I don't have all the time in the world, so while I hope to educate you about another attack on ROM-hacking, this must be incredibly brief.

Yesterday/today, Nintendo attacked the creators of Pokemon Prism (who have also brought us Pokemon Brown and Pokemon Rijon Adventures) with a DMCA notice. Anyone who has been on Vizzed, and been relatively active in the community knows what this entails, so I won't be talking much about what DMCA is.

In short, it's a death knell to a project, unless they want to go to court to fight for their right to hack a video game. Unsurprisingly, very few (I think it's actually no one) have actually taken Nintendo up on a legal battle involving ROM-hacking and/or piracy.

The full DMCA is here.

Essentially, it's this bit right here that matters the most:



This is a huge blow, because Pokemon Prism has been in development for ca. 8 years, and was actually pretty much finished. With the game set to release on Christmas, all the work done on it is to be wasted, lest the creators go to court (which would no doubt end in failure).

Further confirming this, someone involved with the project announced a cancellation, which includes a link to the DMCA takedown notice I posted above.

Adam has stated that he will release a longer statement, but understandably, he's more than a little crushed to see 8 years of work result in no finished physical product. He claims that the 8 years of work have given him a lot of experience with developing, which can't be taken away from him, but it's still a loss to the general community to lose this project.

Pokemon Prism joins Pokemon Uranium as another popular game to be taken down by Nintendo. It's become clear, ROM-hacks are no longer safe. They will actively be sought out before release, and shut down. Part of the blame for the shutdown comes from the popular Pokemon Prism trailer, which garnered over 1.4 million views. No doubt a couple of Nintendo employees saw it.

How do you feel about this direction? While Nintendo has a right, nay an obligation, to protect their IP, to have so much work basically destroyed is definitely painful. It's also a huge blow to the community as a whole, as many were anticipating this hack above all others.

(Thus ends my first, and possibly last article)

I am surprised you of all people chose to write something about this. I was reading stuff about it earlier on reddit but people there keep talking about how somebody is going to leak the final product.
If that happens though can't something happen to the guy that made for having copies of the file out to some people even if it was before the DMCA notice?
Mostly they were saying they should leak the IPS file for it since it is technically not the rom but contains the data to make the game Prism. People also don't want him to release since they don't want the creator to get in more legal trouble for trying to circumvent.

I just know I was really hoping to play it and I was actually planning to replay Brown so I can refresh myself on how unique his hacks are compared to most others in the GB/GBC area.

The only thing that bothers me is that Nintendo targets either place like here which has a ton of their stuff not just pokemon and people that are extremely popular. If they were to be fair not to say they should but would in my opinion seem like a better thing is take down all rom hacks/fangames. Not just the ones that are very public.

Basically is it fair to hackers/makers of fan games to only down ones that are public and leave the rest alone? No not really but when trying to do stuff without involving Nintendo you really do need to lay low and try avoiding their radar which we are also caught in.

pokemon x :

It's not a well-known fact, but the reason I ever joined Vizzed in the first place was Pokemon hacks.

I keep a close eye on the community, and enjoy rom-hacking. I was actually planning to release my own game at some point, but with nowhere to really host it, and a fear of legal issues, I've basically been dissuaded from picking up the tools again and actually finishing my project.

I want to play the finished product too, but I don't think that will happen. I have Uranium on my PC, but I downloaded it before the files were taken down (and before the DMCA). With Prism, any circumnavigation will be seen as a breach of copyright, and give Nintendo a legal right to sue. In short, Prism is dead, with no hopes of a legal circumnavigation.

I love Nintendo, but I am growing to hate their iron tight grip on their IPs when it comes to hacking. Would Prism really alter Nintendo's sales much? I don't believe so. It's only hardcore fans that generally find and play these hacks.

Who honestly needs pokemon when Ash Ketchum can just stuff a DMCA notice in his pokeball and defeat any enemy far and wide? The lawyers probably got the theme song cranked up as they issue their takedown notices. Another sad day for pokefans across the world. But this is Nintendo, can't say I'm shocked because they are hellbent on catching em all (IP pirates).

At this point, I'm not surprised. Anytime I hear about a project related to Nintendo products but made by independent developers, I can already tell it's gonna get shut down eventually, and this was no exception. I first heard about this game by listening to some of the soundtrack. The only thing that pisses me off to no end is that Nintendo disregards the fact that developers put their heart and soul into this game and wait until the last minute to shut it down, and they show no remorse for doing so. I'm going to quote a tweet I saw from Haedox: "I like Nintendo as a game developer, but not as a company."

You do realize we have 50 threads that are Nintendo shuts X down? And they wonder why indie games are taking over. Like you can only smack a dog so many times before it out right bites back, and Nintendo doesn't seem to understand why more and more veterans are leaving by the day. Sure they have new kids who don't know what Nintendo really is, but soon they will want more than just the games, and when that happens Nintendo won't give them any coverage unless they get money from it.

legacyme3 :

legacyme3 : I completely agree. I don't get why they're going after rom-hackers who are just trying to make their own fan games. Now going after people who were getting the Sun and Moon 3ds roms before the game was released and console banning them on the other hand is awesome, but going after people making fan games makes no sense. They should embracing that kind of thing, not try to destroy it.

Pokemonfan1000 :

I think if they do that it's still possible to bring them to court. Not 100 percent sure on that, though.

My personal thought about them waiting to 'shut down' a fan game or ROM hack project at the last minute before it's released is because they want to be extra careful about being jerks as to protect their legal IP. I mean it makes perfect sense, they know about said rom hack for 8 years, then at last minute days before it's completion they issue a DMCA notice (total jerks).

Leaks for this are confirmed, I'm gonna get my copy before it's too late.

I want to witness the 9 years of development. I think it'll be good.

yoshirulez! :

If you get a download, low-key find a way to send me a copy as well.

This is another reason,I hope Nintendo burns in hell. It is a fan made project,nothing more. This is why Nintendo of present day needs to be destroyed. Just another reason I refuse to buy anything Nintendo,I hope the Switch backfires on them,and that they go broke. But they have more than enough money with Pokemon GO.

Dammit Nintendo! I really wanted to play Prisim! I can't freaking believe they pulled the plug. It has got to be heartbreaking to hve an 8 year long project end like that...

And they just keep going....this is annoying since I started to play pokemon brown not long ago....the more I hear about these the more I get annoyed. I started to love pokemon hack games years ago....but now seeing this? Its really hard deal with, but its life. I think I'm gonna have to at least download the hack games I want before its tool late. Seems to me Nintendo is going after all of them, and they will not stop until they have seen all of the hack games destroyed or no longer around....

It's very unfortunate that the rom hack will never be released. I still remember sometime last year when Nintendo attacked Vizzed and removed 4,000+ games.

What's really painful is the fact that the developers worked 8 years on the game, only to see that the game would never be released because of Nintendo. 8 years of work all for nothing.

deggle : I feel like that should be a trusted+ thing like underground but guess making user+ helps a lot but makes it easier for Nintendo to find. (Too lazy to find the thread on how to the hidden to certain rank stuff)

Also I saw that it was leaked on reddit before hear since I was just browsing on my phone but hopefully the creator doesn't get in trouble for people leaking it.

pokemon x : Yeah I kind of forgot all the tags so I thought I think user+ is this I tried. Also I was looking it seemed to have been leaked on a few different platforms I got my copy from a bad source 4chan, but hey at least I haven't gotten a virus xD and the game works perfectly. So I'm happy about it either way. 

deggle : I don't think we should put it in a thread at all. Links to Nintendo ROMs in threads are banned, because it is dangerous regardless of what it's tagged as.
I'm pretty sure Lieutenant Vickz' post containing complete romsets of lost Nintendo ROMs was ordered to be removed as well, and if I recall correctly they were in tags. Let's not do this.

If someone wants the ROM we can just PM it to them.. speaking of which, I uploaded a clean copy of it to Puush and it's in a zip so I can give that to people who want to use it with the load-your-own-games feature.