This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
Link's Awakening DX HD is a fully custom port that adds high framerate and widescreen support, autosaving, and even a world editor.
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Game looks cool, but I always have mixed feelings about articles like this. On the one hand it helps raise awareness about the game to the people who want to play it, but it also helps raise awareness about the game to the people who are going to send the cease-and-desist letter.
I'm pretty sure devs are fully aware of what's going to happen which is why they avoided putting their names on the project and included the source code.
Hammer was always going to come down since they included game assets in the build - news articles won't really change much on this matter,
It blows me away that people do these incredible projects but just for the thrill of to see if they can.
Just imagine what people would do if they didn't have to work anymore!
Probably just sit on their asses and wither, I'm sure. No one will do cool projects that many will benefit from.
I don't think it's entirely on the thrill of seeing if they can, it's also a passion project from their love of the original. They put it out there so people can enjoy the game in a fresh way, the way the devs want it to be able to be experienced.
Including a trademarked term right in the title is the thing that gets most fan projects. It's a multiplier for takedowns, it can't get any easier for companies than running a simple script that just searches Itch/Gamejolt/Github for terms and then doing a mass takedown of the results. And that will even catch things with 3 downloads.
Sure user-added* or redone assets could help, but just distancing the name would help a lot more. Having 100% new assets won't stop a takedown if you use trademarked terms (see DMCA's Sky), and the DMCA system doesn't really discourage overstepping unless somebody has the willingness/money/time to take it to court.
*=image detection could be a thing as well though, so be careful with screenshots especially with a logo
Of course, I hope my comment didn't imply otherwise. Unfortunately even a different title and completely original assets (AM2R?) won't help much with some companies.
Good enough project will catch their eye sooner or later anyway.