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Publishers Are Giving Up Free Publicity by Stopping Fan Made Games

Publishers Are Giving Up Free Publicity by Stopping Fan Made Games

Another day, another fan-made game put to rest. Today’s casualty is an ongoing remake of the classic Super Mario 64 . The project, being headed by computer science student Erik Roystan Ross, used Unity to convert our favorite 3D Mario title into stunning HD.

The project was really just a demo for something called Super Character Controller. This Unity plugin essentially handles all things that a 3D character would usually need. This includes things like collision, pushback, slope limiting (which is when your speed slows down when going up a hill), the ability to clamp to surfaces to grab onto ledges or wall jump, and much more. Ross’s remake of Super Mario 64 was meant to show that the Super Character Controller can completely remake everything that Mario could do in that game without any custom coding.

The whole project was very impressive. Mario’s model and the world around him looked like something out of Super Mario 3D World . A demo came out showing off a recreation of Bob-omb Battlefield, and likely this was about all that was going to be done. The demo was, of course, free to download, and as long as you had Unity installed, you could play it on any PC. Or at least you were, before Nintendo decided to ask him to take it down, which made fans absolutely livid.

It was made clear that there was no intent to monetize the project whatsoever, but this did not matter to Nintendo. Granted, they had a platform to stand on, being that the sound-effects in the game, as well as some HUD graphics, were pretty much taken directly from Mario 64 , and the character was, no ifs ands or buts, Mario used without Nintendo’s permission.

But the big question is… why? Did Nintendo really think that people would play this demo over the real Mario 64 ? Did they think that it was costing them money on the Nintendo eShop?

I’m sure that almost every fan has already sounded off the many reasons why this was a horrible idea. Nintendo could have had Ross make a total remake using the engine and made an absolutely insane amount of money. Not to mention the very existence of the demo probably got a ton of fans to play Mario 64 again, which probably translated into some retro sales for Nintendo.

Publishers Are Giving Up Free Publicity by Stopping Fan Made Games

But time and again with projects like this, Chrono Resurrection , and basically any possible project that is looking to remake and old property in stunning HD, companies rush to get out those cease and desists. Why? Control. Because if they can’t bring you the definitive play experience of an IP, no one can.

That’s why we want to give a shoutout to the team that is doing Crash Bandicoot Frost. This fan-made HD game brings everyone’s favorite bandicoot into the HD generation. It looks amazing, and it’s going to make a lot of Crash fans very happy. That is, unless Naughty Dog catches wind of it and issues a cease and desist. They haven’t yet, so maybe there are some nicer IP holders in the gaming world.

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