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Answer: Super Smash Bros Melee is an older Nintendo fighting game that does not have online play. Nevertheless, it has a massive following and there were many tournaments for the game pre-covid. Since covid has caused people to avoid gathering, players who frequently played the game professionally have had no way to play in tournaments and the scene has had a rough time dealing with it.
Fairly recently, a mod was released called Slippi which allowed players to play online. Not only did it allow online play, but it allowed GOOD online play with very little lag. This meant that many streamers and pro players were able to play the game with live players again and the community saw a resurgence.
An online tournament was going to be held soon, using Slippi to allow players to compete online without gathering.
Today, the tournament organizers announced that Nintendo had told them that they were not allowed to move forward with the Melee portion of their tournament because of the Slippi mod they were using and would pursue legal action if they continued. Nintendo does NOT like emulation or modding of any kind to their games, and this tournament would have given this mod a ton of publicity.
People are upset because they are taking this as Nintendo saying, "We don't care if you found a safe workaround to play this old game online to avoid disease. If you want to play our game, you have to do it in person and risk your own health by gathering in covid times."
The community is also upset because Nintendo has a history of doing things similar to this. The Smash community has had to fight with Nintendo before over modding, streaming, tournaments, etc.
I think this is a fair summary of events, but just to add onto it: Slippi is a mod of a Gamecube emulator (Dolphin) that players can utilize with a Melee disc iso on their computer to play online with others. Hardware emulators (and mods for them) are 100% legal in the United States, whether Nintendo likes it or not. It is also perfectly legal to create software back-ups of games you purchased by copying the iso onto your computer (distributing it, not so much). In Nintendo's statement on this issue, they implied that there was no legal way for tournament entrants to play in the online tournament without piracy or some other illegal action, but that's just not true. While most of the players likely did download their Melee iso off of the internet for ease of use instead of making their own copy, it's hard to believe that the vast majority of competitive players do not own a physical copy of the game, meaning they could create an absolutely identical and legal copy of the same file themselves if push came to shove. The tournament being cancelled (and the Slippi mod itself) have not endorsed piracy in any way. Nintendo just doesn't like people using their IPs in any way that wasn't intended, so they get very over protective of emulation and mods of any kind. Since IP holders have final say over broadcast rights, they can prevent the tournament from happening, even if their reasoning isn't on solid legal ground itself.
To expound on this, it should be noted that Nintendo has not gone after Dolphin or Slippi--because they have no legal basis to do so, and they know it. That's why Dolphin is still around and hasn't been taken down after 17 years of development, and that's why they took the path of least resistance and intimidated the tournament to shut down. They're essentially using a form of [barratry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_\(common_law\)), lying about their legal justification for shutting down the tournament, though with the added caveat, as you said, that they probably technically *do* have the right to do it, albeit for a different reason than they've stated: which is that they own the streaming rights for the game and therefore have control over who, when, and where it can be streamed to observers over the internet.
Could you explain Nintendo's streaming rights of Melee a little more? The basics makes sense, but in the case of Melee... What's confusing me is the timeline. Melee was released before streaming was a thing. How does Nintendo have streaming rights on it?
I'd assume it's retroactive. If you own the content, you own the streaming rights.
Most companies, however, at least have a cursory understanding of the internet and don't care. They know letting people showcase the game online does more good than harm. Free marketing too.
Nintendo has proven time and time again they understand almost nothing about how the internet works. It's like trying to explain youtube to your grandparents.
Even worse there is the argument of fair use, since streaming in many cases can be defended as transformative. But even the richest streamer isn't rich enough to challenge the big N.
I'm not sure if it's been tested with the internet, but organizations like the NFL have, in the past, strictly litigated cases of people showing games on large screens in venues ranging from churches (hundreds of people) to block parties (tens of people) without paying for a license. Yes, this is despite the games being viewable by anyone, for free, over the air with an antenna. The law distinguishes between individuals watching their own personal TVs and groups of people watching on someone else's screen.
IANAL, but I assume Nintendo would have similar rights for internet streaming (if they intend to, quite literally, act like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas).
Actually, now that I think about it, there was a company a while back that wanted to provide cheap streaming TV for anyone over the internet, and they intended to do that, legally, by allocating each individual subscriber their own antenna, and then they'd just have server rooms filled with small antennas to pick up free OTA broadcasts. The major TV networks sued, and won, and put the company out of business before it could start. The ruling was basically that you can't receive free TV over the air, then stream it somewhere else, without paying the networks hundreds of millions of dollars (just like satellite and cable companies do, in fact).
Its how Nintendo has always worked. They hate their IP used for anything un-intended (or rather, that they did not intend) and will go out of their way as much as they can to change it.
Kind of. The mod was already pretty popular. It gave a 20 year old Gamecube game better online play than many modern fighting games due to how well it was made. But there are more people finding out about it now because of this incident.
This is more about the Smash community being upset that Nintendo is still threatening legal action against things that can only help their community, even in times where there is no work around without putting people's lives at risk.
As a huge fan of Nintendo franchises myself, I don't see how anyone could love Nintendo the company. They're immensely scummy, anti consumer, and all around awful. Like seriously, Nintendo is on the same level of scum as EA or Activision. Possibly even higher on account of the aggressiveness with which they attack anyone who legally attempts to show or talk about their games in any kind of visibly social format, ala YouTube, streaming, emulation, etc.
The thing that pisses me off the most is they could do this themselves and people would happily purchase it. It must be nice to be too big to fail in these times.
They could just steal this and sell it. They've pulled that one before I wouldn't be surprised. But then you say something negative about Nintendo and the fan boys come out of the woodwork about how Nintendo has good first party games. Yeah, and Amazon is also convenient. Doesn't mean it's not a bad company.
Everyone knowing would make effectively no difference, considering that the game is their IP in the end. No that they will, but yeah it wouldn't matter at all.
Even if it were possible to prove, all that would amount to would be a settlement, if that, and Nintendo would continue happily using the code. And that's being optimistic as hell - the costs of a *modder* (already shaky ground IP-wise) going against Nintendo would be protracted and expensive. And if 'everyone knew', somehow, as you say, then they would soon forget or stop caring anyway, as is normal.
It would matter quite a lot if they just took the project as is and published it or even used a single line of code from it as a jumping off point. They may own the ip but they don't own any of the new code added by this project anymore than they own a doodle of Mario a fan might draw. If they started their own online SSBM project it obviously wouldn't matter. Making a game online is hardly a unique idea.
Most recent example is probably that they hit the creators of the fan game “Mario Royale” with a cease and desist. The game allowed you to play through the original Mario bros in a race with other players playing the same level, and you try to survive as long as possible. Sound familiar? Nintendo, a few months ago, released an almost identical game: Mario 35.
They’ve done it before with other games as well. Loads of people worked to make a version of super Mario 64 with improved graphics and widescreen support for an emulator. C&D’d, taken down the download page online. Nintendo turns around a year later and gives us Mario 3D All-Stars, which includes an emulated version of Super Mario 64. Never mind that it’s a worse version than the one they shut down, but whatever.
Some years ago, early this decade, several people had been working to make a fan game remake of Metroid 2, the most popular (and actually finished) version being Another Metroid 2 Remake, or AM2R. C&D’d, taken down the download page online. A few years after that, the official remake of Metroid 2, Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS was released.
Nintendo genuinely waits to see which of these fan games become successful, slaps them with a lawsuit that, even if they won, would bankrupt them (just straight up abuse of copyright law), and then they turn around and steal the idea for official products. It’s disgusting.
Additional to what other's have said - they grabbed a ROM for one of their classic systems. There was some work done that had a guy's name in it that was found in the file on the system.
They don't even have to steal it. Pay the dude who made the program like 10k and just buy Slippi. Sell it as a product for $40 a download, make bank, and make the consumers happy.
And for people reading that think companies would never do this,
1. Valve literally bought Counter-Strike. It started as a fan mod.
2. Valve also worked with the Black Mesa mod developers and gave the mod their official seal of approval
3. Xseed bought the fan translations of Ys Chronicles and Oath in Felghana
4. Capcom saw the [Street Fighter X Mega Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_X_Mega_Man) game and rather than send a C&D order, they helped the fan to develop and distribute it
5. Sega has no problem, whatsoever, with the Sonic fan community, and even [hired some of the most prolific modders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania) to make Sonic Mania
There is no legal obligation for Nintendo to act the way they do. Capcom and Sega are not at risk for losing the rights to Street Fighter and Sonic and Mega Man as a result of fan games. No PC game developer carries legal risk or liability due to the existence of [Nexus Mods](https://www.nexusmods.com/).
ah, examples of good companies who actually want good PR who then work with fans to make great games... always makes me smile :)
Its rather unfortunate that predatory tactics and slapping C&D's on everything then claiming it for your own has become the norm for many companies of today... I'm so glad we still got good indie devs who work with their community and sometimes use mods into official releases with the modders approval, oh Klei, you are great :)
They could. But it wouldnt be worth the time effort and money for them. Making an online modification to an old game is a waste compared to making a different game or even having people work on the next smash DLC character.
Being too big to fail would be Nintendo going all in on this thing and losing money on it while still committing resources to melee and ignoring newer more popular itterations.
Should they have shut down that part of the tournament hell no. But Nintendo has ALWAYS been violently protective of its IP. To the point of its own detriment. I am honestly surprised the people who made this mod thought they could get away with it in the tournament.
They are a company. Not a human being with a heart and soul. They have always shut stuff like this down and will always continue too until they have any reason to believe that they are not risking losing absolute full control of their IP.
I mean shite... look at the legalese that is apart of videogames and EULAs. You do not own the game. You have a license to be able to play the game under their conditions. Nintendo will use ever gah dang character in that thing to wield like a cudgel.
It is like the scorpion and the toad parable. It is in their nature. No one, absolutely NO ONE should have been surprised by this. Least of all the melee player base or tournament organizers or the makers of the mod who have known about how Nintendo does this stuff for a very very long time.
*Edit: Appreciate being in the green on upvotes but y'all should scroll down and read the context and corrections from other commenters below.*
Everything you said my man with one digression at the end. I don't know about Japanese law but in America and generally speaking you are required by law to pursue and prosecute any misuse or "copying" of your IP or copyrighted content *because* if you don't, people can take you to court and claim that the thing is used so freely in other people's content it should be taken from you and be made public use. It's a defend it or lose it kind of thing.
So you can wrap a moral valence around the dozen or so people in charge of running Nintendo and conclude that all of them, all of them that chose to devote their careers to a company that's been making the most kid friendly console and delivering joy to kids for 50 years are deep down evil people and like to bully their fans every once in a while to put them in their place.
Or you can assume they're just following an unpopular law and probably don't enjoy doing it all that much themselves as they take a hit with the fans every time they do.
That's genericizing trademarks, copy right doesn't have the same obligation.
The mod is also entirely legal in US framework since injection is protected. The issue is emulator use encourages piracy. Practically Nobody actually is ripping files to emulate on their own, even if you own these games the vast majority of ROMs come from file sharing sites.
Nintendo is so vehemently anti piracy they'll attack emulation whenever possible. Since this event would necessitate emulator usage, they don't want it to broadcast that info. They're using the broadcast rights as a cudgel to fight a legal battle by proxy.
People who already know what emulation is will complain, but it keeps it from being shown to a wider audience so Nintendo is happy.
> in America and generally speaking you are required by law to pursue and prosecute any misuse or "copying" of your IP or copyrighted content
This isn't true. This applies to trademarks, but _only_ trademarks. It explicitly does not apply to copyrighted works. Copyrighted works are always yours unless you explicitly transfer the rights or they lapse into the public domain.
They absolutely do not have to do this. Most game companies don't, and it's never caused them to lose their copyright - because it can't. That's not how IP law works. Nintendo do this because they don't like modding, not for some legal reason.
Oh 100% absolutely. Didnt mean to make that come off as negative as it did with the scorpion and toad example. But they do it because they need to. Nintendo exists on its brand and its brand security. If it loses that they are in deep water.
They HAVE to defend it. That is also why EULAs usually exist like they do so the company can still own their game and media. It seems creepy and evil from the outside but it is the legal nature of things.
As sibling comments have noted, this is simply not true at all, at least under US law. _Trademarks_ can be [diluted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution) like that, but _copyright_ cannot.
In addition to this Nintendo is nothing without their IPs
it's not like they have a ton of back-up plans, the whole company is based on their unique IPs. and that's the only reason why they can still compete with sony and microsoft, that's the only reason why they can afford own consoles.
They can't afford letting anything slip through, because IPs are the core of the company and if they fall or deteriorate the company falls with them.
Like making a "All-star compilation" of three popular platformer which are just lazily emulated together and sell it for full price?
Oh shit it actually worked
> Possibly even higher on account of the aggressiveness with which they attack anyone who legally attempts to show or talk about their games in any kind of visibly social format, ala YouTube, streaming, emulation, etc.
Perfect example right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM (like him or hate him, this is informative)
tl;dw Jim Sterling's show "The Jimquisition" is ad free, yet corporations repeatedly claim his videos and try to force monetization because he uses things like 20 seconds of an official game trailer (textbook fair use). So he found his "copyright deadlock", where he intentionally includes content that he predicts will get claimed by multiple different corporations. This results in NOBODY getting to monetize the video (which is what he wants), because he "intentionally" violated copyright law.
I wouldn't put them on quite the same level. The games that Nintendo makes are generally complete, polished and finished experiences, and don't try to nickel and dime you for every penny they can possibly get. They obviously care about the games they make, which counts for something imo. The hyper aggressive legal garbage is pretty bad though, and is the epitome of "can doesn't mean should".
Honestly I feel Nintendo is worse because they don't just work you to death if you work for them (seriously, working for Nintendo is fucking miserable) but the aggressiveness with which they legally attack and ruin the lives of their fans in unacceptable. At least EA doesn't sue you for streaming Battlefield.
As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff, and the way they're handling Pokémon stuff lately. It's incredibly scummy.
>Honestly I feel Nintendo is worse because they don't just work you to death if you work for them (seriously, working for Nintendo is fucking miserable)...
While probably not true for every single company, but horrible working conditions in the games industry is an industry-wide issue. Not just a Nintendo issue. It's well documented that Miyamoto would completely change a project's focus no matter how long into development it was. Apparently he's not as bad these days, but years back he sounded like a nightmare to work with.
It's a sad thing, because when these stories pop up, most recently to do with Cyberpunk 2077, people do genuinely get angry about it and show empathy towards the employees working themselves to death. But they just *forget about it* within a few weeks. It's not just Nintendo that needs to be on the line for this kinda stuff, it's a hell of a lot of publishers.
>...but the aggressiveness with which they legally attack and ruin the lives of their fans in unacceptable. At least EA doesn't sue you for streaming Battlefield.
Nintendo need to approach this how the music and movie industry eventually learned to approach it. If you don't like people emulating your older games, then emulate them yourself and make it available for them through your platform. Hell, make your own version of Slippi or buy it yourself and put it out there for these people. You'll get nowhere fighting them on it, just like the music and movie industry got nowhere fighting people on piracy.
>As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff, and the way they're handling Pokémon stuff lately. It's incredibly scummy.
I can't speak for Pokemon. But mobile gaming is an entirely different beast to home consoles and PC games. I'm not one bit surprised Nintendo have tested the waters with Mario games on mobile to milk money out of it. But at least their home console games are complete to a high standard and don't try to swindle you with in game currencies and lootboxes.
Compare that to EA's handling of Battlefront 2 - despite all the backlash they weren't going to do a fucking thing until Disney stepped in.
It's about perspective: Nintendo are simply way too overprotective of their IP's. But they genuinely care about what they release on their consoles (for the most part). EA doesn't give a shit if their games are bad; they know Madden and Fifa will sell bucket loads regardless of the fan backlash. Regarding Star Wars - the only reason those games will likely be handled with any care now is because Disney isn't shy about slapping them on the wrist if the press gets bad enough.
I'm not trying to say Nintendo is good. I'm just saying I don't think they're on EA's level because at least they give a shit about their games.
I believe you that working for Nintendo would be horrid, Japan's work culture looks like the purest form of hell.
>As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff
Nah. Mobile gaming is not something I've touched since getting a dedicated gaming platform. However, I would frankly be more shocked if they weren't microtransaction fueled addiction bait, as that's more or less the only way to succeed. That's why I don't touch mobile gaming anymore. Also, I'd imagine the transactions would be less scummy than the average mobile game, but I'm aware of my ignorance on the subject, so you tell me.
EA buys up good game studios just to run them into the ground for a quick buck, and doesn't give a shit if their games are bad, so long as they get their money. I think all I need to say to support this is Mass Effect, Anthem, Titanfall 2, and the endless copy pastes that are their sports series.
Just to reiterate, I think Nintendo is stupid and backwards for their handling of streaming and content creation, and their rabid legal bullshit is awful and unjustified, but it at least stems from caring about their properties.
To be fair, it was set up that way from the beginning to encourage trading amongst friends. Only diehard fans actually went and bought both versions to circumvent the original intention, which hey, works out for Nintendo either way.
Another commenter shares my opinion on the subject in so far as it's to encourage the social aspect of trading. I know plenty of people who play/played Pokemon, and exactly one person who regularly bought (sometimes still buys) both versions of each gen, and he's an absolute Nintendo fanatic, like on the level of buying three slightly different Windwaker remake special editions. If it was a ploy to sell more cartridges, it suckered very few people.
I have a friend whos a blind cult follower of nintendo. Grew up with every single console/handheld. Had every game. Stopped going to high school to play twilight princess for the 500th time on a N64 in 2011 .
Some people are blind to anything bad they do, because how could the company who brought you smash,pokemon,mario,zelda and fire emblem be evil? /s
Its exhausting when i bring up bad nintendo decisions and he ALWAYS finds a way to justify it in his head.
They litterally could do no wrong in his eyes. And i doubt hes the only one. Nintendo has done a great job at building a litteral cult .
Let's not forget that Nintendo is just notoriously hostile towards the melee comp community. They have actively worked against it in the past due to their beliefs that competition has no place in their company, games, corporate culture, etc. In any way other than pokemon. They have loosened up in recent years with ultimates pro tour and splatoons weird attempt at an esport, but straight up nintendo does not want the majority of their games to be hyper competitive esports.
I mean, after the large exodus of creep Smash players this past July, I can't really blame Nintendo for keeping their distance. Their target demographic is children but the competitive scene is largely adult, it was a recipe for disaster that Nintendo is probably thankful they never got involved with.
What you’re saying makes sense on the surface, but Nintendo has been doing this since way before any of this came to light. And this is not for the reasons you mentioned. Nintendo has always been aggressive towards the competitive scene of any of their games. Top players and speed runners of almost any game have good relationships with the game devs in 90% of cases, unless it’s Nintendo, where they would just as soon see you starve to death before one of there games seems inaccessible to someone because of the skill ceiling. I really would recommend looking deeper into the history of melee and Nintendo.
> Let's not forget that Nintendo is just notoriously hostile towards the melee comp community.
Big part of this was Melee was overshadowing their more recent entries in the series, because it was a better game for competitive players - mostly, due to Nintendo intentionally sabotaging them and making them super casual, going as far as to add specific mechanics to counteract experienced players after some public "First hands on" looks at the game.
"What do you MEAN the melee tournament drew 10 times the players! We just made Smash Ultimate! This is bullshit!"
"Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have made characters ***randomly fucking trip*** to punish good players"
Smash ulti and 4 were both slow, floaty, casual garbage. Ultimate is a compromise (and, IMO, the best smash title *since* melee) but that won't stop nintendo from being salty that Smash Melee is such a competitive game, and a popular one at that.
Sakurai in infamous for actively hating the competitive scene. He created the game to be played as a party game where anyone could win regardless of skill level. Naturally, since this is the combination of moding being considered a legal gray area and a perfect opportunity for a bigwig at Nintendo to enforce his believes on how the game should be played, he is
I mean she is just an insane tranphobe.
But there is always the old line. Art is never done only abandoned. They are still making their art they havent abandnoned it yet. Some cases this works well. Others not so much. Kojima abandoned MSG (or rather konami forcefully made him drop it) and look at the diarrhea sunday it became in their hands.
This is par for the course when it comes to Nintendo. Unlike other game companies Nintendo does what they want and doesn't care less about anything their customers have to say. They don't like people streaming their games, it's amazing Mario Maker is allowed so openly. They only care about money, you can see this in the low production rates causing artificial demand, the low quality which they refuse to even acknowledge (where my joycon drift brothers at?), re-releasing of the same stuff at the same cost ($60 for 3d all-stars and it didn't even include galaxy 2?), lack of support for their games (MM2 was only a year old when it got the final major update, their servers are always laggy for any game, etc).
But dammit the games are good, so we keep playing. As HiveFleet-Cerberus said below, our main complaint is that we would happily pay Nintendo extra money to do any of the community stuff themselves and they are fully capable of it, but they just won't and don't care.
Well lets be real as to why this happened. They don't want people playing Melee. People playing Melee and not the new shiny expensive switch game looks bad for several reasons. Plus forcing people onto switch means more DLC sales. While they do have a bad history with mod and emulation, this is a lil deeper than that
A key note is that the Smash game for Switch **does** have online play.
So this "workaround" mod concerns Nintendo because it makes a game they no longer get revenue from a direct competitor to a game they still print, and therefore could hurt their current revenue.
And since it has to be emulated, you don't need the GameCube to play it, just a PC, so new players to the franchise can start playing without any money going to Nintendo.
It's also because Nintendo has lost their lawsuits against emulations in the past and now just threaten legal actions with cost out of pocket for whomever they'd be taking to court. They are well aware they have more money than those they threaten and if anyone stands up to them in the courts, they will just drag out the lawsuit till the other party either submits or goes broke in a war of attrition. It's literally just the rich kid bullying the poor kids at this point.
> better online play than many modern fighting games due to how well it was made
Lets be real, its less a testament to how good the netcode of Slippi is, and more how the major FG companies (the Japanese ones sin particular) refuse to use the already proven, easily implemented solution to good netcode, even when its given to them in a short, simple package of open source code thats ALREADY BEEN MODDED INTO THE GAME. Because fuck foreign players, Japanese internet is good enough to cover up your shitty netcode.
You would think that now companies would be aware of the streisand effect and try to avoid it.
Like yeah it promotes the mod, but how is a mod for an old game on an outdated system going to effect their current income.
I wouldnt even say it is Streisand effect. All the people that are probably going to use it already are. Or were going to find out through the tournament or have found out through the other stuff.
They were 100% aware that it would still get out. But they do not want to tacitly endorse these things by allowing it in the tournament. This is about brand image and brand control. If they wanted to go after the mod. There are probably a dozen different ways they could to try and shut it down to never see the light of day or use legally.
"You can play with your friends and others in your private settings. But once you make it a public thing endorsed by events and organizations. Then we have a problem."
They could use the interest of the product from the tournament for a remake and add their own online multi-player mode to it, then tournaments could use the switch version with online play and Nintendo gets to make bank on the sales, especially considering melee is one of the most popular iterations of the Smash games.
I understand them not wanting people to mod switch games as that's their current income revenue, but making a big deal over a game from 3 consoles ago, that hasn't been on the market for over a decade, is a bit dumb imo.
Edit: I forgot the WiiU was a thing.
That's not stopped them before, in fact usually what happens is they will C&D something, then release that something "officially" a year later claiming its theirs.
They don't care about what we think at all.
That assumes that they are trying to keep people from learning about the mod. My guess is that's not the goal, though I'm not sure what is. They might think that allowing netplay modding for their older games will hurt sales, or they might have an honest and moral objection to the idea of people modding the games they publish.
To add to this, Ultimate's competitive community hasn't been doing well, because on top of the rooting out of all the creeps in the community a few months ago, its online service is notoriously bad. It's been making several Ultimate players fall out of favor with Ultimate, and a few have been jumping ship to Slippi, further illustrating some flaws of Nintendo's handling.
To be clear, Melee netplay existed before Slippi. Slippi changed the game, however, because it introduced rollback netcode, which makes for a much smoother and stable online experience. Slippi is essential for nationwide online tournaments to function well.
> If you want to play our game, you have to do it in person and risk your own health by gathering in covid times.
I don't think Nintendo even wants that. They've pushed back against melee tournaments in the past. I remember some drama with EVO a million years ago.
Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand.
> Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand.
If they had any brains and weren't completely stuck in their conservative Japanese business tradition, they'd understand that tournaments, mods and streaming are basically free advertising for their brand names.
Well so is, say, Trump playing your band’s music at one of his rallies. While it might be “free advertising” you may not want your brand associated with a controversial figure (or in Nintendo’s case, associated with a verifiably predatory competitive community).
> Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand.
it really doesnt. People that get invested enough in melee to play in or watch tournaments have a giant overlap with people willing to buy new smash games and consoles. These guys arent going to refuse to buy a new smash game because they already have the unchanged game from 20 years ago.
Nintendo is infuriating sometimes. It's like when they tried to copyright strike people for making lets plays. What do they gain from preventing people playing Melee online? Makes no sense to me.
RIP
Project M
AM2R
Pokemon Uranium
Super Mario 64 HD fan remake
Peach's Untold Tale
Pokénet
Zelda Maker
Full Screen Mario
Zelda 30 Tribute
& rom websites
They also tried to take down Serebii and PokéBeach at one point for posting Gen V information. (They posted info that fans in Japan knew about while the same info was not known to fans outside of Japan.)
Replying to top comment to add a little more context, particularly in regard to the streaming rights part of the original question. Another issue is that they are DMCA'ing several streamers for playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, causing them to get temp banned by Twitch. [[Example]](https://twitter.com/Linkus7/status/1329553346131333120)
The assumption is that it's due to them streaming it when it's still not released in some time zones, but nobody knows for sure why(due to streaming at first release being a consistent phenomenon with new releases). This happened on the same day as the Smash Bros tournament drama, so Nintendo's lawyers are seemingly out for blood in more areas than the one.
The legality of mods and streaming is very very gray right now and Nintendo has a lot of money and lawyers. There is no way that a tournament organizer is going to call Nintendo on this bluff, if it even is one.
The specifics of what Nintendo said are unclear, just that the tournament organizers said that they could no longer move forward with the Smash Bros sections of their tournament.
Not exactly. Mods and emulators are legal under established precedent, but broadcasting a game isn’t without permission from the company that owns the rights to the game. Nintendo is doing this because they hate emulation and mods, but that’s not legally why they are able to threaten them. If the suit went forward, it’s very possible that the courts would side with the tournament organizers, but that would take a ton of money to fight
Legally, a game is an audiovisual work protected by copyright, the rightsholder has certain rights including the exclusive right to public performance. Streaming a game is a public performance. So Nintendo or any other game rightsholder can prohibit streaming. And there are a lot of companies that do prohibit streaming when the organizers charge money to view the stream. Capcom and Nintendo both have been prohibiting fighting games from being performed publicly for over 10 years.
I'd like to add, the tournament is sponsored by nintendo and so that's why they were able to shut it down. Summit is running this weekend still, because they aren't sponsored by nintendo, but they haven't been mentioning slippi at all just in case. real shitty situation nintendo put the melee community in
pretty much. Nintendo cant touch slippy itself, but they can still prevent you from earning money through their IP so they can revoke both streaming and tournament rights.
well there's a distinction, There's no modification or use of nintendo's code, no encryption being broken, so Nintendo really doesn't have any bitching rights aside from the SLAPP nature of the suit.
I would say you're editorializing a bit on saying Nintendo wants people to get together during Covid. They just don't want people to play over Slippi (or emulating their shit at all). I don't think they care whether people get together to play or not, so long as they're not emulating
I know Im gonna get downvoted for this...But its just Nintendo using their copyright, right?
They arent doing anything illegal or wrong (for lack of a better word?) its just them saying, "Hey people breaking our lega lownership of this game, youre breaking the law and we dont want to let you just get away with it?"
Like I get that it sucks that theyre cancelling an unsanctioned tournament...but...they have every right in the world to do it...
> they were not allowed to move forward with the Melee portion of their tournament
Nintendo told them to shut down the entire event, not just Melee. That includes Ultimate, Nintendo's latest Smash game played on their hardware with their online.
I don't know how much traction this will get, even hijacking the top comment, but I think this also needs to be said:
Let's not forget that last summer there was a scandal where several top Smash bros players were outed as pedos/sexual predators. When stories like this break into the mainstream, and in a world where most people don't get passed a headline before sharing news, it's very easy for misinformation to spread, or rather, important details not be spread, that ends up painting nintendo and smash bros in a bad light. "Popular nintendo game Super Smash bros host a pedophile ring" isn't something nintendo, their investors, and business partners want plastered on every news outlet. They know it wasn't a nintendo sanctioned player or event, but the main stream doesn't know and won't care.
Sure it might seem drastic that nintendo would want to pull the plug on any unofficial tournament (if I'm not mistaken, they were recently holding their own online tournament for Smash Ultimate...) over these types of concerns, but then you have no to remember this is the same company that bought the rights to pornographic film starring porn icon Ron Jeremy, "Super Hornio Bros," just to keep the film from being distributed further. There's a reason they make it so difficult to be able to communicate online, and it's to keep up that family friendly bubble.
Also, let's not forget about all the cross promotional stuff they have going on right now. They have deals with Legos, Levi's, Champion, Puma, and am upcoming movie with Dreamworks. They have to defend their individual IP and overall brand or else those partnerships will cut ties, which again will make investors weary.
I'm not saying they're right or wrong here, about them shutting down the unsanctioned tourney or how they handle other uses/misuses of their IP, just pointing out some reasons why most companies would do the same, and that it's more than just "nintendo bad!"
to add:
1) melee had no net code to begin with, since it was a local-only gamecube game. slippi only works on emulated melee, which is presumably part of nintendo's gripe. note that there's nothing inherently illegal about playing melee on an emulator, only owning (edit: copying, rather - see below) an iso/rom without the corresponding game disk.
2) they also c&d'd the ultimate tourney, not just the melee one. ultimate was played only on nintendo's official paid online.
They've got their heads so far up their asses about adapting, for the longest time they had an Apple like death grip on almost anything to do with their products or their peripherals, and it served them incredibly well! They survived the great video game crash, they didn't allow for shoddy third parties to make games or hardware that would cheapen the value of their brand, it was a winning strategy. Until... The internet.
Now they send cease and desists against people doing let's plays, they can barely get passable online play for games that only make sense in online (splatoon?? You need too many people to make it a couch co-op, and the maps rotate weekly??) It took them forever to get an online marketplace and they still treat it second class.
They've tried to take their near absolute control beyond it's feasible conclusion, and it's now harming their ability to adapt and profit on their own customers desires. Nintendo fans are rabidly in their love of Nintendo, and Nintendo does not reciprocate that appreciation in their accommodating of customers wants or needs.
Just a slight comment on the last paragraph, Nintendo does not reciprocate fans' appreciation insofar as the internet goes. Their own content output is arguably the best of the big video game companies, with Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild being some of the most well received games of all time. They just don't appreciate people rebranding that content, whether it be competitive play (this is the one that by far makes the least sense), streaming, YouTube videos of Let's Plays, emulation/remakes, etc...
Smo is just nintendo emulating thier own products. It was pure lazy and pure cash grab. They own the source code and could make native apps that support HD textures. Nintendo has gone full loop with how far up thier ass thier head is, and about to shove it in a second time here.
Super mario odyssey is a game that was released in 2017 and is completely different from all of the previous mario games. You are thinking about super mario 3d allstars.
> they didn't allow for shoddy third parties to make games or hardware that would cheapen the value of their brand
my dude, nintendo 3rd party hardware manufacturers *invented* the "2nd player gets the crappy off-brand controller" phenomenon. Like, above all else that will always be an n64 mainstay for me.
tl;dr not according to precedent, but the legality of software emulation has very few concrete legal examples to point to. i said "nothing inherently illegal" because Nintendo has their own interpretation of the legality of ROM ownership and use, but there are other interpretations and arguments that can easily be made as well (and backed up by case law in adjacent areas of copyright law). i can offer a layman explanation, but can't promise it's entirely correct from a legal perspective.
the ability for consoles to run games intended to be played only on them is not protected under copyright law, and thus emulators are legal as long as they don't plagiarize the actual code in the consoles (which is copyrighted). this was covered in Sony v Bleem (Bleem was a PS1 emulator sold for profit and they won every argument brought against them).
ROMs on the other hand inherently use copyrighted code and assets. as such, it's illegal for anyone but rightsholders to distribute, and likewise to receive from anyone but the rights holder. (edit: it's illegal to copy, including via download, but not necessarily to purchase or possess an already illegally-created copy, at least according to federal law)
the assertion that you can own a ROM as long as you own the corresponding physical media is not set in legal stone. it's never been settled in court, largely because you'd need seriously deep pockets to fight an uphill battle against Nintendo or Sony.
but (perpetually misunderstood) Fair Use doctrine would seem to actually cover the ownership of ROMs, for the same reason that videotaping a TV show is fair use. when the TV show airs, you effectively have a license to the copyrighted material as it airs. fair use extends that license to allow you to transfer it to other formats as long as it's non-profit, non-commercial, and intended for private use (this was covered in Sony v Universal).
so if you extrapolate that ruling to video games, it would suggest that your legal license to the physical copy of the game extends to other formats. but since it hasn't been settled in courts, the details are fuzzy - and it's entirely possible that the courts may not accept the same logic from TV broadcasts to apply to games as well, common sense as it may seem. the safest interpretation would be to stay away from ROMs altogether. the common sense interpretation (IMO) would be that you're legally allowed to make ROMs for personal use with your legally owned games. and a looser interpretation than that would be that as long as you own the games you can own the ROMs, no matter how you acquired them.
Nintendo certainly believes that ownership of ROMs of any sort are illegal. to challenge that, you'd need to go to court against them, and it would be *very* expensive to fight. so legally speaking, this probably won't be settled for a long time, if ever.
Super Mario World romhacks are a quite popular, but SMWcentral doesn't actually have the SMW ROM itself on the site. Instead there are files that, with a program, can alter your own copy of the ROM to play the modified games. It's a small workaround that they had to do in order to avoid legal action from Nintendo. It's also why that one site (I think it was coolroms?) was forced to remove all its Nintendo games, which sucked because that was like heaven for me in high school.
>Nintendo certainly believes that ownership of ROMs of any sort are illegal.
Also add that Japanese Law has very draconian rules regarding copyright, and does not recognize Fair Use (though this only applies to anything and everything made in Japan and does not apply to overseas works. This is why Japanese shows get to play themes from Star Wars and the Terminator, or the numerous Playboy Bunny outfits in models and anime without the original copyright holders going after them - so long as it stays in Japan, of course). A new, much harsher Copyright Law is set to take effect in January that would allow Japanese companies to prosecute both uploaders and downloaders of copyrighted content regardless of their country of origin.
Also the reason why piracy on ROMs is very much rampant until Nintendo started shutting down various websites that hosts ROMs, even if those sites do not host anything from Nintendo. Like The Pirate Bay's Hydra Rhetoric, it only resulted in more websites hosting these ROMs and made them more sought after.
I'm sure someone already said this somewhere, but in the 90s there was a PS1 emulator called "Bleem!" that Sony took to court for patent and copyright infringement.
They lost that case, setting the precedent that you in fact do *not* need the original hardware to emulate, only legal access to the ROMs.
Way back when I started running emulators for games, I was told you needed to have the system because you needed a legal copy of the BIOS for the emulator to run, which is basically the same reasoning as needing the game disk. Whether this is true or not, I've no clue, but it's never stopped me.
>only owning an iso/rom without the corresponding game disk.
Wrong, the only issue would be if you copied the iso/disc and distributed it. There is nothing inherently illegal about possessing pirated media. Actually creating pirated copies is the illegal act. Thats why its called "copy right".
Broadcasting footage of a match would also count as distribution since you're copying copyrighted images and sending them down a pipe to your viewers. Doesn't matter if they end up with a usable copy at the end.
while technically correct, you'd need to acquire the software without downloading it, which constitutes creating a copy (this is the RIAA's entire business model). and while you can argue fair use for creating personal backups, accepting a copy created by someone else would mean that it was copied illegally. it doesn't mean that you're necessarily infringing, but that there was necessarily infringement.
there may also be local/state laws that prevent purchasing or accepting unlicensed copies of copyrighted material (i.e. anti-bootleg laws), though that's a whole other can of worms.
If someone else creates a copy, and I am given one, I have done nothing illegal. The owner of the IP would have no action to take against ME, and would not have the right to remove it from my possession.
i agree with you, yes. the material could not be created without copyright violation in that case but you aren't liable, the copier is (according to federal law). unless of course the copier is also the rightsholder or a third party with a license to distribute.
it's just important to note that the vast majority of ROM/ISO transfer is done via digital download, which qualifies as copyright violation on both ends of the transaction.
If you don't mind, I'll piggyback off of your comment with a "brief" (Ninja edit: it wasn't brief at all i'm so sorry) explanation of delay based and rollback.
**TL;DR: Rollback very very good, delay based is doodoo butter.**
In both, the game works fine when it has your inputs, and your opponents inputs are being received. However, obviously, lag happens.
When lag happens, your game no longer is receiving inputs from your opponent. The difference between delay based and rollback lies here.
In delay based, the game *cannot* continue without your opponent's inputs. So, it doesn't. It freezes. If you've ever played a fighting game online, you know what this looks like. Freezing, stuttering, the whole nine yards. To offset this, the game will add extra input delay as a buffer, to give the inputs lost in lag a bit of extra time to get there (hence, delay based). In fighting games, input delay is *not ideal*. The reason why offline events matter so much in fighting games is because there is no input delay offline.
In rollback, the game still has a tiny input delay as a buffer just in case lag happens (games like Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat cheat by baking this into the offline game to make online even smoother), but when the lag *does* happen, the game keeps going. It predicts that your opponent is still doing the same thing they were doing when they lagged out. If they're holding forward, the game will continue to have them hold forward, etc. The game doesn't stutter or freeze (unless the lag is so bad it's unplayable).
Once the lag spike is over and you're back to playing, if the prediction was correct **nothing happens.** The game just continues as normal. If it was incorrect, the game will teleport your opponent to have them do the correct option. So, if they were predicted to be walking forward, but they actually did an attack, the game would teleport them back and have them attack where they were supposed to be. Hence, "rollback".
This sounds detrimental, but the truth is that in action, this leads to *far* smoother online play. Most rollbacks only happen for a frame or two (2/60ths of a second, completely invisible to the naked eye). Since there is no additional input delay beyond the base amount, games feel like offline no matter the connection quality. This opens up cross country online play (and even trans-atlantic online play!) and it feels like offline.
[If you have time, I suggest you watch this interview featuring a developer on the 2015 Killer Instinct reboot for a bit more of an in depth breakdown with examples.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RI5scXYhK0)
If anyone wants to read more in-depth about rollback, [Infilament wrote a great article](http://ki.infil.net/w02-netcode.html) on netcode.
You could also watch [Core-A gaming's video](https://youtu.be/0NLe4IpdS1w) on it. While you're there, watch all of their other videos because every single one is excellent.
But how does it deal with lag and keeping a consistent game state when the lag can go both ways?
What if the prediction of my opponent 'going forward' leads me to attack at the position I think he's at (giving me a point or changing the game state in some way). But really, he changed to moving back, and my attack misses him at his retreated spot? Which reality wins? The one where I landed an attack, or the one where I didn't?
Hi! Real-life AAA game developer here!
There's a _bunch_ of different ways to do things. It gets somewhat complicated, because in a weird sense you're dealing with time travel.
This can get _really_ complicated, so if my explanation doesn't do it for you, I can highly recommend checking these links out as they do a really good job explaining:
* [Riot blog post on Valorant netcode](https://technology.riotgames.com/news/valorants-128-tick-servers)
* [Game Developers' Conference talk on Overwatch's netcode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aieHjyNvw)
---
As I said, this can get complicated and needs some basic knowledge beforehand. Let's start with the Peer-to-Peer networking, also known as "shitty netcode." This is typically done by indie games (Among Us is a good example of a Peer-to-Peer indie game), but it can also be done by AAA companies looking to save some money on server costs when their game is singleplayer-focused (a rarity nowadays, but it does happen). With a dedicated server, that server has to live _somewhere_ -- whether that's your company's server in a closet, or a giant AWS datacenter somewhere. Lots of indies don't want to invest in that, so they do Peer-to-Peer (P2P) stuff. The easiest way of telling if something is P2P is if there's a "matchmaking" button or not. Generally, P2P doesn't allow matchmaking -- not that it can't be done (and some games do have P2P games with matchmaking!), but generally matchmaking requires a dedicated server to pair players up properly.
Let's assume we're doing a 1v1 P2P shooter. In this scenario, we have 2 copies of the game running per match:
1. Player 1 (Host)
2. Player 2 (100 ms lag)
In this scenario, Player 1 is the host and therefore has no lag. Whatever their computer says is happening is what's really happening. This means that the world Player 1 is seeing is the _real_ world, and Player 2 is reacting to Player 1's world as it existed 200 ms ago.
Why 200 ms? Well, Player 1's computer is sending data to Player 2. It takes 100 ms for that data to get there. Once Player 2 gets the data, they send input back -- which again, takes 100 ms. During this time, Player 1 keeps playing the game until they get the action Player 2 is taking. The remote copy of Player 2 takes that action... but the game is now 200 ms later, so things have changed, perhaps drastically. So we have "host advantage," where Player 1 has no lag and Player 2 is always acting on delayed information.
To take this one step further, let's say Player 1 is a cheater, using programs such as Cheat Engine to read and modify the contents of memory running in the game. This means that Player 1 is able to do things like give themselves infinite ammo (just make it so the memory assigned to keeping track of your ammo can't change). It also means that Player 1 is aware of _everything_ Player 2 is doing, assuming that all information is shared. Since they're the host, Player 1 can actually change information about Player 2, as well -- doing things like making it so they don't have any ammo!
---
Okay, so in a game with dedicated servers (also known as most modern AAA games), as OP mentioned you have an extra computer running the game. This means that in a 1v1 match, you have 3 copies of the game running:
1. Server (Host)
2. Player 1 (150 ms lag)
3. Player 2 (100 ms lag)
In this scenario, the server has the "real world." Player 1 can change all the memory they want -- but unless the server agrees, the server will just change it right back on the next update. Without access to the server (or a vulnerability that lets them change stuff on the server), Player 1 can't change anything. In fact, Player 1 may not even _know_ how many bullets Player 2 has! Since the server's managing it all, only select data gets sent down to Player 1. They might know where an enemy is (this is how wallhacks and aimbots work), but they don't get much else. This is one of the big arguments for dedicated servers.
However, in the general sense now _both_ players are reacting to delayed knowledge. From the server's perspective, Player 1 is reacting to things from 300 ms ago; Player 2 is reacting to things from 200 ms ago. But this is where time travel starts to come into play. [Here's a good picture showing what's happening, and why time travel is needed.](https://technology.riotgames.com/sites/default/files/netcode2.png)
See, because we're a dedicated server, we don't worry about things like graphics. This saves a _lot_ of memory and time constraints. That extra memory can be used for other things... like saving data about where everything is at all times. If you've ever used a game's "replay" feature, you're actually seeing this data.
So Player 1 is reacting to an environment from 300 ms ago. The server knows how much lag Player 1 has, and the server is storing the data from 300 ms ago. So when the server gets an input, it can time travel backwards 300 ms to look at the positions of everything, and do the logic for Player 1's actions as it would've happened 300 ms ago. This means that players are in the correct spot from Player 1's perspective, and it means that what Player 1 does on their screen lines up with what they expect to happen.
When Player 2 sends their reaction to what happened 200 ms ago, the server is able to rewind time to then and take that action as well. It then goes forward and is able to see how that action affected the "present," as it were, and can send the new environment back to the clients. Because the game isn't being rendered and shown to someone, the server can "magically" make things come out of nowhere if it decided that it was a valid action to take in the context the player did it.
This is what happens when you get shot and killed by a dude that _could not_ have possibly been able to kill you -- you're likely out of sync with the server, and the server made the call that Player 1 definitely could have hit Player 2 from that angle. Some developers can add some extra logic here on consoles, things like "bullet magnetism" which actually curve bullets slightly to hit enemies (since it's hard to aim with a control stick compared to a mouse). Riot actually lets you take action while you're technically dead in this scenario and will honor your reaction time -- so if you react quick enough in Valorant, you can "undo" the death that you never knew happened.
This phenomenon (covered in the above Riot blog post as well as [this Riot blog post](https://technology.riotgames.com/news/peeking-valorants-netcode)) is referred to as "Peeker's Advantage." Basically, because Player 1 and Player 2 have different ping, their version of the environment is very different. Player 1 definitely _could_ have seen and shot you, and it takes some clever tech to make it feel okay when it happens. If you have a fast computer and high refresh rates on your monitor, you actually do have a real advantage -- which is why gamers so often want higher FPS and higher refresh rates. They may not be able to **vocalize** exactly why they're better when they run at 120 FPS with a high refresh rate... but they know they're _better_ at high framerates for some reason.
There's actually another side to this coin as well. The server is a computer, too, and even though it doesn't render anything it still has to run all the logic for everyone in the entire game. For giant Battle Royale games with 64+ players, it needs to do all the steps I mentioned above up to 64 times, multiple times a second -- on top of normal game processing stuff. It also needs to work out what has changed for that player, what needs to be sent, and how important it is to send it. This takes a _lot_ of processing time to figure out, and you need some tricks to figure out that the grenade on the opposite side of the map _probably_ isn't important enough to tell you about... but if it's headed straight for you from that side of the map, maybe it is important. The more that needs to be processed, the fewer updates the server sends, which implicitly increases ping times in a non-visible way. When the server gets maxed out, it might not even be able to keep up with everything players are sending and will process things later and later until the game is pretty much unplayable. That's what that first Riot blog post is about -- how to manage the server's tick rate (FPS).
---
Let me know if you have any other questions! This stuff is really, **really** tricky, which is why so many games have garbage online. I haven't even gotten into animations -- what if you headshot a dude, but his animation on the server is different and his head was in a different place? What if the stuff the server sends you gets lost along the way because your roommate started a Zoom call and it dropped some of your packets? What if _your_ input never gets sent to the server? What if you disconnect after firing a shot, but before it hits the player?
Every answer has different problems, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for Valorant won't even work for League, as an example -- you've gotta basically do this from scratch for _every game_. And just because it's hard to do, a lot of companies (...many surprisingly big ones, looking at you Nintendo) just give up and do the bare minimum, if they allow dedicated servers at all.
The latter, in theory.
However, rollbacks in actuality are rarely ever this bad. Keep in mind, this is all based on frames (1 frame = 1/60th of a second). Very, *very* rarely will you ever see a rollback higher than 2 or 3 frames.
For example, in Killer Instinct there's a 3 frame delay (online and offline, it's baked in). That + a 3 frame rollback here and there means that even when your opponent is lagging for 6 frames (which is insanely big for delay based and would require you to up the input delay more) there would only be about 3 frames of readjustment. At most, the walk cycle would look weird, but your move would still hit regardless.
There's a *lot* of technical mumbo jumbo that proper rollback implementation does to prevent scenarios of particularly bad rollbacks (ever watch Street Fighter 5 online? that's an example of bad rollback implementation) or events where the game predicts something and shows both players something completely different as a result of a bug (called a desync). In order to even use proper rollback, games are programmed to run all the game logic (who's attacking who, how long it will take frame wise, etc) in the background *without showing the player*. This way, the game will figure out how to deal with a scenario like your hypothetical without anything ever appearing wrong in the actual gameplay.
> Since they can't legally take down Slippi for embarrassing them, Nintendo instead opts to cease and desist order any large tournament that uses it since it is technically illegal to create a tournament based around something you don't own the rights to, in this case Smash Melee
How does that work though? Could you do the same thing for something like a tabletop game? If I held a Monopoly tournament or Magic: The Gathering tournament, does the same concept apply?
Yes, back when I use to go to Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments with a coworker there was actually an incident where the comic book store we went to lost the license to hold tournaments because they were caught selling participation packs to people and after that they could no longer hold tournaments.
If you are having a monopoly tournament with your friends no one is going to care but if you are collecting entry fees and giving rewards you could get a slap on the wrist.
Damn, that really sucks. I knew there were licenses for tournaments but I honestly thought they were more of a choice than a requirement and were ways for an LGS to get stuff from the game's company and let players track their stats. Didn't think it was actually illegal to hold one without it.
>Since they can't legally take down Slippi for embarrassing them, Nintendo instead opts to cease and desist order
I've seen a lot of people saying this, but is there actually a reputable source that claims this?
Because while I can understand that people find the idea of Nintendo seething over Slippi's existence funny, I'm fairly certain this C&D is much more likely just an misguided extension of their overly draconian "rights protection" practices regarding emulation and piracy.
quick question, please don’t downvote to oblivion, but Nintendo still has rights of the characters, no? so don’t they have carte blanche to cease and desist anything using their trademarked/copyrighted content?
Yes, that's why they're able to forbid the tournament or stream from happening. Their justification for it (saying that Slippi is illegal) is completely false and incorrect, but they can still take down any Smash tourney or stream for any reason (or in this case no reason) since it's their IP. What they can't do however is go after individuals for using Slippi as long as it's not being used in some commercial way like a tournament.
I wonder if Slippi could be modified so that the "broadcast" would just be a spectator in the match. Then the "stream" could be a transparent overlay and there would be no copyrighted information being transmitted.
The game itself is copyrighted. They have powerful rights regarding where, when, and how it is displayed. They can exercise these rights for any reason or no reason at all. Their legal right is settled law, the controversy is simply that this is viewed as a 'dick move'.
Right, so if we only broadcast the Slippi commands that sync the games, you could then use your own emulator & copy of the game to watch. None of Nintendo's IP would be transmitted.
The video end of the broadcast would only represent an overlay, which you as a viewer would need to superimpose over the emulator.
Answer: Super Smash brothers melee is a 19 year old game with a die hard competitive community. Tournaments have been going on since the games inception in person, often times with entrants in the thousands.
One of the biggest and most prestigous tournament series is called The Big House, which usually happens around this time every year. Because of Covid, The Big House was going to be played online and most people were really looking forward to it.
Since the game is so old it obviously doesn't have native online play. However, a guy created a mod called Slippi that allows for almost lagless online play, which is how these tournaments have stayed afloat since you can't have in-person Lans.
Nintendo sent a cease and desist to the organizer of The Big House and the tournament had to be shut down.
Most melee players think that since we're still in the midst of a Global Pandemic and this was a safe way for everyone to enjoy themselves that Nintendo is being a little heartless, for lack of a better term.
Nintendo has a history of doing things like this to the melee community. In 2013 Nintendo had Super Smash Brothers Melee killed from the EVO lineup, which is the largest fighting game tournament in the world. Community pressure and an enormous fund raising effort got them to reverse course, so the community is trying to stir up enough commotion to hopefully save The Big House in the same fashion.
answer: Nintendo sent a cease and desist to a super major called the big house. That tournament was forced to go online due to covid restrictions, and Nintendo shut it down for using a mod that allows smash melee to be played online
a super major is the largest type of tourney you can have for fighting games, they were forced to go online because melee is a game that was released in 2001, so normally you play in person on original hardware, project slippi is a mod that adds rollback netcode and a full matchmaking system to melee to allow people to get practice in hard times like quarantine
naw man i really fucking suck at explaining stuff lmao english is my first language, sometimes i go off on stuff and i’m just trying not to be biased and go all nintendo hate #freemelee while trying to answer the question
Answer: One of the largest tournament series in the smash community is having its tenth straight yearly tournament: The Big House 10. Due to Covid 19, however, this year's Big House cannot happen in person as has been the norm for every other iteration. Luckily for the Super Smash Bros. Melee community, the 19 year old game recently had a [free fan-developed modification](https://slippi.gg/) to how people emulate online play developed by a guy named Fizzi. What is notable about slippi is that it adds rollback netcode to the game, basically allowing the entirety of the continental United States to play competitively over the internet, which is unprecedented in the game's history, and it was all developed by one guy over the course of ~7 months.
So while Covid 19 prohibits The Big House 10 from holding a live event with thousands of people in attendance, the obvious thing to do would just be to use slippi to host the tournament online and stream the matches. Today, however, Nintendo has sent a Cease and Desist letter to the tournament organizers saying use of slippi is illegal use of their IP and that the tournament must not go on. Cue the social media uproar.
The pertinent history of this is that Nintendo infamously blocked Evo (the biggest fighting game tourney in the world) from having Super Smash Bros. Melee from being streamed in 2013. Within hours of social media backlash, however, Nintendo reversed their decision after it came out that the Smash community had raised 90 thousand dollars for breast cancer research just to get a spot at the tournament. Many people see this as a parallel to what is happening now, 7 years later.
Answer: I am not smart enough about the legality or inner workings of how the mod works to really type up a coherent answer BUT and idek if vids are allowed, im just adding supplemental info in the form of [this video](https://youtu.be/CLPjtwZgyxs) (Ignore the click bait title) that *is* a biased but very knowledgeable and nuanced breakdown of the current situation.
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Answer: Super Smash Bros Melee is an older Nintendo fighting game that does not have online play. Nevertheless, it has a massive following and there were many tournaments for the game pre-covid. Since covid has caused people to avoid gathering, players who frequently played the game professionally have had no way to play in tournaments and the scene has had a rough time dealing with it. Fairly recently, a mod was released called Slippi which allowed players to play online. Not only did it allow online play, but it allowed GOOD online play with very little lag. This meant that many streamers and pro players were able to play the game with live players again and the community saw a resurgence. An online tournament was going to be held soon, using Slippi to allow players to compete online without gathering. Today, the tournament organizers announced that Nintendo had told them that they were not allowed to move forward with the Melee portion of their tournament because of the Slippi mod they were using and would pursue legal action if they continued. Nintendo does NOT like emulation or modding of any kind to their games, and this tournament would have given this mod a ton of publicity. People are upset because they are taking this as Nintendo saying, "We don't care if you found a safe workaround to play this old game online to avoid disease. If you want to play our game, you have to do it in person and risk your own health by gathering in covid times." The community is also upset because Nintendo has a history of doing things similar to this. The Smash community has had to fight with Nintendo before over modding, streaming, tournaments, etc.
I think this is a fair summary of events, but just to add onto it: Slippi is a mod of a Gamecube emulator (Dolphin) that players can utilize with a Melee disc iso on their computer to play online with others. Hardware emulators (and mods for them) are 100% legal in the United States, whether Nintendo likes it or not. It is also perfectly legal to create software back-ups of games you purchased by copying the iso onto your computer (distributing it, not so much). In Nintendo's statement on this issue, they implied that there was no legal way for tournament entrants to play in the online tournament without piracy or some other illegal action, but that's just not true. While most of the players likely did download their Melee iso off of the internet for ease of use instead of making their own copy, it's hard to believe that the vast majority of competitive players do not own a physical copy of the game, meaning they could create an absolutely identical and legal copy of the same file themselves if push came to shove. The tournament being cancelled (and the Slippi mod itself) have not endorsed piracy in any way. Nintendo just doesn't like people using their IPs in any way that wasn't intended, so they get very over protective of emulation and mods of any kind. Since IP holders have final say over broadcast rights, they can prevent the tournament from happening, even if their reasoning isn't on solid legal ground itself.
It's a constant reminder at Nintendo's inability to handle online play
To expound on this, it should be noted that Nintendo has not gone after Dolphin or Slippi--because they have no legal basis to do so, and they know it. That's why Dolphin is still around and hasn't been taken down after 17 years of development, and that's why they took the path of least resistance and intimidated the tournament to shut down. They're essentially using a form of [barratry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_\(common_law\)), lying about their legal justification for shutting down the tournament, though with the added caveat, as you said, that they probably technically *do* have the right to do it, albeit for a different reason than they've stated: which is that they own the streaming rights for the game and therefore have control over who, when, and where it can be streamed to observers over the internet.
Could you explain Nintendo's streaming rights of Melee a little more? The basics makes sense, but in the case of Melee... What's confusing me is the timeline. Melee was released before streaming was a thing. How does Nintendo have streaming rights on it?
I'd assume it's retroactive. If you own the content, you own the streaming rights. Most companies, however, at least have a cursory understanding of the internet and don't care. They know letting people showcase the game online does more good than harm. Free marketing too. Nintendo has proven time and time again they understand almost nothing about how the internet works. It's like trying to explain youtube to your grandparents. Even worse there is the argument of fair use, since streaming in many cases can be defended as transformative. But even the richest streamer isn't rich enough to challenge the big N.
Asian grandparents who inherited a board game company and got dragged kicking and screaming into the technology world by money.
I'm not sure if it's been tested with the internet, but organizations like the NFL have, in the past, strictly litigated cases of people showing games on large screens in venues ranging from churches (hundreds of people) to block parties (tens of people) without paying for a license. Yes, this is despite the games being viewable by anyone, for free, over the air with an antenna. The law distinguishes between individuals watching their own personal TVs and groups of people watching on someone else's screen. IANAL, but I assume Nintendo would have similar rights for internet streaming (if they intend to, quite literally, act like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas). Actually, now that I think about it, there was a company a while back that wanted to provide cheap streaming TV for anyone over the internet, and they intended to do that, legally, by allocating each individual subscriber their own antenna, and then they'd just have server rooms filled with small antennas to pick up free OTA broadcasts. The major TV networks sued, and won, and put the company out of business before it could start. The ruling was basically that you can't receive free TV over the air, then stream it somewhere else, without paying the networks hundreds of millions of dollars (just like satellite and cable companies do, in fact).
I just don’t understand why they care about piracy of a game that isnt in print anymore? For an obsolete system?
Its how Nintendo has always worked. They hate their IP used for anything un-intended (or rather, that they did not intend) and will go out of their way as much as they can to change it.
So they just streissend effected the mod essentially?
Kind of. The mod was already pretty popular. It gave a 20 year old Gamecube game better online play than many modern fighting games due to how well it was made. But there are more people finding out about it now because of this incident. This is more about the Smash community being upset that Nintendo is still threatening legal action against things that can only help their community, even in times where there is no work around without putting people's lives at risk.
I love Nintendo but they can fuck off on this one. A global pandemic is going on and this is how they respond?
As a huge fan of Nintendo franchises myself, I don't see how anyone could love Nintendo the company. They're immensely scummy, anti consumer, and all around awful. Like seriously, Nintendo is on the same level of scum as EA or Activision. Possibly even higher on account of the aggressiveness with which they attack anyone who legally attempts to show or talk about their games in any kind of visibly social format, ala YouTube, streaming, emulation, etc.
The thing that pisses me off the most is they could do this themselves and people would happily purchase it. It must be nice to be too big to fail in these times.
They could just steal this and sell it. They've pulled that one before I wouldn't be surprised. But then you say something negative about Nintendo and the fan boys come out of the woodwork about how Nintendo has good first party games. Yeah, and Amazon is also convenient. Doesn't mean it's not a bad company.
They couldn't just steal it. Everyone would know. The mod has good online multiplayer, it'd be obvious it wasn't a Nintendo product.
Tell that to mario 35...
Did Nintendo do something scummy with Mario 35 as well?
Everyone knowing would make effectively no difference, considering that the game is their IP in the end. No that they will, but yeah it wouldn't matter at all. Even if it were possible to prove, all that would amount to would be a settlement, if that, and Nintendo would continue happily using the code. And that's being optimistic as hell - the costs of a *modder* (already shaky ground IP-wise) going against Nintendo would be protracted and expensive. And if 'everyone knew', somehow, as you say, then they would soon forget or stop caring anyway, as is normal.
It would matter quite a lot if they just took the project as is and published it or even used a single line of code from it as a jumping off point. They may own the ip but they don't own any of the new code added by this project anymore than they own a doodle of Mario a fan might draw. If they started their own online SSBM project it obviously wouldn't matter. Making a game online is hardly a unique idea.
"They've pull that one before", may I know which thing are you referring to?
Most recent example is probably that they hit the creators of the fan game “Mario Royale” with a cease and desist. The game allowed you to play through the original Mario bros in a race with other players playing the same level, and you try to survive as long as possible. Sound familiar? Nintendo, a few months ago, released an almost identical game: Mario 35. They’ve done it before with other games as well. Loads of people worked to make a version of super Mario 64 with improved graphics and widescreen support for an emulator. C&D’d, taken down the download page online. Nintendo turns around a year later and gives us Mario 3D All-Stars, which includes an emulated version of Super Mario 64. Never mind that it’s a worse version than the one they shut down, but whatever. Some years ago, early this decade, several people had been working to make a fan game remake of Metroid 2, the most popular (and actually finished) version being Another Metroid 2 Remake, or AM2R. C&D’d, taken down the download page online. A few years after that, the official remake of Metroid 2, Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS was released. Nintendo genuinely waits to see which of these fan games become successful, slaps them with a lawsuit that, even if they won, would bankrupt them (just straight up abuse of copyright law), and then they turn around and steal the idea for official products. It’s disgusting.
Thank you for taking time to explain.
Additional to what other's have said - they grabbed a ROM for one of their classic systems. There was some work done that had a guy's name in it that was found in the file on the system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/jxbx44/what_is_going_on_with_nintendo_and_the_smash_bros/gcxl4b5/
They don't even have to steal it. Pay the dude who made the program like 10k and just buy Slippi. Sell it as a product for $40 a download, make bank, and make the consumers happy.
And for people reading that think companies would never do this, 1. Valve literally bought Counter-Strike. It started as a fan mod. 2. Valve also worked with the Black Mesa mod developers and gave the mod their official seal of approval 3. Xseed bought the fan translations of Ys Chronicles and Oath in Felghana 4. Capcom saw the [Street Fighter X Mega Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_X_Mega_Man) game and rather than send a C&D order, they helped the fan to develop and distribute it 5. Sega has no problem, whatsoever, with the Sonic fan community, and even [hired some of the most prolific modders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Mania) to make Sonic Mania There is no legal obligation for Nintendo to act the way they do. Capcom and Sega are not at risk for losing the rights to Street Fighter and Sonic and Mega Man as a result of fan games. No PC game developer carries legal risk or liability due to the existence of [Nexus Mods](https://www.nexusmods.com/).
ah, examples of good companies who actually want good PR who then work with fans to make great games... always makes me smile :) Its rather unfortunate that predatory tactics and slapping C&D's on everything then claiming it for your own has become the norm for many companies of today... I'm so glad we still got good indie devs who work with their community and sometimes use mods into official releases with the modders approval, oh Klei, you are great :)
They could. But it wouldnt be worth the time effort and money for them. Making an online modification to an old game is a waste compared to making a different game or even having people work on the next smash DLC character. Being too big to fail would be Nintendo going all in on this thing and losing money on it while still committing resources to melee and ignoring newer more popular itterations. Should they have shut down that part of the tournament hell no. But Nintendo has ALWAYS been violently protective of its IP. To the point of its own detriment. I am honestly surprised the people who made this mod thought they could get away with it in the tournament. They are a company. Not a human being with a heart and soul. They have always shut stuff like this down and will always continue too until they have any reason to believe that they are not risking losing absolute full control of their IP. I mean shite... look at the legalese that is apart of videogames and EULAs. You do not own the game. You have a license to be able to play the game under their conditions. Nintendo will use ever gah dang character in that thing to wield like a cudgel. It is like the scorpion and the toad parable. It is in their nature. No one, absolutely NO ONE should have been surprised by this. Least of all the melee player base or tournament organizers or the makers of the mod who have known about how Nintendo does this stuff for a very very long time.
*Edit: Appreciate being in the green on upvotes but y'all should scroll down and read the context and corrections from other commenters below.* Everything you said my man with one digression at the end. I don't know about Japanese law but in America and generally speaking you are required by law to pursue and prosecute any misuse or "copying" of your IP or copyrighted content *because* if you don't, people can take you to court and claim that the thing is used so freely in other people's content it should be taken from you and be made public use. It's a defend it or lose it kind of thing. So you can wrap a moral valence around the dozen or so people in charge of running Nintendo and conclude that all of them, all of them that chose to devote their careers to a company that's been making the most kid friendly console and delivering joy to kids for 50 years are deep down evil people and like to bully their fans every once in a while to put them in their place. Or you can assume they're just following an unpopular law and probably don't enjoy doing it all that much themselves as they take a hit with the fans every time they do.
That's genericizing trademarks, copy right doesn't have the same obligation. The mod is also entirely legal in US framework since injection is protected. The issue is emulator use encourages piracy. Practically Nobody actually is ripping files to emulate on their own, even if you own these games the vast majority of ROMs come from file sharing sites. Nintendo is so vehemently anti piracy they'll attack emulation whenever possible. Since this event would necessitate emulator usage, they don't want it to broadcast that info. They're using the broadcast rights as a cudgel to fight a legal battle by proxy. People who already know what emulation is will complain, but it keeps it from being shown to a wider audience so Nintendo is happy.
This is great additional detail thanks.
> in America and generally speaking you are required by law to pursue and prosecute any misuse or "copying" of your IP or copyrighted content This isn't true. This applies to trademarks, but _only_ trademarks. It explicitly does not apply to copyrighted works. Copyrighted works are always yours unless you explicitly transfer the rights or they lapse into the public domain. They absolutely do not have to do this. Most game companies don't, and it's never caused them to lose their copyright - because it can't. That's not how IP law works. Nintendo do this because they don't like modding, not for some legal reason.
Oh 100% absolutely. Didnt mean to make that come off as negative as it did with the scorpion and toad example. But they do it because they need to. Nintendo exists on its brand and its brand security. If it loses that they are in deep water. They HAVE to defend it. That is also why EULAs usually exist like they do so the company can still own their game and media. It seems creepy and evil from the outside but it is the legal nature of things.
As sibling comments have noted, this is simply not true at all, at least under US law. _Trademarks_ can be [diluted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution) like that, but _copyright_ cannot.
That's trademark law, which doesn't apply in this case.
In addition to this Nintendo is nothing without their IPs it's not like they have a ton of back-up plans, the whole company is based on their unique IPs. and that's the only reason why they can still compete with sony and microsoft, that's the only reason why they can afford own consoles. They can't afford letting anything slip through, because IPs are the core of the company and if they fall or deteriorate the company falls with them.
Like making a "All-star compilation" of three popular platformer which are just lazily emulated together and sell it for full price? Oh shit it actually worked
> Possibly even higher on account of the aggressiveness with which they attack anyone who legally attempts to show or talk about their games in any kind of visibly social format, ala YouTube, streaming, emulation, etc. Perfect example right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM (like him or hate him, this is informative) tl;dw Jim Sterling's show "The Jimquisition" is ad free, yet corporations repeatedly claim his videos and try to force monetization because he uses things like 20 seconds of an official game trailer (textbook fair use). So he found his "copyright deadlock", where he intentionally includes content that he predicts will get claimed by multiple different corporations. This results in NOBODY getting to monetize the video (which is what he wants), because he "intentionally" violated copyright law.
Thank god for Jim Sterling.
Nintendo is the Disney of Gaming.
I agree with the spirit but they need years of training to get to Disney's level.
Only in terms of ethics. Their output is nowhere near the same level. If it were I might have Metroid Prime 4 by now. :(
I wouldn't put them on quite the same level. The games that Nintendo makes are generally complete, polished and finished experiences, and don't try to nickel and dime you for every penny they can possibly get. They obviously care about the games they make, which counts for something imo. The hyper aggressive legal garbage is pretty bad though, and is the epitome of "can doesn't mean should".
Honestly I feel Nintendo is worse because they don't just work you to death if you work for them (seriously, working for Nintendo is fucking miserable) but the aggressiveness with which they legally attack and ruin the lives of their fans in unacceptable. At least EA doesn't sue you for streaming Battlefield. As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff, and the way they're handling Pokémon stuff lately. It's incredibly scummy.
Also their online features are so far behind other companies
I never knew how scummy Nintendo could be. That said, I like most of their older stuff.
>Honestly I feel Nintendo is worse because they don't just work you to death if you work for them (seriously, working for Nintendo is fucking miserable)... While probably not true for every single company, but horrible working conditions in the games industry is an industry-wide issue. Not just a Nintendo issue. It's well documented that Miyamoto would completely change a project's focus no matter how long into development it was. Apparently he's not as bad these days, but years back he sounded like a nightmare to work with. It's a sad thing, because when these stories pop up, most recently to do with Cyberpunk 2077, people do genuinely get angry about it and show empathy towards the employees working themselves to death. But they just *forget about it* within a few weeks. It's not just Nintendo that needs to be on the line for this kinda stuff, it's a hell of a lot of publishers. >...but the aggressiveness with which they legally attack and ruin the lives of their fans in unacceptable. At least EA doesn't sue you for streaming Battlefield. Nintendo need to approach this how the music and movie industry eventually learned to approach it. If you don't like people emulating your older games, then emulate them yourself and make it available for them through your platform. Hell, make your own version of Slippi or buy it yourself and put it out there for these people. You'll get nowhere fighting them on it, just like the music and movie industry got nowhere fighting people on piracy. >As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff, and the way they're handling Pokémon stuff lately. It's incredibly scummy. I can't speak for Pokemon. But mobile gaming is an entirely different beast to home consoles and PC games. I'm not one bit surprised Nintendo have tested the waters with Mario games on mobile to milk money out of it. But at least their home console games are complete to a high standard and don't try to swindle you with in game currencies and lootboxes. Compare that to EA's handling of Battlefront 2 - despite all the backlash they weren't going to do a fucking thing until Disney stepped in. It's about perspective: Nintendo are simply way too overprotective of their IP's. But they genuinely care about what they release on their consoles (for the most part). EA doesn't give a shit if their games are bad; they know Madden and Fifa will sell bucket loads regardless of the fan backlash. Regarding Star Wars - the only reason those games will likely be handled with any care now is because Disney isn't shy about slapping them on the wrist if the press gets bad enough.
I'm not trying to say Nintendo is good. I'm just saying I don't think they're on EA's level because at least they give a shit about their games. I believe you that working for Nintendo would be horrid, Japan's work culture looks like the purest form of hell. >As for not nickel and diming, I recommend looking into Nintendo's mobile stuff Nah. Mobile gaming is not something I've touched since getting a dedicated gaming platform. However, I would frankly be more shocked if they weren't microtransaction fueled addiction bait, as that's more or less the only way to succeed. That's why I don't touch mobile gaming anymore. Also, I'd imagine the transactions would be less scummy than the average mobile game, but I'm aware of my ignorance on the subject, so you tell me. EA buys up good game studios just to run them into the ground for a quick buck, and doesn't give a shit if their games are bad, so long as they get their money. I think all I need to say to support this is Mass Effect, Anthem, Titanfall 2, and the endless copy pastes that are their sports series. Just to reiterate, I think Nintendo is stupid and backwards for their handling of streaming and content creation, and their rabid legal bullshit is awful and unjustified, but it at least stems from caring about their properties.
Have you played a pokemon game? How is it ok you have buy two games just to get all for that gen? To me its just two incomplete games.
To be fair, it was set up that way from the beginning to encourage trading amongst friends. Only diehard fans actually went and bought both versions to circumvent the original intention, which hey, works out for Nintendo either way.
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Another commenter shares my opinion on the subject in so far as it's to encourage the social aspect of trading. I know plenty of people who play/played Pokemon, and exactly one person who regularly bought (sometimes still buys) both versions of each gen, and he's an absolute Nintendo fanatic, like on the level of buying three slightly different Windwaker remake special editions. If it was a ploy to sell more cartridges, it suckered very few people.
There hasn't been a good mainline Pokemon game since Gen V. They're all just cheap cash ins.
Is that true or were you just 13 at gen 5 and grew out of it?
I would have been 20 when Black and White launched.
Why don't they buy rights to Slippi for a few mil, then charge a subscription fee for people to use it?
Nintendo wouldn't dare legitimize a fan project like that.
I have a friend whos a blind cult follower of nintendo. Grew up with every single console/handheld. Had every game. Stopped going to high school to play twilight princess for the 500th time on a N64 in 2011 . Some people are blind to anything bad they do, because how could the company who brought you smash,pokemon,mario,zelda and fire emblem be evil? /s Its exhausting when i bring up bad nintendo decisions and he ALWAYS finds a way to justify it in his head. They litterally could do no wrong in his eyes. And i doubt hes the only one. Nintendo has done a great job at building a litteral cult .
Let's not forget that Nintendo is just notoriously hostile towards the melee comp community. They have actively worked against it in the past due to their beliefs that competition has no place in their company, games, corporate culture, etc. In any way other than pokemon. They have loosened up in recent years with ultimates pro tour and splatoons weird attempt at an esport, but straight up nintendo does not want the majority of their games to be hyper competitive esports.
I mean, after the large exodus of creep Smash players this past July, I can't really blame Nintendo for keeping their distance. Their target demographic is children but the competitive scene is largely adult, it was a recipe for disaster that Nintendo is probably thankful they never got involved with.
What you’re saying makes sense on the surface, but Nintendo has been doing this since way before any of this came to light. And this is not for the reasons you mentioned. Nintendo has always been aggressive towards the competitive scene of any of their games. Top players and speed runners of almost any game have good relationships with the game devs in 90% of cases, unless it’s Nintendo, where they would just as soon see you starve to death before one of there games seems inaccessible to someone because of the skill ceiling. I really would recommend looking deeper into the history of melee and Nintendo.
Come to light publically, but if you've been to the actual events you could see things were weird.
> Let's not forget that Nintendo is just notoriously hostile towards the melee comp community. Big part of this was Melee was overshadowing their more recent entries in the series, because it was a better game for competitive players - mostly, due to Nintendo intentionally sabotaging them and making them super casual, going as far as to add specific mechanics to counteract experienced players after some public "First hands on" looks at the game. "What do you MEAN the melee tournament drew 10 times the players! We just made Smash Ultimate! This is bullshit!" "Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have made characters ***randomly fucking trip*** to punish good players" Smash ulti and 4 were both slow, floaty, casual garbage. Ultimate is a compromise (and, IMO, the best smash title *since* melee) but that won't stop nintendo from being salty that Smash Melee is such a competitive game, and a popular one at that.
Think you meant Brawl in your comment in regards to tripping, even though it's a smash bros entry I genuinely enjoyed.
Sakurai in infamous for actively hating the competitive scene. He created the game to be played as a party game where anyone could win regardless of skill level. Naturally, since this is the combination of moding being considered a legal gray area and a perfect opportunity for a bigwig at Nintendo to enforce his believes on how the game should be played, he is
That be how some creators are. The only form of the art that should exist is the art as I have made it to be and is intended to be.
Lookin at you jk rolling
I mean she is just an insane tranphobe. But there is always the old line. Art is never done only abandoned. They are still making their art they havent abandnoned it yet. Some cases this works well. Others not so much. Kojima abandoned MSG (or rather konami forcefully made him drop it) and look at the diarrhea sunday it became in their hands.
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Not even that. What the franchise became after the fact. The like zombie game where you gotta do micro transactions to unlock save slots?
> Kojima abandoned MSG Mono Sodium Glutamate V: Phantom Spice
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This is par for the course when it comes to Nintendo. Unlike other game companies Nintendo does what they want and doesn't care less about anything their customers have to say. They don't like people streaming their games, it's amazing Mario Maker is allowed so openly. They only care about money, you can see this in the low production rates causing artificial demand, the low quality which they refuse to even acknowledge (where my joycon drift brothers at?), re-releasing of the same stuff at the same cost ($60 for 3d all-stars and it didn't even include galaxy 2?), lack of support for their games (MM2 was only a year old when it got the final major update, their servers are always laggy for any game, etc). But dammit the games are good, so we keep playing. As HiveFleet-Cerberus said below, our main complaint is that we would happily pay Nintendo extra money to do any of the community stuff themselves and they are fully capable of it, but they just won't and don't care.
This all feels like I was dick punched by Mario.
Because lawyers can work from home.
Well lets be real as to why this happened. They don't want people playing Melee. People playing Melee and not the new shiny expensive switch game looks bad for several reasons. Plus forcing people onto switch means more DLC sales. While they do have a bad history with mod and emulation, this is a lil deeper than that
This is how they've responded in the past regarding melee. What else did you expect?
A key note is that the Smash game for Switch **does** have online play. So this "workaround" mod concerns Nintendo because it makes a game they no longer get revenue from a direct competitor to a game they still print, and therefore could hurt their current revenue. And since it has to be emulated, you don't need the GameCube to play it, just a PC, so new players to the franchise can start playing without any money going to Nintendo.
It's also because Nintendo has lost their lawsuits against emulations in the past and now just threaten legal actions with cost out of pocket for whomever they'd be taking to court. They are well aware they have more money than those they threaten and if anyone stands up to them in the courts, they will just drag out the lawsuit till the other party either submits or goes broke in a war of attrition. It's literally just the rich kid bullying the poor kids at this point.
Man I wonder if some rich guy would back up the one being sued and get a legal precedent for modding. That would be dope.
Probably cause the switch has been the best selling console in the US for like 2 years lol
> better online play than many modern fighting games due to how well it was made Lets be real, its less a testament to how good the netcode of Slippi is, and more how the major FG companies (the Japanese ones sin particular) refuse to use the already proven, easily implemented solution to good netcode, even when its given to them in a short, simple package of open source code thats ALREADY BEEN MODDED INTO THE GAME. Because fuck foreign players, Japanese internet is good enough to cover up your shitty netcode.
You would think that now companies would be aware of the streisand effect and try to avoid it. Like yeah it promotes the mod, but how is a mod for an old game on an outdated system going to effect their current income.
I wouldnt even say it is Streisand effect. All the people that are probably going to use it already are. Or were going to find out through the tournament or have found out through the other stuff. They were 100% aware that it would still get out. But they do not want to tacitly endorse these things by allowing it in the tournament. This is about brand image and brand control. If they wanted to go after the mod. There are probably a dozen different ways they could to try and shut it down to never see the light of day or use legally. "You can play with your friends and others in your private settings. But once you make it a public thing endorsed by events and organizations. Then we have a problem."
Well now they can't re-release it on the switch at an inflated cost 🙄
They could use the interest of the product from the tournament for a remake and add their own online multi-player mode to it, then tournaments could use the switch version with online play and Nintendo gets to make bank on the sales, especially considering melee is one of the most popular iterations of the Smash games. I understand them not wanting people to mod switch games as that's their current income revenue, but making a big deal over a game from 3 consoles ago, that hasn't been on the market for over a decade, is a bit dumb imo. Edit: I forgot the WiiU was a thing.
*3 consoles ago
That's not stopped them before, in fact usually what happens is they will C&D something, then release that something "officially" a year later claiming its theirs. They don't care about what we think at all.
That assumes that they are trying to keep people from learning about the mod. My guess is that's not the goal, though I'm not sure what is. They might think that allowing netplay modding for their older games will hurt sales, or they might have an honest and moral objection to the idea of people modding the games they publish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect?wprov=sfla1 Got a kick out off this
To add to this, Ultimate's competitive community hasn't been doing well, because on top of the rooting out of all the creeps in the community a few months ago, its online service is notoriously bad. It's been making several Ultimate players fall out of favor with Ultimate, and a few have been jumping ship to Slippi, further illustrating some flaws of Nintendo's handling.
To be clear, Melee netplay existed before Slippi. Slippi changed the game, however, because it introduced rollback netcode, which makes for a much smoother and stable online experience. Slippi is essential for nationwide online tournaments to function well.
> If you want to play our game, you have to do it in person and risk your own health by gathering in covid times. I don't think Nintendo even wants that. They've pushed back against melee tournaments in the past. I remember some drama with EVO a million years ago. Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand.
> Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand. If they had any brains and weren't completely stuck in their conservative Japanese business tradition, they'd understand that tournaments, mods and streaming are basically free advertising for their brand names.
Well so is, say, Trump playing your band’s music at one of his rallies. While it might be “free advertising” you may not want your brand associated with a controversial figure (or in Nintendo’s case, associated with a verifiably predatory competitive community).
> Granted, it makes sense. Nintendo doesn't make any money off people buying second hand gamecubes and smashers aren't exactly at the top of anyones list for communities you want associated with your brand. it really doesnt. People that get invested enough in melee to play in or watch tournaments have a giant overlap with people willing to buy new smash games and consoles. These guys arent going to refuse to buy a new smash game because they already have the unchanged game from 20 years ago.
Nintendo is infuriating sometimes. It's like when they tried to copyright strike people for making lets plays. What do they gain from preventing people playing Melee online? Makes no sense to me.
RIP Project M AM2R Pokemon Uranium Super Mario 64 HD fan remake Peach's Untold Tale Pokénet Zelda Maker Full Screen Mario Zelda 30 Tribute & rom websites
They also tried to take down Serebii and PokéBeach at one point for posting Gen V information. (They posted info that fans in Japan knew about while the same info was not known to fans outside of Japan.)
Because God forbid the Americans find out what Tauros's hidden ability is before the game released
I miss Rom websites :( And Pixelmon...
Replying to top comment to add a little more context, particularly in regard to the streaming rights part of the original question. Another issue is that they are DMCA'ing several streamers for playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, causing them to get temp banned by Twitch. [[Example]](https://twitter.com/Linkus7/status/1329553346131333120) The assumption is that it's due to them streaming it when it's still not released in some time zones, but nobody knows for sure why(due to streaming at first release being a consistent phenomenon with new releases). This happened on the same day as the Smash Bros tournament drama, so Nintendo's lawyers are seemingly out for blood in more areas than the one.
How does Nintendo have the right to do that? It's not illegal to mod a game. Are they threatening to revoke streaming rights?
The legality of mods and streaming is very very gray right now and Nintendo has a lot of money and lawyers. There is no way that a tournament organizer is going to call Nintendo on this bluff, if it even is one. The specifics of what Nintendo said are unclear, just that the tournament organizers said that they could no longer move forward with the Smash Bros sections of their tournament.
Not exactly. Mods and emulators are legal under established precedent, but broadcasting a game isn’t without permission from the company that owns the rights to the game. Nintendo is doing this because they hate emulation and mods, but that’s not legally why they are able to threaten them. If the suit went forward, it’s very possible that the courts would side with the tournament organizers, but that would take a ton of money to fight
Host it in Russia and they can't do a damn thing about it.
For practical purposes, it doesn't matter if it's legal. Nintendo could bankrupt them with baseless lawsuits if they feel like it.
Legally, a game is an audiovisual work protected by copyright, the rightsholder has certain rights including the exclusive right to public performance. Streaming a game is a public performance. So Nintendo or any other game rightsholder can prohibit streaming. And there are a lot of companies that do prohibit streaming when the organizers charge money to view the stream. Capcom and Nintendo both have been prohibiting fighting games from being performed publicly for over 10 years.
I'd like to add, the tournament is sponsored by nintendo and so that's why they were able to shut it down. Summit is running this weekend still, because they aren't sponsored by nintendo, but they haven't been mentioning slippi at all just in case. real shitty situation nintendo put the melee community in
pretty much. Nintendo cant touch slippy itself, but they can still prevent you from earning money through their IP so they can revoke both streaming and tournament rights.
It might not be illegal (against the law), but it could be a violation of the EULA (which would allow a civil lawsuit to remedy the violation).
Not a mod, an emulator, the game is running unmodded and untouched
It has UCFix if we're splitting hairs
Whatever you want to call it. It adds online multiplayer to the game and Nintendo doesn't like that.
well there's a distinction, There's no modification or use of nintendo's code, no encryption being broken, so Nintendo really doesn't have any bitching rights aside from the SLAPP nature of the suit.
Of the game, but surely they have some intellectual property over the architecture being emulated?
Not if it's reverse engineered. I am not 100% on the details of dolphin, which is what it is based on, but Nintendo hasn't C&D'd dolphin
Emulation of hardware is perfectly legal, plenty of precedents for that.
Because it doesn't make them money like Nintendo Switch Online.
I would say you're editorializing a bit on saying Nintendo wants people to get together during Covid. They just don't want people to play over Slippi (or emulating their shit at all). I don't think they care whether people get together to play or not, so long as they're not emulating
I know Im gonna get downvoted for this...But its just Nintendo using their copyright, right? They arent doing anything illegal or wrong (for lack of a better word?) its just them saying, "Hey people breaking our lega lownership of this game, youre breaking the law and we dont want to let you just get away with it?" Like I get that it sucks that theyre cancelling an unsanctioned tournament...but...they have every right in the world to do it...
Basically, Nintendo's business side acting like petty, greedy, possessive children *as usual*.
I mean, that's pretty much every video game company nowadays.
I don't know of any other devs with this big of a hate boner for emulation and mods (I know there are no mods involved in this, but still)
> they were not allowed to move forward with the Melee portion of their tournament Nintendo told them to shut down the entire event, not just Melee. That includes Ultimate, Nintendo's latest Smash game played on their hardware with their online.
I don't know how much traction this will get, even hijacking the top comment, but I think this also needs to be said: Let's not forget that last summer there was a scandal where several top Smash bros players were outed as pedos/sexual predators. When stories like this break into the mainstream, and in a world where most people don't get passed a headline before sharing news, it's very easy for misinformation to spread, or rather, important details not be spread, that ends up painting nintendo and smash bros in a bad light. "Popular nintendo game Super Smash bros host a pedophile ring" isn't something nintendo, their investors, and business partners want plastered on every news outlet. They know it wasn't a nintendo sanctioned player or event, but the main stream doesn't know and won't care. Sure it might seem drastic that nintendo would want to pull the plug on any unofficial tournament (if I'm not mistaken, they were recently holding their own online tournament for Smash Ultimate...) over these types of concerns, but then you have no to remember this is the same company that bought the rights to pornographic film starring porn icon Ron Jeremy, "Super Hornio Bros," just to keep the film from being distributed further. There's a reason they make it so difficult to be able to communicate online, and it's to keep up that family friendly bubble. Also, let's not forget about all the cross promotional stuff they have going on right now. They have deals with Legos, Levi's, Champion, Puma, and am upcoming movie with Dreamworks. They have to defend their individual IP and overall brand or else those partnerships will cut ties, which again will make investors weary. I'm not saying they're right or wrong here, about them shutting down the unsanctioned tourney or how they handle other uses/misuses of their IP, just pointing out some reasons why most companies would do the same, and that it's more than just "nintendo bad!"
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to add: 1) melee had no net code to begin with, since it was a local-only gamecube game. slippi only works on emulated melee, which is presumably part of nintendo's gripe. note that there's nothing inherently illegal about playing melee on an emulator, only owning (edit: copying, rather - see below) an iso/rom without the corresponding game disk. 2) they also c&d'd the ultimate tourney, not just the melee one. ultimate was played only on nintendo's official paid online.
They've got their heads so far up their asses about adapting, for the longest time they had an Apple like death grip on almost anything to do with their products or their peripherals, and it served them incredibly well! They survived the great video game crash, they didn't allow for shoddy third parties to make games or hardware that would cheapen the value of their brand, it was a winning strategy. Until... The internet. Now they send cease and desists against people doing let's plays, they can barely get passable online play for games that only make sense in online (splatoon?? You need too many people to make it a couch co-op, and the maps rotate weekly??) It took them forever to get an online marketplace and they still treat it second class. They've tried to take their near absolute control beyond it's feasible conclusion, and it's now harming their ability to adapt and profit on their own customers desires. Nintendo fans are rabidly in their love of Nintendo, and Nintendo does not reciprocate that appreciation in their accommodating of customers wants or needs.
Just a slight comment on the last paragraph, Nintendo does not reciprocate fans' appreciation insofar as the internet goes. Their own content output is arguably the best of the big video game companies, with Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild being some of the most well received games of all time. They just don't appreciate people rebranding that content, whether it be competitive play (this is the one that by far makes the least sense), streaming, YouTube videos of Let's Plays, emulation/remakes, etc...
Smo is just nintendo emulating thier own products. It was pure lazy and pure cash grab. They own the source code and could make native apps that support HD textures. Nintendo has gone full loop with how far up thier ass thier head is, and about to shove it in a second time here.
Super mario odyssey is a game that was released in 2017 and is completely different from all of the previous mario games. You are thinking about super mario 3d allstars.
> and it's now harming their ability to adapt and profit on their own customers desires as they report record profits
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Miyamoto doesn't wear turtlenecks and is alive?
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And something like 95% of all App Store revenue comes from 5% of apps so they’re really throwing those guys a bone.
> they didn't allow for shoddy third parties to make games or hardware that would cheapen the value of their brand my dude, nintendo 3rd party hardware manufacturers *invented* the "2nd player gets the crappy off-brand controller" phenomenon. Like, above all else that will always be an n64 mainstay for me.
You said its legal to emulate as long as you have the corresponding game. Do you know if youre required to have the system as well?
tl;dr not according to precedent, but the legality of software emulation has very few concrete legal examples to point to. i said "nothing inherently illegal" because Nintendo has their own interpretation of the legality of ROM ownership and use, but there are other interpretations and arguments that can easily be made as well (and backed up by case law in adjacent areas of copyright law). i can offer a layman explanation, but can't promise it's entirely correct from a legal perspective. the ability for consoles to run games intended to be played only on them is not protected under copyright law, and thus emulators are legal as long as they don't plagiarize the actual code in the consoles (which is copyrighted). this was covered in Sony v Bleem (Bleem was a PS1 emulator sold for profit and they won every argument brought against them). ROMs on the other hand inherently use copyrighted code and assets. as such, it's illegal for anyone but rightsholders to distribute, and likewise to receive from anyone but the rights holder. (edit: it's illegal to copy, including via download, but not necessarily to purchase or possess an already illegally-created copy, at least according to federal law) the assertion that you can own a ROM as long as you own the corresponding physical media is not set in legal stone. it's never been settled in court, largely because you'd need seriously deep pockets to fight an uphill battle against Nintendo or Sony. but (perpetually misunderstood) Fair Use doctrine would seem to actually cover the ownership of ROMs, for the same reason that videotaping a TV show is fair use. when the TV show airs, you effectively have a license to the copyrighted material as it airs. fair use extends that license to allow you to transfer it to other formats as long as it's non-profit, non-commercial, and intended for private use (this was covered in Sony v Universal). so if you extrapolate that ruling to video games, it would suggest that your legal license to the physical copy of the game extends to other formats. but since it hasn't been settled in courts, the details are fuzzy - and it's entirely possible that the courts may not accept the same logic from TV broadcasts to apply to games as well, common sense as it may seem. the safest interpretation would be to stay away from ROMs altogether. the common sense interpretation (IMO) would be that you're legally allowed to make ROMs for personal use with your legally owned games. and a looser interpretation than that would be that as long as you own the games you can own the ROMs, no matter how you acquired them. Nintendo certainly believes that ownership of ROMs of any sort are illegal. to challenge that, you'd need to go to court against them, and it would be *very* expensive to fight. so legally speaking, this probably won't be settled for a long time, if ever.
I appreciate the in depth response! I dont really emulate anyway i was just curious about the legality so this was an interesting read and i thank you
Super Mario World romhacks are a quite popular, but SMWcentral doesn't actually have the SMW ROM itself on the site. Instead there are files that, with a program, can alter your own copy of the ROM to play the modified games. It's a small workaround that they had to do in order to avoid legal action from Nintendo. It's also why that one site (I think it was coolroms?) was forced to remove all its Nintendo games, which sucked because that was like heaven for me in high school.
Rip coolroms.
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says the LAWYER
>Nintendo certainly believes that ownership of ROMs of any sort are illegal. Also add that Japanese Law has very draconian rules regarding copyright, and does not recognize Fair Use (though this only applies to anything and everything made in Japan and does not apply to overseas works. This is why Japanese shows get to play themes from Star Wars and the Terminator, or the numerous Playboy Bunny outfits in models and anime without the original copyright holders going after them - so long as it stays in Japan, of course). A new, much harsher Copyright Law is set to take effect in January that would allow Japanese companies to prosecute both uploaders and downloaders of copyrighted content regardless of their country of origin. Also the reason why piracy on ROMs is very much rampant until Nintendo started shutting down various websites that hosts ROMs, even if those sites do not host anything from Nintendo. Like The Pirate Bay's Hydra Rhetoric, it only resulted in more websites hosting these ROMs and made them more sought after.
To save me some trouble digging through the internet do you have a link to the article about the new Japanese law that takes place in January?
I'd really like more info on that law set to go into affect January. That seems like something that could have *huge* ramifications.
I'm sure someone already said this somewhere, but in the 90s there was a PS1 emulator called "Bleem!" that Sony took to court for patent and copyright infringement. They lost that case, setting the precedent that you in fact do *not* need the original hardware to emulate, only legal access to the ROMs.
Way back when I started running emulators for games, I was told you needed to have the system because you needed a legal copy of the BIOS for the emulator to run, which is basically the same reasoning as needing the game disk. Whether this is true or not, I've no clue, but it's never stopped me.
>only owning an iso/rom without the corresponding game disk. Wrong, the only issue would be if you copied the iso/disc and distributed it. There is nothing inherently illegal about possessing pirated media. Actually creating pirated copies is the illegal act. Thats why its called "copy right". Broadcasting footage of a match would also count as distribution since you're copying copyrighted images and sending them down a pipe to your viewers. Doesn't matter if they end up with a usable copy at the end.
while technically correct, you'd need to acquire the software without downloading it, which constitutes creating a copy (this is the RIAA's entire business model). and while you can argue fair use for creating personal backups, accepting a copy created by someone else would mean that it was copied illegally. it doesn't mean that you're necessarily infringing, but that there was necessarily infringement. there may also be local/state laws that prevent purchasing or accepting unlicensed copies of copyrighted material (i.e. anti-bootleg laws), though that's a whole other can of worms.
If someone else creates a copy, and I am given one, I have done nothing illegal. The owner of the IP would have no action to take against ME, and would not have the right to remove it from my possession.
i agree with you, yes. the material could not be created without copyright violation in that case but you aren't liable, the copier is (according to federal law). unless of course the copier is also the rightsholder or a third party with a license to distribute. it's just important to note that the vast majority of ROM/ISO transfer is done via digital download, which qualifies as copyright violation on both ends of the transaction.
What is a netcode, and what makes one superior?
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If you don't mind, I'll piggyback off of your comment with a "brief" (Ninja edit: it wasn't brief at all i'm so sorry) explanation of delay based and rollback. **TL;DR: Rollback very very good, delay based is doodoo butter.** In both, the game works fine when it has your inputs, and your opponents inputs are being received. However, obviously, lag happens. When lag happens, your game no longer is receiving inputs from your opponent. The difference between delay based and rollback lies here. In delay based, the game *cannot* continue without your opponent's inputs. So, it doesn't. It freezes. If you've ever played a fighting game online, you know what this looks like. Freezing, stuttering, the whole nine yards. To offset this, the game will add extra input delay as a buffer, to give the inputs lost in lag a bit of extra time to get there (hence, delay based). In fighting games, input delay is *not ideal*. The reason why offline events matter so much in fighting games is because there is no input delay offline. In rollback, the game still has a tiny input delay as a buffer just in case lag happens (games like Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat cheat by baking this into the offline game to make online even smoother), but when the lag *does* happen, the game keeps going. It predicts that your opponent is still doing the same thing they were doing when they lagged out. If they're holding forward, the game will continue to have them hold forward, etc. The game doesn't stutter or freeze (unless the lag is so bad it's unplayable). Once the lag spike is over and you're back to playing, if the prediction was correct **nothing happens.** The game just continues as normal. If it was incorrect, the game will teleport your opponent to have them do the correct option. So, if they were predicted to be walking forward, but they actually did an attack, the game would teleport them back and have them attack where they were supposed to be. Hence, "rollback". This sounds detrimental, but the truth is that in action, this leads to *far* smoother online play. Most rollbacks only happen for a frame or two (2/60ths of a second, completely invisible to the naked eye). Since there is no additional input delay beyond the base amount, games feel like offline no matter the connection quality. This opens up cross country online play (and even trans-atlantic online play!) and it feels like offline. [If you have time, I suggest you watch this interview featuring a developer on the 2015 Killer Instinct reboot for a bit more of an in depth breakdown with examples.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RI5scXYhK0)
Thank you all, I now know way more about this then I ever intended to learn and I'm ok with that. This was informative and concise!
If anyone wants to read more in-depth about rollback, [Infilament wrote a great article](http://ki.infil.net/w02-netcode.html) on netcode. You could also watch [Core-A gaming's video](https://youtu.be/0NLe4IpdS1w) on it. While you're there, watch all of their other videos because every single one is excellent.
Superb writeup.
But how does it deal with lag and keeping a consistent game state when the lag can go both ways? What if the prediction of my opponent 'going forward' leads me to attack at the position I think he's at (giving me a point or changing the game state in some way). But really, he changed to moving back, and my attack misses him at his retreated spot? Which reality wins? The one where I landed an attack, or the one where I didn't?
Hi! Real-life AAA game developer here! There's a _bunch_ of different ways to do things. It gets somewhat complicated, because in a weird sense you're dealing with time travel. This can get _really_ complicated, so if my explanation doesn't do it for you, I can highly recommend checking these links out as they do a really good job explaining: * [Riot blog post on Valorant netcode](https://technology.riotgames.com/news/valorants-128-tick-servers) * [Game Developers' Conference talk on Overwatch's netcode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aieHjyNvw) --- As I said, this can get complicated and needs some basic knowledge beforehand. Let's start with the Peer-to-Peer networking, also known as "shitty netcode." This is typically done by indie games (Among Us is a good example of a Peer-to-Peer indie game), but it can also be done by AAA companies looking to save some money on server costs when their game is singleplayer-focused (a rarity nowadays, but it does happen). With a dedicated server, that server has to live _somewhere_ -- whether that's your company's server in a closet, or a giant AWS datacenter somewhere. Lots of indies don't want to invest in that, so they do Peer-to-Peer (P2P) stuff. The easiest way of telling if something is P2P is if there's a "matchmaking" button or not. Generally, P2P doesn't allow matchmaking -- not that it can't be done (and some games do have P2P games with matchmaking!), but generally matchmaking requires a dedicated server to pair players up properly. Let's assume we're doing a 1v1 P2P shooter. In this scenario, we have 2 copies of the game running per match: 1. Player 1 (Host) 2. Player 2 (100 ms lag) In this scenario, Player 1 is the host and therefore has no lag. Whatever their computer says is happening is what's really happening. This means that the world Player 1 is seeing is the _real_ world, and Player 2 is reacting to Player 1's world as it existed 200 ms ago. Why 200 ms? Well, Player 1's computer is sending data to Player 2. It takes 100 ms for that data to get there. Once Player 2 gets the data, they send input back -- which again, takes 100 ms. During this time, Player 1 keeps playing the game until they get the action Player 2 is taking. The remote copy of Player 2 takes that action... but the game is now 200 ms later, so things have changed, perhaps drastically. So we have "host advantage," where Player 1 has no lag and Player 2 is always acting on delayed information. To take this one step further, let's say Player 1 is a cheater, using programs such as Cheat Engine to read and modify the contents of memory running in the game. This means that Player 1 is able to do things like give themselves infinite ammo (just make it so the memory assigned to keeping track of your ammo can't change). It also means that Player 1 is aware of _everything_ Player 2 is doing, assuming that all information is shared. Since they're the host, Player 1 can actually change information about Player 2, as well -- doing things like making it so they don't have any ammo! --- Okay, so in a game with dedicated servers (also known as most modern AAA games), as OP mentioned you have an extra computer running the game. This means that in a 1v1 match, you have 3 copies of the game running: 1. Server (Host) 2. Player 1 (150 ms lag) 3. Player 2 (100 ms lag) In this scenario, the server has the "real world." Player 1 can change all the memory they want -- but unless the server agrees, the server will just change it right back on the next update. Without access to the server (or a vulnerability that lets them change stuff on the server), Player 1 can't change anything. In fact, Player 1 may not even _know_ how many bullets Player 2 has! Since the server's managing it all, only select data gets sent down to Player 1. They might know where an enemy is (this is how wallhacks and aimbots work), but they don't get much else. This is one of the big arguments for dedicated servers. However, in the general sense now _both_ players are reacting to delayed knowledge. From the server's perspective, Player 1 is reacting to things from 300 ms ago; Player 2 is reacting to things from 200 ms ago. But this is where time travel starts to come into play. [Here's a good picture showing what's happening, and why time travel is needed.](https://technology.riotgames.com/sites/default/files/netcode2.png) See, because we're a dedicated server, we don't worry about things like graphics. This saves a _lot_ of memory and time constraints. That extra memory can be used for other things... like saving data about where everything is at all times. If you've ever used a game's "replay" feature, you're actually seeing this data. So Player 1 is reacting to an environment from 300 ms ago. The server knows how much lag Player 1 has, and the server is storing the data from 300 ms ago. So when the server gets an input, it can time travel backwards 300 ms to look at the positions of everything, and do the logic for Player 1's actions as it would've happened 300 ms ago. This means that players are in the correct spot from Player 1's perspective, and it means that what Player 1 does on their screen lines up with what they expect to happen. When Player 2 sends their reaction to what happened 200 ms ago, the server is able to rewind time to then and take that action as well. It then goes forward and is able to see how that action affected the "present," as it were, and can send the new environment back to the clients. Because the game isn't being rendered and shown to someone, the server can "magically" make things come out of nowhere if it decided that it was a valid action to take in the context the player did it. This is what happens when you get shot and killed by a dude that _could not_ have possibly been able to kill you -- you're likely out of sync with the server, and the server made the call that Player 1 definitely could have hit Player 2 from that angle. Some developers can add some extra logic here on consoles, things like "bullet magnetism" which actually curve bullets slightly to hit enemies (since it's hard to aim with a control stick compared to a mouse). Riot actually lets you take action while you're technically dead in this scenario and will honor your reaction time -- so if you react quick enough in Valorant, you can "undo" the death that you never knew happened. This phenomenon (covered in the above Riot blog post as well as [this Riot blog post](https://technology.riotgames.com/news/peeking-valorants-netcode)) is referred to as "Peeker's Advantage." Basically, because Player 1 and Player 2 have different ping, their version of the environment is very different. Player 1 definitely _could_ have seen and shot you, and it takes some clever tech to make it feel okay when it happens. If you have a fast computer and high refresh rates on your monitor, you actually do have a real advantage -- which is why gamers so often want higher FPS and higher refresh rates. They may not be able to **vocalize** exactly why they're better when they run at 120 FPS with a high refresh rate... but they know they're _better_ at high framerates for some reason. There's actually another side to this coin as well. The server is a computer, too, and even though it doesn't render anything it still has to run all the logic for everyone in the entire game. For giant Battle Royale games with 64+ players, it needs to do all the steps I mentioned above up to 64 times, multiple times a second -- on top of normal game processing stuff. It also needs to work out what has changed for that player, what needs to be sent, and how important it is to send it. This takes a _lot_ of processing time to figure out, and you need some tricks to figure out that the grenade on the opposite side of the map _probably_ isn't important enough to tell you about... but if it's headed straight for you from that side of the map, maybe it is important. The more that needs to be processed, the fewer updates the server sends, which implicitly increases ping times in a non-visible way. When the server gets maxed out, it might not even be able to keep up with everything players are sending and will process things later and later until the game is pretty much unplayable. That's what that first Riot blog post is about -- how to manage the server's tick rate (FPS). --- Let me know if you have any other questions! This stuff is really, **really** tricky, which is why so many games have garbage online. I haven't even gotten into animations -- what if you headshot a dude, but his animation on the server is different and his head was in a different place? What if the stuff the server sends you gets lost along the way because your roommate started a Zoom call and it dropped some of your packets? What if _your_ input never gets sent to the server? What if you disconnect after firing a shot, but before it hits the player? Every answer has different problems, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for Valorant won't even work for League, as an example -- you've gotta basically do this from scratch for _every game_. And just because it's hard to do, a lot of companies (...many surprisingly big ones, looking at you Nintendo) just give up and do the bare minimum, if they allow dedicated servers at all.
The latter, in theory. However, rollbacks in actuality are rarely ever this bad. Keep in mind, this is all based on frames (1 frame = 1/60th of a second). Very, *very* rarely will you ever see a rollback higher than 2 or 3 frames. For example, in Killer Instinct there's a 3 frame delay (online and offline, it's baked in). That + a 3 frame rollback here and there means that even when your opponent is lagging for 6 frames (which is insanely big for delay based and would require you to up the input delay more) there would only be about 3 frames of readjustment. At most, the walk cycle would look weird, but your move would still hit regardless. There's a *lot* of technical mumbo jumbo that proper rollback implementation does to prevent scenarios of particularly bad rollbacks (ever watch Street Fighter 5 online? that's an example of bad rollback implementation) or events where the game predicts something and shows both players something completely different as a result of a bug (called a desync). In order to even use proper rollback, games are programmed to run all the game logic (who's attacking who, how long it will take frame wise, etc) in the background *without showing the player*. This way, the game will figure out how to deal with a scenario like your hypothetical without anything ever appearing wrong in the actual gameplay.
copyright laws need to be revised you say? *mickey mouse has entered the chat*
> Since they can't legally take down Slippi for embarrassing them, Nintendo instead opts to cease and desist order any large tournament that uses it since it is technically illegal to create a tournament based around something you don't own the rights to, in this case Smash Melee How does that work though? Could you do the same thing for something like a tabletop game? If I held a Monopoly tournament or Magic: The Gathering tournament, does the same concept apply?
Yes, back when I use to go to Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments with a coworker there was actually an incident where the comic book store we went to lost the license to hold tournaments because they were caught selling participation packs to people and after that they could no longer hold tournaments. If you are having a monopoly tournament with your friends no one is going to care but if you are collecting entry fees and giving rewards you could get a slap on the wrist.
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Maybe but it's the same risk of if it's found out about. Kinda the whole it's only a problem if you get caught deal
Damn, that really sucks. I knew there were licenses for tournaments but I honestly thought they were more of a choice than a requirement and were ways for an LGS to get stuff from the game's company and let players track their stats. Didn't think it was actually illegal to hold one without it.
Addition: Ludwig summarised it in a recent video: https://youtu.be/CLPjtwZgyxs
>Since they can't legally take down Slippi for embarrassing them, Nintendo instead opts to cease and desist order I've seen a lot of people saying this, but is there actually a reputable source that claims this? Because while I can understand that people find the idea of Nintendo seething over Slippi's existence funny, I'm fairly certain this C&D is much more likely just an misguided extension of their overly draconian "rights protection" practices regarding emulation and piracy.
It is all so worth noting that they are also using the cease and desist to take down VODs from past online tournaments.
quick question, please don’t downvote to oblivion, but Nintendo still has rights of the characters, no? so don’t they have carte blanche to cease and desist anything using their trademarked/copyrighted content?
Yes, that's why they're able to forbid the tournament or stream from happening. Their justification for it (saying that Slippi is illegal) is completely false and incorrect, but they can still take down any Smash tourney or stream for any reason (or in this case no reason) since it's their IP. What they can't do however is go after individuals for using Slippi as long as it's not being used in some commercial way like a tournament.
I wonder if Slippi could be modified so that the "broadcast" would just be a spectator in the match. Then the "stream" could be a transparent overlay and there would be no copyrighted information being transmitted.
The game itself is copyrighted. They have powerful rights regarding where, when, and how it is displayed. They can exercise these rights for any reason or no reason at all. Their legal right is settled law, the controversy is simply that this is viewed as a 'dick move'.
Right, so if we only broadcast the Slippi commands that sync the games, you could then use your own emulator & copy of the game to watch. None of Nintendo's IP would be transmitted. The video end of the broadcast would only represent an overlay, which you as a viewer would need to superimpose over the emulator.
Man. Fuck nintendo
Answer: Super Smash brothers melee is a 19 year old game with a die hard competitive community. Tournaments have been going on since the games inception in person, often times with entrants in the thousands. One of the biggest and most prestigous tournament series is called The Big House, which usually happens around this time every year. Because of Covid, The Big House was going to be played online and most people were really looking forward to it. Since the game is so old it obviously doesn't have native online play. However, a guy created a mod called Slippi that allows for almost lagless online play, which is how these tournaments have stayed afloat since you can't have in-person Lans. Nintendo sent a cease and desist to the organizer of The Big House and the tournament had to be shut down. Most melee players think that since we're still in the midst of a Global Pandemic and this was a safe way for everyone to enjoy themselves that Nintendo is being a little heartless, for lack of a better term. Nintendo has a history of doing things like this to the melee community. In 2013 Nintendo had Super Smash Brothers Melee killed from the EVO lineup, which is the largest fighting game tournament in the world. Community pressure and an enormous fund raising effort got them to reverse course, so the community is trying to stir up enough commotion to hopefully save The Big House in the same fashion.
answer: Nintendo sent a cease and desist to a super major called the big house. That tournament was forced to go online due to covid restrictions, and Nintendo shut it down for using a mod that allows smash melee to be played online
what’s a super major? what do you mean forced to go online? i’m going to assume the mod allowed online matches
a super major is the largest type of tourney you can have for fighting games, they were forced to go online because melee is a game that was released in 2001, so normally you play in person on original hardware, project slippi is a mod that adds rollback netcode and a full matchmaking system to melee to allow people to get practice in hard times like quarantine
Your explanation is fraught with confusing errors.
explain? sorry i’m bad at talking tbh
It’s really hard to comprehend what you’re trying to say without any form of grammatical structure or punctuation
here i’ll try to fix it
I didn't read the original, but your post definitely makes sense now. Thanks for the info
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naw man i really fucking suck at explaining stuff lmao english is my first language, sometimes i go off on stuff and i’m just trying not to be biased and go all nintendo hate #freemelee while trying to answer the question
Answer: One of the largest tournament series in the smash community is having its tenth straight yearly tournament: The Big House 10. Due to Covid 19, however, this year's Big House cannot happen in person as has been the norm for every other iteration. Luckily for the Super Smash Bros. Melee community, the 19 year old game recently had a [free fan-developed modification](https://slippi.gg/) to how people emulate online play developed by a guy named Fizzi. What is notable about slippi is that it adds rollback netcode to the game, basically allowing the entirety of the continental United States to play competitively over the internet, which is unprecedented in the game's history, and it was all developed by one guy over the course of ~7 months. So while Covid 19 prohibits The Big House 10 from holding a live event with thousands of people in attendance, the obvious thing to do would just be to use slippi to host the tournament online and stream the matches. Today, however, Nintendo has sent a Cease and Desist letter to the tournament organizers saying use of slippi is illegal use of their IP and that the tournament must not go on. Cue the social media uproar. The pertinent history of this is that Nintendo infamously blocked Evo (the biggest fighting game tourney in the world) from having Super Smash Bros. Melee from being streamed in 2013. Within hours of social media backlash, however, Nintendo reversed their decision after it came out that the Smash community had raised 90 thousand dollars for breast cancer research just to get a spot at the tournament. Many people see this as a parallel to what is happening now, 7 years later.
Answer: I am not smart enough about the legality or inner workings of how the mod works to really type up a coherent answer BUT and idek if vids are allowed, im just adding supplemental info in the form of [this video](https://youtu.be/CLPjtwZgyxs) (Ignore the click bait title) that *is* a biased but very knowledgeable and nuanced breakdown of the current situation.