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‘Cold-Blooded Business’: Nintendo Is Patent Trolling Palworld Because It Got Too Big
(www.404media.co)
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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Nintendo is one of the worst companies in the videogames world. They need to fail, and I really hope this next switch becomes something worse than WiiU and they disappear from the world.
However, they won't. Their fanatics won't let them. So I can only hope they double down in their anti consumer behaviour to screw as many customers as they can. Because honestly? If after all these years you keep buying a Pokémon game, you deserve to be scammed and abused as a customer.
Nintendo is famously one of the most cash rich companies out there. A fiscal report from last year indicated they had USD$9 billion in liquid assets.
Nintendo isn't going anywhere anytime soon and it has very little to do with whether or not fanatics "let them".
Well, I mean, if they are that rich, I'm partial to thinking that it's their fanatics' fault buying every shit they release. If a Pokémon game, being as bad as they are, keeps selling in the millions, nobody but their customers is to blame.
My hot take is that even before they flushed their goodwill down the toilet, they were a mediocre company. "Here, buy our 500 dollar console with graphics worse than your phone so you can play the Mario game that we added a magic hat to."
Worst and most expensive products in the industry.
Show me a platformer as good as Mario Odyssey not counting A Hat in Time, and I might stop buying from Nintendo. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are great games too. Saying that they don't offer anything valuable is misguided.
You have to buy their shitty overpriced console to play those. The value nosedives.
And psychonauts 1/2 are right there.
Also switch games are so easy to pirate and emulate lol, and it seems like switch 2 games might be easy too
Mario Odyssey is just Mario 64-2. New gimmicks on a traditional platformer. Not saying that it's bad, but it's not a masterpiece either.
Breath of the wild, sure. One of the greatest games made by Nintendo, it redefined the open world genre, but tears of the kingdom is just more of the same, now with cars.
They offer something valuable? Sure... Sometimes they do something good, but the amount of bullshit they bring the videogames world is so big that any good thing they make is strongly eclipsed by the rest of what they do.
Calling odyssey Mario 64 v2 is like calling Doom Eternal Doom 1993 v3. There are a LOT of changes they've made to 3D Mario games mechanically that makes Odyssey a much better platformer than even Galaxy and Sunshine, let alone Mario 64. Yeah, if you look at the story it's still a Mario game. But if you're playing a platformer for the story then you're fundamentally not the audience for a Mario game (or really a good portion of 2D/3D platformers)
I personally despise Nintendo as a company for all of their legal nonsense but I will admit that besides the way Game Freak ruined Pokemon, most of their first party titles are pretty good games.
From what I can tell they are also one of the only large game publishers that shows any amount of care for their game devs. Ignoring the fake Miyamoto quote about rushed games, they've also said in interviews that they want developers to have work-life balances and that they would rather delay games instead of having crunches. The only examples of crunch I could find were (ironically enough) Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and the original Metroid Prime. (If there are more recent ones my opinion of them would probably be the opposite though)
Counter point: PS5 Pro is au$1200 vs Switch OLED for au$540
Counter counterpoint Ps5 pro is modern hardware. Switch internals were outdated at launch and they still cost the same as 7 years ago.
Ps: I do believe Ps5 pro is stupidly overpriced, but that doesn't mean Switch isn't.
Edit: typo
There's no doubt they've created some very good games in the past. Some of their games have become the standard in their genre, and some others have created a new genre even.
But that can't justify their shitty behavior. Especially now that they only create crap. Sure, breath of the wild was huge, made some incredible things, etc. But what else? Mario Odyssey is just mario 64 v.2, animal crossing? Let's not talk about that shit, and I think Pokémon doesn't even deserve to be mentioned.
What? Instead of them acting bad and overprotective about their games, you'd rather the games didn't exist at all? That doesn't make sense. There are problems with the company, but they still make good games. It's not like they mistreat their employees or anything (as far as I'm aware).
Question: What happens if they do disappear like you want? Nintendo fans stop getting the games they like... and how does this benefit everyone else?
Also saying someone deserves to be scammed because they are uninformed is weird. Some people just don't read gaming discourse and reviews, they're not obligated to. And some people actually like the games despite their flaws, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve a better game.
First, they are not overprotective with their games. They are suing for patent infringement over bullshit because in Japan they own patents for things as stupid as "riding a creature in a game". And this is what's happening here. They are hampering progress because they want to be the only one in the monster catching genre. They can vigorously fuck off.
If Nintendo disappears, someone else will come. So many companies died and nothing happened. It's a videogame, they're not making life-saving devices.
If someone buys a Pokémon game now they are rarely uninformed, they are rewarding a company for their shitty behaviour. It's not the first Pokémon and it's not the first time Nintendo acts shitty. But their fanatics will keep defending the company no matter what. At that point, what else can you expect? It's like buying an EA game and then crying because it's full of micro transactions and useless dlcs, etc.
Also, yeah, if you're uninformed and get scammed over stuff that's been happening for years, it's all on you. Fool me once and all that.
I agree that they can fuck off with the patent thing. I'm not trying to defend their actions. Also yeah, if someone buys a pokemon game after not liking the previous one, then cries about it being bad, that's on them. But not all of them have played one of the bad ones before. Although I guess if you don't research before you buy, you can't be too surprised. Also you have to keep in mind that the people complaining about the pokemon games online aren't the majority of the people buying it. Most people buying them just want a pokemon game and don't care too much about it's quality as long as it still has what they like. Although that doesn't excuse all the bugs and stuff.
But with Nintendo disappearing, how does that benefit anyone? If you don't like Nintendo games, you can already just not play them. People buying them buy them because they like them. Them disappearing doesn't help people who do like Nintendo games, and it doesn't help people who don't like Nintendo games.
They have killed tons of fan games just because they have enough money to throw at lawyers so people won't even try to fight them.
They kill competition with these practices.
They are against emulation and game conservation while actively screwing consumers who try to legally play their games...
And the list goes on and on. They are a bad company that happens to make some good games. Those few good games are not enough to redeem them for the rest of what they do.
Edit: typo
Emulation still exists though. And the fan games are made by and for Nintendo fans. They usually also want to play the new Nintendo games as well, not just the fan games. And those fan games wouldn't exist without the Nintendo games they're inspired by. I mean, I guess if you only play old Nintendo games or fan games based on them, Nintendo disappearing could be good. But I would bet that there are many more people who want to play Nintendo's new games, and will want to play the ones that are released in the future, than people who only want to play old ones/fan games.
Edit: Also
So there should instead be 1 less company in the console space? That will increase competition?
Emulation exists despite Nintendo trying their best at every chance they have to destroy it. Not thanks to them.
And fan games exist only until Nintendo decides they have to be shut down. Which is frequently.
For the Nintendo future games? Well, what can I say? Again, it's a video game company. And as Palworld and others are showing, many others can do what Nintendo does in better ways. We won't have another mario if they close? There will be someone making a new platformer as good. There won't be a new Pokemon? We already have better alternatives.
But if they disappear, games like Palworld will have a chance without having to risk being sued over all this crap.
Edit: Nintendo is the one hoarding these patents that then they can weaponize against competition, so yeah, if they disappear, competition will get better because they won't have to be worried about being sued for things as dumb as putting a confirmation window after resuming a game from sleep.
Because if they kill Palworld, that proves they are willing to cross that line and deserve to be destroyed, and they very clearly WANT to destroy Palworld.