Pokemon Online taunts Nintendo's lawyers
by John Bardinelli 
{ Mar 4th 2007 at 7:35PM }
A group of dedicated Pokemaniacs have slathered what we like to call "lawyer bait" all over their massively-multiplayer online RPG project called, creatively enough, Pokemon Online. In a move sure to attract those slippery law-hounds, POL is even using Nintendo's own artwork, game assets and displays advertisements on their site.The game is in early beta stages and you can't do much more than run around and get into a few simple battles for now. Who knows how far they'll get before the inevitable flood of cease-and-desist paperwork arrives? It's a shame, too -- Pokemon is one of those franchises that begs to be MMORPG-ized. Rename the project, slap a new logo on there and overhaul the graphics and POL might just survive. Otherwise, prepare for massive damage.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Patryk @ Mar 4th 2007 7:49PM
Is there any word if the two new Pokemon coming out for the DS will have any WiFi love?
Mainman @ Mar 4th 2007 7:51PM
...And any hope that the project had of being completed goes down the drain by being covered on a major gaming blog. Bravo, guys.
I Slap People @ Mar 4th 2007 8:09PM
Patryk -Yes
LaughingTarget @ Mar 4th 2007 8:10PM
Hehe, they use the little copyright symbol all over the website as if Pokemon was their invention.
Sam G. @ Mar 4th 2007 8:12PM
Denny Crane, use Denny Crane attack!!
Denny Crane!
Megaqwerty @ Mar 4th 2007 8:13PM
I believe that the Japanese games support online battles, but knowing Nintendo, they would remove something that awesome lest the vast majority of America explode. Or because they want you to buy Pokemon Battle Revolution.
I was "playing" POL not too long ago and the avatar sprites appeared to be original. While it would take forever to make 300+ unique sprites, they have to be crazy to use the original sprites.
Kool_Kid_Joe @ Mar 4th 2007 8:25PM
Uh...
http://www.pokemononline.org/forum/showpost.php?p=118932&postcount=33
Doesn't look like Nintendo's too worried with this.
Grey Acumen @ Mar 4th 2007 9:09PM
Actually, I kinda hope nintendo finds out, and then finds out just how much support the place has, and then realizes that they had better get their asses in gear on doing an official MMORPG.
AwesomeStuff @ Mar 4th 2007 8:28PM
Hurry and come out already Diamond and Pearl!! ;___;
Denney @ Mar 4th 2007 8:22PM
See i thought they should have made an online world for the gamecube where you could build up a team on your cube then take them in to a online world and battle and team up with other people.
but there is going to be some problems i mean what whould they do about legenday pokemon. but hey if it happens i would be glad to sign my life away.
Xanto @ Mar 4th 2007 8:34PM
@8
Beat me to it
Slaziman @ Mar 4th 2007 8:52PM
lulz nintendo is nice
John B @ Mar 4th 2007 10:01PM
That forum post says Nintendo doesn't care as long as a profit isn't being made. The site has ads, so it makes the idea of not profiting from the game a bit fuzzy. Paying the server bills might not cut it.
Donald @ Mar 4th 2007 8:55PM
"It's a shame, too -- Pokemon is one of those franchises that begs to be MMORPG-ized."
Long form: Except the proletariat (aka noobs) would get pissy when they wouldn't be able to use their legends in battle, and NOA hasn't been able to cause systems that use Action Replays and related devices to self-destruct yet.
Short form: DO NOT WANT
John @ Mar 4th 2007 9:06PM
Well I dont think running adsense runs a risk of a lawsuit.
Selling the game for money, or if its subscription based would definatly result in claim, and Nintendo I hear has some mean lawyers.
In any case, I hope the project goes by smoothly, perhaps nintendo can benifit by seeing how it goes, and applying any good concepts to its own future releases of Pokemon.
In regards to an MMORPG, the only thing hindering that inevitable reality for the pokemon series is the use of friend codes and the infancy of Nintendos online platform.
Johnny @ Mar 4th 2007 9:08PM
Well I dont think running adsense runs a risk of a
lawsuit.Selling thegame for money, or if its subscription based would definatly result in
claim, and Nintendo I hear has some mean lawyers.
In any case, I hopethe project goes by smoothly, perhaps nintendo can benifit by seeing how it goes, and applying any good concepts to its own future
releases of Pokemon.
In regards to an MMORPG, the only thing
hindering that inevitable reality for the pokemon series is the use of friend codes and the infancy of Nintendos online platform.
REUYL @ Mar 4th 2007 9:29PM
Well if Nintendo ain't gonna give us a Pokemon MMORPG, a bunch of geeks might as well.
I'd play it.
SWAT Doctor @ Mar 4th 2007 10:00PM
Nintendo shouldn't sue this guy, they should hire this guy.
A Pokemon MMORPG would have the potential to take on World of Warcraft as the Supreme Online game.
kitt @ Mar 4th 2007 10:28PM
boston legal, good show
gui7arh3ro @ Mar 8th 2007 1:25PM
NINTENDO GAVE PERMISSION FOR POKEMON ONLINE TO OPERATE!
Mossflower @ Mar 4th 2007 11:28PM
This looks like a fun game, actually. But I've had trouble connecting to the game server.
samfish @ Mar 5th 2007 12:11AM
Well, at least SOMETHING Nintendo-related is going online in 2007...
Cowie @ Mar 5th 2007 12:23AM
i sincerely doubt that whole 'sent a letter' thing checks out..
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faq.jsp#graphics
from the faq:
"While we are grateful for all the requests for permission to use Nintendo properties, we are not able to grant such requests. We receive thousands of requests and we do not have adequate staffing to review them all. Therefore, our general policy is to decline requests for permission for the use of Nintendo properties.
Although we are not able to grant permission, use of Nintendo's properties without formal permission by Nintendo may still be allowed under the relevant laws of the particular jurisdiction involved. Thus, we encourage you to seek your own legal counsel if you have any questions about whether your particular proposed use is permitted without Nintendo's authorization. Nintendo cannot provide legal advice."
chances are that's what he got.. if you email nintendo you get a form response that says that, and i doubt he sent them snail mail to be honest. Chances are they're counting on it being ok to use the graphics in their project if they don't make money from it, but i wouldn't count on that holding up if the project gets big enough to care about.
Mank @ Mar 5th 2007 1:08AM
22, me too. IIRC, Graal Online was "Zelda Online" until the lawyers came.
A Pokemon MMORPG would be horrible in this day and age, since there would be way too many 8 year olds with 6 level 100 legendaries with absolutely no idea how to use them. I'll just stick to Diamond & Pearl's friend code battling, methinks.
scepia @ Mar 5th 2007 1:08AM
Well, they have AdSense... so, for all intents and purpose, they are making money.
Bluebreaker @ Mar 5th 2007 1:11AM
This project proves one thing:
Playing together (via Game Link) Fun.
Playing together without leaving home (via online) Sublime.
mrspunky @ Mar 5th 2007 12:35PM
The "okayed" email from Nintendo was faked; they've been kicked off a bunch of game development websites for editing a cease & desist letter from one of Nintendo's lawyers.
Beware of signing up for this.
Promit Roy @ Mar 5th 2007 1:35AM
I'm a moderator at GameDev.Net, which is a fairly popular community for hobbyist, amateur, indie, and pro game developers. Some time back, Pokemon Online posted a thread in the forums asking for contributors.
Several members raised concerns about the legal status of the project. The poster assured us that Nintendo had authorized the project, and went so far as to post a copy of the letter that Nintendo had sent him, authorizing the project. We thought this was a little unusual, to say the least.
Another moderator contacted a legal firm who represents Nintendo and whose signature appeared on the letter which the POL developer had presented. We were informed that the letter in question has been forged and that Nintendo had never given any sort of consent.
So just remember. They're not just copyright violators, they're liars. If they tell you they have been granted permission to do any of this, they're just making it up.
Andi Smith @ Mar 5th 2007 3:11AM
Talking of ripping Nintendo's graphics, this page on their website makes me laugh:
http://www.pokemononline.org/platinum/sprites/trainers/
siro @ Mar 5th 2007 3:56AM
Still undefeated.
Never lost, never will.
Denny Crane.
/case won
Archaic @ Mar 5th 2007 6:56AM
My name is Liam Pomfret, more commonly known as Archaic, and I'm the webmaster of Bulbagarden, a popular Pokémon fansite, and host of the original POL project, back in 2000-2001.
Haris, the organiser of this new POL project, contacted me on occasions throughout 2006, first attempting to get his project hosted by me (which we refused, citing concerns by our former staff member and original POL programmer Konidas), and then asking for affiliation with me. On July 6th last year, I received an email from him, showing a supposed email he had recieved from Melissa Morgan Nelson at Perkins Coie LLP (ie. Nintendo's laywers), showing that he had received permission for the project.
That of course was a baldfaced lie. While I assumed as much from the beginning, I did contact Melissa, who confirmed that fact for me.
I'd be most happy to put up copies of my email correspondence with both Haris and Melissa, should anyone want to see them.
Long story short...this POL project is a stain on the Pokémon internet fandom. Haris has been banned or blocked on every respectable Pokémon forum, with his posts and those promoting POL deleted on sight.
Hopefully, after an article like this, on such a well visited site, perhaps the news will get around a little more, and NoA might actually decide to follow it up and shut it down. They've turned a blind eye with community projects like Netbattle before (even allowing threads discussing it to be stuck at the top of their official forums), but that's where the thing was run by respected members of the fandom. This....well, to say that it isn't would be an understatement.
Anonymous @ Mar 5th 2007 6:58AM
Havent read the website, but looked at the screenshots - is there a reason for Kakashi from Naruto being in a 'Pokemon' game? o.O
alex @ Mar 5th 2007 7:06AM
People still play/care about Pokemon ? Wow.
Kris @ Mar 5th 2007 1:22PM
I'm surprised that people consider stat grind rpg's of any sort still playable.
CubeGuy @ Mar 5th 2007 8:35AM
@alex
At the risk of sounding odd, there are a lot of students at my college that play the Pokemon games. A lot of us played the originals ten years ago, and it's part of our childhood (plus, we get bored... really bored).
I'm pretty sure there was an interview with the Pokemon Directors... *finds and adds to post* ...about making a universal RPG to appeal to all ages. Put aside the now sub-par anime and card game, and the Pokemon franchise actually has a winning formula (though I haven't tried to catch them all since Red/Blue).
We almost bought out our local stores' supply of the GBA games. I've got a ROM dumper too, so sometimes we play via WiFi/Visual Boy Advance/Laptops during long lectures by the professors. =3
(Before the flaming begins, be aware that our campus firewall blocks torrent, ROM, and other warez sites.)
CubeGuy @ Mar 5th 2007 8:36AM
Ugh... Why didn't it post?
http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/514/514962p1.html
sheppy @ Mar 5th 2007 9:09AM
It will be shut down, without a doubt.
BUT, personally, I feel the pokemon series has gotten quite lazy. I even went online to see some videos of Diamond/Pearl and I was shocked to see animation still equated to moving sprites up and down. Note to Nintendo: Even Dragon Quest learned animation was important.
Pawsie @ Mar 5th 2007 10:06AM
I really doubt nintendo cares ... if anything, it's cheap advertisement :). I don't really care for the project... so I'm indifferent about the outcome. If it works, great, if not, too bad.
But that won't stop me from getting a pokemon for my DS
generaldane @ Mar 5th 2007 11:35AM
http://www.pokemononline.org/platinum/sprites/trainers/
Lmao :D
Archaic @ Mar 5th 2007 5:51PM
@mrspunky
Actually, as best as we can tell, they've never actually received any cease and desist letters. It seems the people at Perkins Coie LLP hadn't even heard of the thing, before we sent them our message back in July last year.
Denny Crane @ Mar 5th 2007 10:07PM
Denny Crane.
Kakashi @ Apr 3rd 2007 12:26AM
Hello, I'm a former admin at POL. My alias was Kakashi, and most of you who saw the Kakashi sprite in one of the screenshots, glimpsed my character in-game. Anyway, all these posts declaring Haris' claims about getting permission from Nintendo are false, are just bs. Haris has indeed gotten an O.K. from Nintendo and so have many other fan-made projects. We've stayed non-profit throughout this entire time. Questions about Ad-Sense? The ads are just there so we can get money to continue paying for the server that hosts the website and fora.
Jorgur @ Apr 12th 2007 2:45PM
Kakashi, is there any way you can prove that the ad income goes entirely to web hosting? If not, then I can't see how you can call yourself non-profit.
KyoTukana @ Apr 17th 2007 8:57PM
Lmfao, first of all, the OWNER "Haris" of this project sent a letter to the nintendo coorporation, asking if he could, he just can't make profits off it from the game itself. and if you looked a lil bit more at the sprites they are a lil different then nintendos so haha and yes I am from pol. retards..
Xadow @ Apr 25th 2007 4:58PM
Well, it's true that Pokemon Online is a crappy name. But, it's a good idea and if nintendo closes this down, it will cause massive protest by people around the world, especially if they close it down just as it's getting released.
But, I'm sure Nintendo won't do that, because the 4th generation seems to be the last region of Pokemon. Otherwise, having more than 4 generations is kind of stupid, since there'll be too many Pokemon to keep track of.
flagship @ May 20th 2007 10:21PM
One thing about the AdSense. If they were making profits off AdSense, how are they making profits? From ads, that is, they are making proftis from ads. In other words, you, the Internet surfer, can download the client for FREE, create an account for FREE, and see the loaded ads for FREE. You can also view the sprites and other property for FREE. Having your ads posted by POL admins is another story though, that is, it is not free. From the conclusions, I signed up for POL because I'm a fan of Pokemon.