other than the studio that made it". Then to show whether it is for Wii, Gamecube, N64, GBC, GBA or NDS, a silly cartoony stylised image that would tell the user what it is for.

As for Nintendo's Seal of Quality saving the game from the second game crash. To be honest I am surprised we haven't had a third game crash already. However, I must have missed the part in various game histories how the Seal of Quality saved Nintendo. I shall read up again. Any links you suggest.

However, if it is true I could develop for Microsoft for 100$USD a year, than I am more than willing to scrap this plan. The question is: is this SDK available for Linux?

jpetrie

13,223

November 13, 2006 08:20 AM

Quote:
However, if it is true I could develop for Microsoft for 100$USD a year, than I am more than willing to scrap this plan. The question is: is this SDK available for Linux?

What you're talking about is XNA. It's a C# framework that allows "near effortless" porting of a Windows game written to the XNA framework to the 360 (however, it is still in beta at the moment and you cannot target the 360 until after the beta).

The SDK is free, but to target the 360 you must be part of the XNA Creator's Club (or some such), and that costs $100/year. Furthermore, it is not a viable platform for sale -- it is not possible to distribute binaries, and only other XNA CC members can play your game (and they basically have to recompile it, because of the aforementioned binary distribution restriction). More up-to-date information can be found on Microsoft's own XNA site; it may contradict some of what I've said as I won't follow XNA too closely until its out of beta.

It's a very cool platform, however, it is not really an avenue for amateur developers to target the 360 for for-profit distribution of games.