The year has been tough for Pokémon after being blindsided by the massive popularity of PalWorld, a new creature-collecting game. And in spite of the many flaws with PalWorld and the accusations of stealing art assets from Pokémon, it quickly took the internet by storm in the first couple of months of the year. And led many fans of the Pokémon franchise to question why such a fun game could be produced by a company with a fraction of Nintendo’s budget. And, more importantly, why Pokémon as a whole has had little to no innovations with the formula over its nearly 30 years of development.
It wasn’t as if PalWorld was the only time fans of the Pokemon franchise had seen someone come along outside of GameFreak and massively improve upon the tired old beats that are constantly recycled and regurgitated for gamers. Pokémon Rom Hacks and Fan Games have existed for more than a decade and have seen hundreds of projects released with increasing frequency as time went on. Games like Emerald Kaizo were designed for people interested in aggressively difficult challenges, whereas other titles like Pokémon Xenoverse introduced players to brand new regions, Pokémon, and frankly, far better-written stories than anything seen in the main franchise.
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That may be why Nintendo and The Pokémon Company International have taken unprecedented actions to effectively shut down hundreds of fan games and ROM hacks by targeting Relic Castle with DMCA takedowns, removing them from the net.
The official X account for Relic Castle posted about the DMCA takedown showing no signs they intended to fight Nintendo over it. Instead, they regretfully informed users of the site that after nearly ten years they’d be shutting down. Discord will still be available for people, but the site most well-known for hosting links and discussions on some of the most popular ROM hacks and fan games is now gone. As well as hundreds of completed and developing projects are now lost to fans.
It’s important to note that Relic Castle and the creators of the fan games did not charge users to play them. Over the years, Relic Castle took various precautions to ensure they did not wind up on Nintendo’s hitlist. So why now?
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As mentioned above the release of PalWorld was a giant embarrassment for The Pokémon Company International as they were shown up by a half-completed game by simply innovating on the formula created by Pokémon. And recently, the new Pokémon Legends: Z-A was announced with an additional year of development time, promising a fresh and unique experience. So it’s possible that The Pokémon Company wants to remove fan games as an alternative to their fans seeking something better.
X users quickly jumped onto the story and lambasted The Pokémon Company International for what they’d done. Some pointed out that the argument of them simply wish to protect their IP while others thrashed that argument. In truth The Pokémon Company International does have a legitimate reason for wanting to shut down Fan Games based on their IP. However, the financial reasons for such a move seem quite obvious. By removing Fan Games of Pokémon, it removes any and all comparisons of them to the full-priced titles that are being released.
Ace Trainer Liam is a Pokémon Youtuber who called out the decision to take down Relic Castle by comparing the adult art that is posted online all the time using Pokémon’s IP. If anything it highlights the point that this is less about an actual concern with protecting their IP and more about wanting to shut down free fan games that have been able to offer a far better experience when compared to the costly official titles.
And it leads to another question of who The Pokémon Company International plans to target next. Will they attempt to shut down Youtubers who have built a brand off of doing gameplay from said Fan Games?
A few days prior to taking down Relic Castle, The Pokémon Company International placed a manual strike on a Youtuber who had uploaded a video of a Call Of Duty that had a mod including Pokémon. What’s curious about this incident isn’t just the timing, but that the video as one from roughly seven years ago. Could this be the first steps of a massive sweep to remove any videos featuring Pokémon content not related to official release titles?
Only time will tell, but what are your thoughts on the recent attempts by The Pokémon Company International to shut down fan games? Leave us a comment!
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Welp, there goes a stupidly popular minecraft mod.