Nintendo f@#ks indies

#1 Welcome to the DMCA. And people thought we were paranoid when we complain (loudly).

Edit: Bleh sould have seen the Hong Kong line. Comment still stands though because it's much easier for companies to do this sort of thing here.

#2 It is a fact of consoles. Those flash ram carts are the same as a mod chip for PS2 or Xbox. Microsoft is currently waring over mod chips, and Im sure sony is as well.

Nintendo's take on your analogy would be a percentage of the population was going to that store, buying a gun and shooting people and this kept happening and people knew about it. Would you close down the store?

Consoles are not a platform for indie developers. Its a sad fact but its true. The PS2 is the only thing an indie can program on with the linux kit, but even then it wont run on a PS2 without linux. If I had one of those cards I could download every rom for the GBA (or vice versa upload my newly purchased game on the net for everyone else) and play them all without paying anything but 100 bucks for a GBA SP and nintendo is the only one who sees money. (which comes with a backlit screen) On a personal note I've always found the GPL do it yourself home kit for the GBA to be something dodgy. I was thinking about making a game and sending it in to a publisher to see if they would publish it, but I was afraid I would be arrested under the DMCA, simply because console manufacturers want full control of what goes on their system and they want you to pay a fee to put your something on their system. Welcome to corporate America. An example of this same thing outside of consoles is CSS. CSS Stops you from making copies of DVD (although you might can do a disk to disk copy.. never tried it), it forces region coding so the MPAA can so who gets what movies. I personally like asian horror films.. but I can not buy them in the US. They are only available in Region 2 (Europe and Asia) A 15 yr old cracked the CSS and released the code on the net. A good thing that came from it was Linux users could view DVDs now without a hardware decoder board. But did the MPAA care that no software decoders were on linux? Of course not. They haven't authorized any. They sued the kid and it won the trial for now in Sweden. But they appealed or something I believe and they won't stop till he is behind bars.

On a nother note, Sweden has been in talks about passing a bill that would be a super DMCA and would even go as far as charging 4 bucks for each single cdr (I saw this on slashdot so you can believe it how you want :P )

#3 I do think overall usage patterns have to be considered when you look at these things and if you think more people are using these flash carts for indie development rather than for pirating, you're in serious denial.

There are small/mobile platforms that are more indie friendly like the GP32 and various mobile-phone like devices, perhaps you'd be better off programming for those. Sure, not as many people have them, but it isn't like you'd be able to legally distribute your Gameboy Advance game anyway, so size of market isn't much of an issue. A finished, polished game on one of these other systems could easily get you in the door with Nintendo or a third-party GBA publisher.

And while we're on the subject, even though I'm an indie game developer I support console maker's policies of controlling what is published for their systems -- the alternative is an Atari 2600 like mess where 49 of every 50 games is complete crap, leading to consumer dissatisfaction and a devaluation of the industry as a whole.

#4 Tim, the issue isnt how effective the flash carts are for pirating because thats an opinionated thing (for instance in my opinion I'd rather play a rom on my computer then pay $200+ to play on a 2 inch screen, then lose all my saves when I upload a new game, and replace used batteries). Also, these flash carts in no way assist you in uploading roms from legal copies (I'm not sure how that works). The only way these things can be used illegaly is to dl a rom, dl it to the cart then play the cart on a gba, but you could still play the game illegaly on your computer, so this really isnt solving a damn thing, its just nintendo stealing money from a smaller company, and hurting a bunch of indies in the process.

Now the real issue is that this company hasnt done anything illegal (or even wrong). Their flash carts are meant as a tool for development and they are widely used as such (this is discussed in the link), not just indie developers either, almost every big publisher uses them for GBA development (including nintendo).

(you are wrong, the GBA is a console that indies can program for, there are thriving GBA communities, a lot of people make hobby gba games and release them for free). Of course life wont stop if this company is struck down, people will still make their gba games and test them in emulators (although they cant perfectly simulate the real gba and sometimes the games then wont work on the real thing), its just a great injustice and what makes it worse is that Nintendo is getting branded the hero by their little bitch news sites (IGN needs to fire all their greasy nerds and hire real journalists).

Tim, I can tell your very apathetic to this sorta thing. However we are really just screwing ourselves over if we just stop caring. Yes the courts are going to screw us, thats why its our job to yell louder and louder and give them a reason to listen to us! Part of that is just being aware of whats going on, thats why I started this thread.

#5 I'm with Nintendo on this one. If it was my company I would do the same thing. Nintendo spends millions developing and marketing their consoles. It would be stupid to allow free development kits to be available.

It's not only because of the loss of sales due to pirated games. Nintendo has to be able to control the quality of the games available or all of their legit developers stand to lose money. Not because the indie developers will make such great games, but because many of the indie games will look like crap which will make Joe Average Consumer think that Nintendo sucks.

That's how the console game manufacturers think and it's not to be assholes to fledgling developers, but to protect the millions of dollars they spend to make their business successful.

#6 You guys have some things wrong, just because an indie uses this to make a game doesnt mean it gets widely published and nintendo's reputation goes to crap. Nintendo always aproves GBA games before they are published. Just because you make something doesnt mean they have to publish it (or you will have any means to publish it yourself), this is used by big publisher houses as well as indies as a development tool (since nintendo wants 30k for ea dev kit which from what I hear isnt even as good). Please read the link up top so you know the details before you post

#7 For me it boils down to fair use. If I buy the hardware it's MY hardware. If I want to hack it apart so I can write my own games it should be my right to do so. How loudly would folks be screaming if MS charged everyone 20k for a license to write Windows games?

#8 I'm sure we're all aware of Nintendo and their Lot-check system?

How many people are aware that pokemon red can be crashed 3 (or was it 4) screens in?

Nintendos quality control for handhelds basically seems to extend to:-

* Did they write 'Nintendo' in the correct font?

* Are they coughing up?

Don't get me wrong - they do some bloody good Gamecube stuff and the occasional really nice GBA game (although it seems to me the GBA has hit the Atari 2600 problem mentioned above).

But if people are willing to write these games then surely it'd be better for Nintendo to harvest them in some way (Providing a mini SDK or something - maybe using the homebrewers as a source of games for their GBA swipecard system)?

#9 I am pretty sure you can use those flash readers to download commercial roms to your PC. That's how they get them on the net. I agree with the above as its pointless to make games for the GBA since you can not publish them. If your trying to do it as a hobby pick another machine. There are plenty of PDAs, phones, and other GBA like systems you can program for. I am sure you do not agree with that and that is fine. Its my opinion on it. I just think its a big risk even messing with it. I saw today a story where a guy was busted for a "future crime." He build a box that can descramble satellite TV. He got 5 years in prison and is forced to pay 180 million dollars to DirecTV because that is how much they estimated they would lose if he could have sold the boxes.

It's nuts and there is nothing we can do about it. Maybe if a senator with a brain, or a senator with a child that gets convicted of this completely ridiculous stuff removes these laws.. thats about our only chance. Protest is just a form of control to stop you from looting and rioting, it serves no other purpose.

#10 Eric: I read the post. I own the lik-sang device, know all about it. I'm just saying that since it can be used to pirate games and to reverse engineer Nintendo's hardware/games, that it only makes sense that Nintendo wouldn't want those devices to be available. The only people being screwed are Nintendo, when other companies make money off them illegally. Those laws are there to protect businesses. If they weren't then consoles probably wouldn't exist because companies couldn't make any money off them.

#11 Tim, I dont see how its possible to use the flash readers to make illegal copies... you might be thinking of something else, this is just a gba sized cartridge with some flash ram and maybe a usb cable or something that conects it to your computer... dont see how you could use that to get data from a legit cartridge. Otherwise you are completely right, anything you'd do for the gba would be hobby work with probably no chance of publishing (its amazing how nintendo is so picky with what they do and dont let get published, yet most of their games are still crap). It would probalby be a good idea for indies to look at pda's or cell phones or whatever, I agree with you completely on that (also that there really is nothing we can do about any of this). What really bothers me is the fact that lik-sang is no more to blame for piracy then computers, its not the hardware that things are pirated on that should be blamed for piracy, its teh people who do the piracy. I think lik-sang has just as much right to exist as memorex. making hardware that is capable of copying and playing data is not a crime. This hardware is made with a good intent, if people misuse this product then they are to blame, of course nintendo cant track them down, but its still not right that they go after the company instead. (and it really bugs me that they get branded as the hero)

Mark: I dont see how nintendo is getting screwed by this, when they destroy this company it will in no way inhibit pirating. People have been pirating games for years without flash carts, theres a gazillion emulators for everything. Personaly I think anyone who would buy one of these for the sole purpose of pirating games is an idiot. Like I said, 200 dollars to play on a game boy (then lose my saves when I switch games) or play on my 15inch laptop screen with save states and such all for free... ya, most people who are into pirating games are into it because they DONT like spending money... but like I said earlier, this really isnt about if people use this thing to pirate games, its about the company not supporting piracy and nintendo simply having no right to F them like this.

#12 The flash stuff I saw were cartidges that you plugged into a reader/writer... similiar to how compact flash works. you just plug a commercial cartidge into the reader/writer and download. I don't actually have one of these so I cant say it works like that 100% sure.. maybe Mark can let us know?

#13 Ahhh, I remember when Nintendo was popular...

#14 Lik-Sang wasn't sued because they sold Flash Carts. They were sued because they also sold a Flash Linker, this was a unit that connected to a parallel port on your computer. You could then plug in either a regular game cartridge to "backup" the game or plug in a flash cartridge to write the backed up ROM information.

If they only had the USB flash cartridges that would have been one thing. But they also sold a device that allowed REAL cartridges to be backed up.

Frankly... it's nothing new and not very news worthy, the same fight has been fought on the consoles since the NES was out. One company gets shut down, another will start up, hell you can find plans on how to make your own cartridge backup system if you look.

#15 You need the linker and the cartridge to do any kind of development. You write the code, then you copy to the cartridge using the linker. The linker also can read normal cartridges and copy the roms to your hardrive. It will keep all your save games and also allow you to use other peoples.

#16 Ah, well thats a bit worse if it can copy real games, I didnt realise it was that kinda device they were making (the model I had seen was a usb straight into the flash cart thing), I apologize for my mistake and whatever confusion it might have caused... still, I have to stand by my earlier statement that Nintendo didnt have the right to attack them like that, this hardware is being misused by the user. I dont think the company should be held responsible for some of its customers illegal activities.

Harold, I was not aware that this has been going on for so long, I guess your right, another company will probably spring up to fill in the slack and this might not be real news, sorry if this was a stupid thread... guess I wanted to vent and see what everyone else thought about this sorta thing

#17 You need the linker and the cartridge to do any kind of development. You write the code, then you copy to the cartridge using the linker. The linker also can read normal cartridges and copy the roms to your hardrive. It will keep all your save games and also allow you to use other peoples.

#18 Eric:
Quick question:
Would you rather Nintendo sue all the people who misuse the linker? Always smarter to go as far up the food chain as possible rather then the bottom end (the users)

#19 Yeah, its really weird that Nintendo tries to sue the one(s) selling these things, as they are practically the mod-kit of the GBA world. Yes, you can use them as an indie dev and play your games on a real GBA, but you can also use them to play every friggin' GBA game ever released for free. And, if you want your nice friends who also has this nice little thing(not the GBA, the Flash kart + linker) you can place your original cart(ie, one cart that you actually bought. Ohmigosh, he actually bought something that supported Nintendo and a developer, he must be crazy!) and use the linker to create a rom so he can share with his friends and the rest of the screwin' the console market friends.

#20 If I were to turn a game cube into a flower pot, would that be illegal too?

Imagine if cars fell under the same license rules and we had to use only dealership sold filters, oil, and sparkplugs and couldn't change any of it, including the stereo system? Ugh.

-Eric