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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why does Nintendo let developers co-own their IP?

TheMisterManGuy on 01 August 2019

Usually, when a publisher takes in a game from a developer, the developer sells the rights to the idea. Meaning the publisher takes full ownership of all trademarks to the game and the contents that go with them, while the developers own nothing. Nintendo does things a bit differently. If you look at the copyright info for all of their non-in-house properties, you'll notice that most of them are jointly owned by their respective developers, in conjunction with Nintendo. Nintendo's really the only major publisher who let's most of their studios keep partial ownership of the IP. Why is that? 

Is it because Nintendo trusts developers more, or has some philosophy regarding letting developers keep some of their work?



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pokoko on 01 August 2019

Welp, you've convinced me. I haven't seen a case constructed so well since the OJ Simpson trial.



TheMisterManGuy on 01 August 2019
RolStoppable said:
You should list those games for a start, because I don't think it's true in the first place.

CaptainExplosion said:

^This.

pokoko said:
Welp, you've convinced me. I haven't seen a case constructed so well since the OJ Simpson trial.

Look at any Fire Emblem and Kirby title as an example. The Copyright notice is always "©20XX Nintendo/INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS".



dharh on 01 August 2019
TheMisterManGuy said:

Look at any Fire Emblem and Kirby title as an example. The Copyright notice is always "©20XX Nintendo/INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS".

That's your example?  They are practically a 2nd party developer.  This has a list of games from them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Systems

I'm actually surprised they haven't been turned into a 1st party developer.



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TheMisterManGuy on 01 August 2019
RolStoppable said:
TheMisterManGuy said:

Look at any Fire Emblem and Kirby title as an example. The Copyright notice is always "©20XX Nintendo/INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS".

Intelligent Systems is a branch of Nintendo's in-house development teams, so it's really just another name for Nintendo.

HAL Laboratory is independent. They came up with Kirby and Nintendo financially aided them.

Both of your examples date back to the early 1990s. That's three decades ago and hardly indicative of how Nintendo does business now.

IS is technically independent from Nintendo actually. They aren't listed as a subsidiary on the company's press sites. If you want a more recent example, Astral Chain. The copyright notice is "©2019 Nintendo/Platinum Games, Inc."



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Cerebralbore101 on 01 August 2019
TheMisterManGuy said:
RolStoppable said:

Intelligent Systems is a branch of Nintendo's in-house development teams, so it's really just another name for Nintendo.

HAL Laboratory is independent. They came up with Kirby and Nintendo financially aided them.

Both of your examples date back to the early 1990s. That's three decades ago and hardly indicative of how Nintendo does business now.

IS is technically independent from Nintendo actually. They aren't listed as a subsidiary on the company's press sites. If you want a more recent example, Astral Chain. The copyright notice is "©2019 Nintendo/Platinum Games, Inc."

Platinum Games owns the Astral Chain IP. Nintendo just publishes it. So it is not a co-owned IP. The copyright goes to both of them because Nintendo is the publisher. It is not the same as Nintendo owning the IP. 

Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - on 01 August 2019

TheMisterManGuy on 01 August 2019
Cerebralbore101 said:
TheMisterManGuy said:

IS is technically independent from Nintendo actually. They aren't listed as a subsidiary on the company's press sites. If you want a more recent example, Astral Chain. The copyright notice is "©2019 Nintendo/Platinum Games, Inc."

Platinum Games owns the Astral Chain IP. Nintendo just publishes it. So it is not a co-owned IP. The copyright goes to both of them because Nintendo is the publisher. It is not the same as Nintendo owning the IP. 

If Nintendo's name is in the copyright notice alongside Platinum's, then Nintendo owns half the IP. Meaning they have a say on what they can do with it. Astral Chain is owned by both Platinum and Nintendo.



mjk45 on 01 August 2019
TheMisterManGuy said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

Platinum Games owns the Astral Chain IP. Nintendo just publishes it. So it is not a co-owned IP. The copyright goes to both of them because Nintendo is the publisher. It is not the same as Nintendo owning the IP. 

If Nintendo's name is in the copyright notice alongside Platinum's, then Nintendo owns half the IP. Meaning they have a say on what they can do with it. Astral Chain is owned by both Platinum and Nintendo.

It doesn't mean that Platinum can't put Astral Chain 2 or something similar on another console,quite often they are game specific and used to safeguard the publishers investment in an IP they don't own.



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Bofferbrauer2 on 02 August 2019
TheMisterManGuy said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

Platinum Games owns the Astral Chain IP. Nintendo just publishes it. So it is not a co-owned IP. The copyright goes to both of them because Nintendo is the publisher. It is not the same as Nintendo owning the IP. 

If Nintendo's name is in the copyright notice alongside Platinum's, then Nintendo owns half the IP. Meaning they have a say on what they can do with it. Astral Chain is owned by both Platinum and Nintendo.

Yeah, it means Nintendo has the publishing rights. As in, they can decide where the game comes out, where and when it gets released. But that doesn't mean they own the IP.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 02 August 2019

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TheMisterManGuy on 02 August 2019
mjk45 said:

It doesn't mean that Platinum can't put Astral Chain 2 or something similar on another console,quite often they are game specific and used to safeguard the publishers investment in an IP they don't own.

It does. Platinum can't do anything regarding the Astral Chain IP unless Nintendo Signs-Off on it. Similar to how Platinum couldn't port their Sega published games to PC, unless Sega okays it

SpokenTruth said:

You are not wholly incorrect in your assumption as that is more often than not the actual case.  But IP ownership isn't as simple as a copyright. It can be timed, it can be name only, it can be for marketing/production/distribution purposes, etc...

We would have to ask either party how ownership is set up. The specifics would be in the contracts.

True, we're not exactly sure how the rights to Astral Chain is split up between Nintendo and Platinum. For all we know, Platinum could own the game's code, but the rights to the story, characters and music could all belong to Nintendo.

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Yeah, it means Nintendo has the publishing rights. As in, they can decide where the game comes out, where and when it gets released. But that doesn't mean they own the IP.

If your name is in the copyright notice, you own some of that work. As mentioned above, it's not as simple as this party owns this, and this owns that. You'd have to ask Nintendo and Platinum how ownership of the IP is split up.