One thing that Nintendo has become very infamous for is their very strict measures on fan content, as well as emulation. There are many examples of this from the company over the years, but Nintendo has been very quiet in regards to why they actually do this in the first place.
Well, that has somewhat changed. Kotaku reached out to Nintendo for a response about the Gamecube/Wii emulator Dolphin being removed from Steam. Nintendo responded by saying that “Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers. This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo’s protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same”.
So, it seems that Nintendo thinks that emulation and ROMs hurts development and innovation. It doesn’t explain why the company has also targeted things like fan games, YouTube videos and game mods, but this is the first time Nintendo has provided some insight on why they’re so strict with it.
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