Video Game News and Miscellany

AshburnerX

AshburnerX

I'll say this again: Nintendo's biggest problem is that it doesn't see itself as a video game company, it sees itself as a bastion of Japanese culture and a brand with special merit simply due to it's own history. This is why you pay 5-10 bucks for NES-SNES roms (when their real value is really more like 1-2 bucks); they fear that dropping the price on anything with the Nintendo label (aside from the systems) is "devaluing the brand". Basically, they see Nintendo products as artisan products, not as commodities like the rest of us.

A lot of this has to do with the aging board of Nintendo and the general age of it's auteurs; Miyamoto is 66, Satoshi Tajiri is 55, Reggie is 57... but this is starting to change. Yusuke Amano (Splatoon) is 37 and is basically the youngest person at the company with any "ideas" sway. Shuntaro Furukawa is only 46 and heads the board, which is increasingly giving into shareholder demands that Nintendo get it's head out of it's ass and actually DO things with it's IP. Things are a-changin' at Nintendo, but we probably won't see BIG changes until Miyamoto and Reggie retire.

Regardless... you can make a system that plays every NES, SNES, N64, and GC game for the price of a controller, a Raspberry Pi, a 1tb SSD, and a cardboard box and it will do it better than anything Nintendo will EVER put out. Nintendo can make this HARDER but the genie's out of the bottle and it's not going away... the tapes will be circulated one way or another. Until they can address the discrepancy between the perceived value of their products and the actual, real world value of their products, Nintendo will NEVER be the powerhouse company it should be.
 
Dei

Dei

At the same time, the pride Nintendo takes in itself means that I have a lot more consumer confidence when I buy a game made directly by Nintendo.
 
Null

Null

Dei said:
At the same time, the pride Nintendo takes in itself means that I have a lot more consumer confidence when I buy a game made directly by Nintendo.
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Yeah I mean there's no doubt that Nintendo usually provides a quality product compared to the rest of the market. But they don't make enough of them to take advantage of their position, leading to a long lag team between major releases, which allows the competition to recapture their target audience.
 
Dei

Dei

Null said:
Yeah I mean there's no doubt that Nintendo usually provides a quality product compared to the rest of the market. But they don't make enough of them to take advantage of their position, leading to a long lag team between major releases, which allows the competition to recapture their target audience.
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Do the other consoles actually make things on their own? Nintendo puts their own brand out pretty regularly now, and third parties are excited enough about the Switch to start ramping up games for it now. So I don't know if I agree.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
This is why Nintendo really should not fear piracy via emulation. People want to pay to get things that are easy and good.
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Heck, at this point, unless Nintendo has actually destroyed all the plans, they could fab dedicated SOCs for each obsolete system with the actual original logic and bake them with an upscaler into HDMI-capable boxes with ports on the front for original controllers, and easily be able to sell them for US$149...but then complain that they only made 30mil profit instead of 50mil profit.

...and also that people would extract the SOCs and remount/remix them, which of course is their real worry.

—Patrick
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Julie is the one who discovered the discontinuation, and she insisted we go out and buy one immediately while supplies last. She didn't take into account how much either of us wanted to use it right now, only that if we wanted to later, it wouldn't be available.

So now we have it, and I'm not sure how great an idea this was. It's adorable and well-made; the menu is nice. But I'm not sure if this thing is going to get $80 use here. Part of that being how short the cords are. I might have to get extensions for the controllers. The other issues are more personal with our entertainment unit, essentially that the SNES mini will need to be packed up and unpacked every time we want to use it, and I have a strong feeling that when it's time to go "What should we play tonight?" that means we'll pick one of the newer consoles that doesn't need to be hooked up and such.

I say that having just sat down to mess around with it. Goofing around with Super Ghouls & Ghosts, a series I've never been any good at, isn't a great litmus test. I might feel differently when I sit down with the abject goal of playing something.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Hailey Zero Mission said:
Julie is the one who discovered the discontinuation, and she insisted we go out and buy one immediately while supplies last. She didn't take into account how much either of us wanted to use it right now, only that if we wanted to later, it wouldn't be available.

So now we have it, and I'm not sure how great an idea this was. It's adorable and well-made; the menu is nice. But I'm not sure if this thing is going to get $80 use here. Part of that being how short the cords are. I might have to get extensions for the controllers. The other issues are more personal with our entertainment unit, essentially that the SNES mini will need to be packed up and unpacked every time we want to use it, and I have a strong feeling that when it's time to go "What should we play tonight?" that means we'll pick one of the newer consoles that doesn't need to be hooked up and such.

I say that having just sat down to mess around with it. Goofing around with Super Ghouls & Ghosts, a series I've never been any good at, isn't a great litmus test. I might feel differently when I sit down with the abject goal of playing something.
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On the plus side, manufactured supply shortage means that, after it is discontinued, there may be a rush for second-hand models at a markup, so you could end up selling it for more than you paid for it if you decide not to keep it.

If you want to sell it, I wouldn't hold onto it for too long though, as I assume demand would drop after the initial panic.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Ravenpoe said:
On the plus side, manufactured supply shortage means that, after it is discontinued, there may be a rush for second-hand models at a markup, so you could end up selling it for more than you paid for it if you decide not to keep it.

If you want to sell it, I wouldn't hold onto it for too long though, as I assume demand would drop after the initial panic.
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I'm giving it a two-week trial.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

It's fundamentally the same situation that Netlflix and other streaming platforms find themselves in; consumers want consolidated libraries so they only need a single password and login. They might budge for a few high profile or niche titles (EA stuff mostly) but fundamentally, people aren't spreading their purchases along different platforms unless there is a good reason for it.

- GOG exists because of it's old game library; gamers wanted retro titles that worked and they obliged. People seem to be pretty okay with GOG and GOGGalaxy.
- Origin exists but not to the degree that EA wants; people who can't live without EA titles have it but plenty of people are happy to skip those and EA doesn't provide the retro support that Steam or GOG offer.
- Blizzard has the WoW crowd by the balls, but Activision hasn't really been able to break into the scene through it. They literally had to give away Destiny 2 to get people to play it.
- Most other attempts at clients are ether for MMOs or online only titles; I might use ARC to play STO, but I'm sure as hell not buying SUBNAUTICA on it.

However, I do see an issue here. Unlike Netflix, Steam and other storefronts don't need to pay developers for access to their product. This means the cost of operating a storefront is basically minimal. Origin's maintenance and development costs are a drop in the bucket for EA, so there really isn't ANY reason to make it go away. Even if they went back to Steam, it's not like Valve demands exclusivity for it's storefront; they could still keep Origin running for people who prefer the service. As such, this is basically a problem that can only get worse... ether Valve becomes increasingly anti-consumer and consolidates the market or EVERYBODY makes a storefront.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Epic is getting sued over its fortnite dances. Alfonso Ribeiro wants dat money. And so do a growing list of other celebrities and performers.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/fortnite-dances-epic-sued/

Now, I'm far from a Fortnite fan, but I'm kinda questioning whether a "dance" can be considered copyrighted intellectual property. Maybe these folks just think Epic will pay them to shut up and go away, like they did with PUBG's lawsuit.
 
Dei

Dei

I don't mind Fortnight, but some dances are pretty iconic. If they haven't been officially copyrighted though, I don't know.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Nathan Barnatt (whose "No Bones" dance is also in Fortnite) talks about what it takes to copyright a dance



TLDW: For a dance to be copyrighted, it has to be a specific coreography sequence with a specific set of exact movements over a predefined time period that ends... so it sounds like Carlton Banks might be SOL since it's just a couple steps on repeat (same with No Bones and other short, repeated dance moves) but the Scrubs dance might apply - assuming it was copyrighted, which I am guessing it was not.

Even the Macarena is not copyrighted.
 
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GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
bhamv3 said:
I could swear I've seen the Carlton dance in other games before. Saints Row, maybe?
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They didn't charge money for it there (other than the cost of the whole game of course). Here, it is easily said that Epic made X amount of money SPECIFICALLY from selling dance Y.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Dei said:
Well there was a full length version of The Carlton on DWTS. Might count.
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Right, but as long as the emote doesn't match that entire DWTS sequence, movement for movement, running the same amount of time, it's not the "same dance" in the eyes of the copyright office.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Nathan Barnatt (whose "No Bones" dance is also in Fortnite) talks about what it takes to copyright a dance



TLDW: For a dance to be copyrighted, it has to be a specific coreography sequence with a specific set of exact movements over a predefined time period that ends... so it sounds like Carlton Banks might be SOL since it's just a couple steps on repeat (same with No Bones and other short, repeated dance moves) but the Scrubs dance might apply - assuming it was copyrighted, which I am guessing it was not.

Even the Macarena is not copyrighted.
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A work is copyrighted the moment it is created, assuming it does, in fact, qualify for copyright. You DO need to formally register it in the US if you want to sue for damages regarding it, but this is the only "formal" part of the process. You can license it, send cease and desist, and file DMCA without formal registration though. This is probably why Epic has been settling; they don't want Fortnite videos featuring these dances to get hit with strikes on Youtube, who wouldn't give two shits about the legal status.

Whether or not this qualifies for copyright (or if the artist in question owns the dance, since it might belong to NBC) are the REAL questions.
 
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