Nintendo: how do we get free marketing?
Fans: I have an idea.
Nintendo shoots fan if only we could figure it out then we could make even more money!
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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They hate their own franchise and fans.
Let's just boycott them all together, and remind them that they were literally always nothing without us.
It really is a testament to the strength of Nintendo's (and Game Freak's) brand and characters that they can have so many fans, making so much awesome fan art and content, all while being the absolutely most abusive and toxic to those fans and artists.
Like, most creators and franchises would kill for a community to spring up, or for people to engage with their work outside of their work. They'd consider it free advertising, and in fact they sometimes even pay for contests and things like that to drum up some kind of fan community and momentum.
And then Nintendo is out here hunting momentum and affection wherever they can find it, and it keeps springing up despite that 😛
ill never understand why they do this. imagine how much more beloved and full of community nintendo could be. more than it already is
Is there any other game company that hates their fans as much as Nintendo?
Rockstar
And Bethesda. And Ubisoft.
They're just weird in general, I remember when they invited Achievement Hunter to show off some new game content for GTA V and they got upset by the swearing
You can’t swear in GTA that’s illegal
Steamforged Games surprise cancelled further production of the tabletop game Guild Ball in a statement they have since deleted from their website that said they made the perfect game, but the game was being played wrong by the players, whose fault it was that gameplay and the meta was becoming risk-averse and stagnant.
Ubisoft? They just show it a different way. By releasing the same games with a new coat of paint at a premium.
What is Pokemon?
Eh, Pokemon I think adds more per game generation than games like Assassin's Creed nowadays.
Red, Green, Blue, Yellow didn't need to be 4 different games or because that's unfair, it didn't need to be 3 different games.
Id say that's a bad choice of how to frame the newer game released is "just a coat of paint" issue. Id say you're raking the colors too literally. I wouldn't call special edition releases or director's cuts the same as just slapping a coat of paint on something. Especially when we're talking about a gaming world before DLC. The only way to upgrade a game or add new functionality was to release a new version of some kind. Would you consider a Game of the Year edition with all the DLC bundled a coat of paint? Or a Deluxe version that has unique skins?
Pokemon Red/Green specifically released as a paired game to take advantage of the Gameboy Link Cable, with the pokemon trading praised at the time as a great new concept. The split was intentional and promoted playing and trading with friends. The games played exactly the same, you just could only catch half the pokemon without trading with friends.
Blue in Japan was a special edition released with better graphics and extended dialogue. It was used as the base for the Red/Blue games released internationally.
Yellow was a special edition that tied into the Anime series, having Pikachu be the starter and refuse to stay in the pokeball so he followed you around, like Ash in the Anime, and the rival using an Eevee instead of the initial 3 starters like the previous versions. Otherwise it was nearly identical to Red/Blue, and should be treated as just a different version of the same game.
The next games released in the series then changed the region and pokemon entirely, creating the multiple generations Pokemon is known for.
Nintendo LITERALLY invented that concept with Super Mario AllStars on the SNES.
You think Nintendo invented Remakes and Remasters with Super Mario All-Stars? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_remake#History
ubisoft even tried to use propaganda through mythic quest show to "reinvent themselves"
Nope.
Parody is fair use. Fuck laws though, if you’re a corporation you just win.
True, though this isn't parody so much as it is transformative, which is also fair use. But the corporation had mother money for lawyers so fuck the rest of humanity I guess.
If that were the case, you could become an LLC and just win.
This doesn't seem like parody. It's just using their IP in your own content.
Ling Ling is parody.
Pikachu is not parody.
If anyone was confused.
They should do a pro gamer move and pivot to a pal world nature documentary
Damn, I'd have to start watching them then.
I've honestly never heard of this channel before, but this just seems dumb. It's like free advertising for Nintendo.
As usual Nintendo goes legally overboard for really no good reason at all. In this case honestly I don't even understand why Nintendo wasted their time. It's a YouTube channel, not a competitor.
The whole video is worth watching and the channel is great, but here's the TL;DW.
When Nintendo released Donkey Kong in America in 1981, Universal Pictures sued them for copyright infringement on that grounds that Donkey Kong was too similar to Universal's King Kong. Nintendo won because their lawyer, named Kirby, pointed out that back in 1933, RKO pictures successfully proved that the novel King Kong was public domain, so they didn't have to pay the author any royalties or licensing rights.
While they won, the experience was traumatic for Nintendo of America at the time. They were not lawyers; they were mostly Japanese programmers and engineers, and they really didn't want to go through such a costly legal case again. The solution was to aggressively defend their own brand so that nobody would ever be in any doubt as to who owns the copyright and trademarks.
Oh, and then there's money. Nintendo have some of the most valuable IPs on Earth; other companies would kill for just one thing as popular and recognisable as Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, StarFox, or even Metroid, let alone Pokémon. People also bring up that they're loaded, and that's true, but Nintendo's war chest isn't anywhere near as big as the likes of Sony and Microsoft. In a protracted legal battle, Nintendo would run out of money first, so again, their solution is to aggressively attack anything that could remotely weaken their own brand so as to stave off bigger legal battles in the future.
Are we arguing that Nintendo is just a scared and traumatized corporation that don't know no better?
You can if you wish. I'm giving the reason why Nintendo in particular is unusually litigious.
None of that makes them right to be so litigious. They're still huge cunts for attacking the people who love and support their work the most.
"you were having fun without paying us? this cannot stand."
It’s like free advertising for Nintendo.
eh, a lot of people have been Pokémon fans since childhood before they gave very much thought to such things as "advertising" or "copyright" or "corporations", and we find things like this entertaining. I think I may even have watched some of that channel's videos at some point, though am not sure whether I may be confusing it with another one.
Just Nintendo being shit, again, as usual.
And meanwhile, National Geographic didn't make even ONE complaint!
Do better, Nintendo.
Yeah I saw this the other day, sounds like Nintendo’s lawyers may have taken action because of the Patreon of all things?
It’s mind-blowing why they would do this. Just seems so needless.
Was the Patreon for the nature documentary series specifically, or for the creator as a whole?
If it's the former, I can see why Nintendo would think they'd have an opening to issue a takedown for someone who's monetizing and profiting off their IP.
It's why Yuzu and Ryujinx were met with a terrible fate after they paywalled early access builds that they advertised as being able to play BOTW/TOTK prior to release due to leaked copies breaking street date.
Aw man that's a fun channel too. I've enjoyed it greatly.