What happens when you make a jam game that mashes two existing titles together, Super Mario and No Man's Sky, and the long arm of the law comes down on you?
Mainstream media is jumping onto the topic of video games more often these days but there is one aspect they keep failing to touch on, the power of the central Asian markets and development communities. Countries like China and South Korea are turning out quality titles that we just don’t ever see here in the west. With more and more great games coming from our friends in Asia there is a lot of talent and big money being thrown around, we cast an inquisitive eye up there this week to see what’s going on.
Another week, another DMCA take down. Yet again Nintendo has taken another fan project off the net with its zero tolerance attitude towards any use of their intellectual property. No Mario Sky is the latest high profile casualty. We were lucky to talk to Sam Izzo the developer behind No Mario Sky and video game and entertainment lawyer Cam Rogers. The legal and creative minefield around the fan project is a difficult one to navigate, and Cam and Sam shared their stories. You can download DMCA’s Sky, the redesigned game made by Sam’s team ASMB Games here: http://asmb.itch.io/
Keeping the legal theme going this week we’ve more drama surrounding American development studio Digital Homicide. In addition to suing game reviewer Jim Sterling the studio has now filed a law suit against Steam users directly. Further attention was directed their way when the court documents were released online. No matter how ridiculous this may seem it has prompted Valve to act, swiftly making modifications to the steam reviews rules, which not everyone is happy with.
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