9/26/2023 0 Comments Full screen marioAnd copying static images certainly doesn't remove them from Watterson's possession. Now imagine a situation in which a hard-working t-shirt maker puts the images of C&H on shirts - shirts for which he risks a tremendous amount of capital to produce - and makes a boatload of money selling $8 t-shirts? Is Watterson harmed financially? For some people, the answer is "No", because Watterson was not making money off of C&H t-shirts in the first place. In any case, I think it's possible that C&H holds such a special place in our consciousness because of Watterson's reluctance to license his characters, and good for him. Hell, maybe he isn't even thinking in that way. I'm going to go out on a limb here: nearly everyone on HN respects and admires Bill Watterson, the creator of "Calvin and Hobbes." And yet Watterson has been quite protective of his cartoon creations, basically not allowing anyone to re-use them to make merchandise or new content, even though Watterson would become filthy rich off of it, and the world would likely be a better place with more Hobbes window-suction dolls than Garfields.īut isn't it Watterson's right to do this? He's an artist, and he wisely saw that the crass commercialization of his beloved creations would, in the long run, reduce their nostalgic value. Nintendo's not an indie game factory that needs to build cred within the gaming community, and while the discussion about the value of derivative works and copyright is worth having, this outcome was pretty much a fait accompli. It's quite possible that Nintendo discovered there was a market to be tapped with browser-based games that they were unaware of (or unaware of the scale of), but they own Mario anyway, and they don't need to do Josh Goldberg any favors.Īlthough I completely agree that a great deal of potential creative value is being lost by not allowing classic games to be legally remade (I would love to take a crack at some Intellivision games, especially the old TSR adventures) that's an abstract issue. The popularity of Full Screen Mario demonstrates that - people love Mario, especially the old 8-bit version. One of my favorite desk toys is a power-up mushroom I got from Hot Topic that had candy in it which I immediately poured into the trash because the thing it came in was so cool. You can play the original Mario officially on newer platforms. They can pretty much stick Link or Mario onto anything and it will still sell. I see your point, though i'd still contend Nintendo doesn't need eyeballs or goodwill when it comes to their flagship products. They may legally have had no other options but to point and shoot, especially when it became clear that Full Screen Mario was popular, but IANAJL so I don't know. Of course, easier for some random stranger on the internet to say this: but if you roll your own content on top of this layer, then you'll have really made something. If all you do is take it down and not think about the next generation of product that you can base on your proven, demonstrated working technology, then I think you will have kind of missed an opportunity. So, if you take the perspective that Nintendo are doing you a favour by pushing your next phase of development away from derivation and instead into creation, and if you do indeed re-factor the codebase to do something else, then you will have experienced a positive effect from this experience. While you would have been limited by how far you can promote a Super Mario clone, now the engine can be re-purposed to something else instead - something creative, perhaps? (It wasn't something I would have considered to be terribly creative, btw: the correct word to use is derivative.) Its a real pity, but consider it to your advantage that this occurred, because it means that all your hard work can be pushed further into newer territory.
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