Super Mario Bros. Remastered coming to PC September 13th

[Veknoid_Outcast]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Veknoid_Outcast said:

I don’t understand why the creator is so confident Nintendo won’t intervene. And honestly the company has every right to.

Also, if you love the style and gameplay of Super Mario Bros., make a spiritual successor or something. Why rip off the name, aesthetics, characters, etc.? You’re inviting trouble.

The question is: Will this be a free game or a commercial title? And is the art ripped from Roms or recreated in another engine?

Nintendo has let free fangames live, like Abobo's Big Adventure or the recent Zelda II enhanced remake, both because they don't do anything commercial with them and in the second's case because all the art has been recreated from scratch in GameMaker 1.4, so Nintendo can't take a claim on the assets. If this one goes a similar road as the Zelda II remake, then Nintendo probably won't intervene because they don't have much legal footing if the art is original.

This is super interesting to me. So help me understand, because I’m unaware of the legal precedent. Even if the assets are built from scratch, they’re still designed to replicate the characters, backgrounds, level designs, etc. of a copyrighted property, right? And the game still bears a trademarked name.

I understand that Nintendo might not bother because it’s small potatoes — although the level editor functionality could cut into Super Mario Maker’s domain — but I don’t understand how the home-grown assets create a legal loophole.