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Nintendo Nixes YouTube Videos of Super Mario Speedruns
The Boston Globe reports (based on Kotaku's story earlier this month) that Nintendo is cracking down on YouTube videos which show speedruns of its games -- computer-guided play that skips completely human hands pressing buttons on a controller. Why? The article notes that these play-throughs "require the use of ROMs, digital backup files of the original game that can be freely passed from computer to computer, or downloaded from well-known websites. Therefore, Nintendo reasons — and YouTube is clearly sympathetic to this reasoning — there are copyright issues at play, since players aren’t using the (ancient) original game cartridges, or newer copies sold directly online by Nintendo." Legally justifiable or not, this seems unlikely to build goodwill with some of Nintendo's most nostalgic fans.
It's also bullshit because that's a handy way to get kids into the guts of computing. They see it and think "I want to do that!" And they can. They can get an emulator, they can get the ROM, and all of a sudden they're looking at the machine code trying to figure out how it makes all the bleeps and the bloops on the screen.
I think that's missing in this age of locked-down everything. Back in my day (THERE. I SAID IT. I SAID IT.) I got into programming by copying the BASIC code for games out of the back of magazines into my Apple IIe. You realize all the stuff on the screen and all action comes from things humans wrote...and it's not really that much...and this is neat and all but how I make the ships move a little faster? Oh, that must be this part of the code right here...I'll change that to a 5 instead of a 4 and look the ships go faster!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
They're not penalizing normal speedruns, the summary is baiting you into thinking that. If you read the article you'll see that they're targeting tool-assisted speedruns, i.e.: ones that use pirated software.
1. Retards -- let's piss off the consumers ...who _used_ to buy your stuff; Keep it up and Nintendo will find they won't have any consumers left to sell to.
2. Can someone smack Nintendo's Marketing dept with a sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense please?
Speed runs are FREE publicity.
This is the best advertising money can buy -- when consumers _willingly_ advertise your product for you without it costing you a cent! /sarcasm Nah, can't have that -- let's waste money on bullshit DMCA and drive a wedge between consumers.
3. Part of creating something for the culture to enjoy is that it BECOMES part of the culture -- ergo, the limited terms of copyright.
4. Why am I _not_ allowed to use an emulator if I legally have a physical cartridge? The medium is irrelevant -- I already purchased a license by physically buying the cartridge.
Here's a list of tool assisted speed runs that are actually run on real hardware with a real copy of software : http://tasvideos.org/Movies-Ve...
Getting things to sync to real hardware is amazing that so much effort FROM FANS has gone into preserving these games in emulators that it works outside of those emulators.
Let's start by acknowledging that piracy is a major issue for companies like Nintendo and that they should do something.
That being said I think they are doing the wrong things.
There was an article about a web browser playable version of the original Mario game whose developer got a take down notice from Nintendo. I understand Nintendo can't allow people to just post their games in a web browser format for free. The problem is that Nintendo should be hiring this developer and doing this themselves either selling access to consumers or using ads to support the effort. Very few people are likely to buy a 30 year old game but many people would sit through a short ad to play these games or pay a very small monthly fee for access to many titles.
Nintendo should have their own emulators and a ROM shopping site. With or without Nintendo people are going to use Emulators... Nintendo can still make some money on old games. I personally would pay about a dollar for any game before the Gamecube and a reasonable price for newer Gamecube and Wii titles. There are open source emulators for all previous Nintendo consoles, Nintendo should take the lead on this. For one they probably could have stopped the Dolphin Emulation community from emulating the Wii so quickly if they had more control over the community.
I use emulators for older games because there is no way I am going to carry 4 or 5 consoles around with me. I live in China right now and I like to play games with friends at coffee shops on my laptop. Even if I had a house I don't think I would want more than 2 consoles max in my living room...
I love games I'm willing to pay to play but Nintendo isn't making this easy, which is a shame!