Nintendo has gained a bit of a reputation for its strict copyright policy. In the last few months alone, it filed several lawsuits against emulation sites, and is believed to have indirectly pressured ROM site EmuParadise into shutting down. Now, Nintendo has gone after a new target: 11-year old fan game creator, Pokémon Essentials.
The kit in question, a role-playing game maker, allowed users to design their own Pokémon adventures. According to Kotaku, the site used “full tilesets, maps, music, and sprites” from the official games, as well as all the classic mechanics required to catch and collect Pokémon. It was founded in 2007, and was used to create popular fan game Pokémon Uranium, which was shut down two years ago following a reported copyright notice from Nintendo. It was perhaps something of an inevitability, therefore, that Nintendo would target the root of the problem.
A member from forum PokéCommunity, Marin, announced they could no longer host the software on the community forums, stating “the Pokémon Essentials wikia and all downloads for it have been taken down due to a copyright claim by Nintendo of America”. Apparently, Pokémon Essentials will no longer be “hosted or distributed on PokéCommunity”. According to The Verge, the last known proprieter of the Pokémon Essentials, Maruno, has confirmed the downloads have been deleted, while the Fandom that hosted the wiki page has also stated Nintendo took action against it. Despite the bad news, Marin urged Pokémon fans not to “freak out about the claim,” adding “there’s no reason to get angry with Nintendo or anyone else involved”.
Source: Eurogamer Nintendo triggers takedown of 11-year-old tool used to build Pokémon fan games