News: Popular Minecraft Pokémon Mod Shut Down

[Radiating]

What do you think of this take down? Have you ever played the mod?

(Article by Z25)

 

[00.Archer]

This is sad.

 

[SirBoglor]

It needed to happen, but damn does this suck. I'll miss that mod.

 

[Masterge77]

Once again, another great fan-work a fan-made project that took years to make was shut down. First it was Pokemon Uranium, then it was Prism, and now they forced a crew to stop developing and updating the closest open world Pokemon experience we are most likely ever going to receive, the kind of game that we fans have wanted Game Freak to make for so long, but will likely never happen.

I mean, I never played Pixelmon (even though I've been playing Minecraft for years), but I knew a number of people who did and enjoyed the mod. I feel really bad for the people who made the mod and the people who played it.

 

[TequitoClown]

I understand why, but I had some good times with that mod. Very fun. Oh well.

 

[EC]

This is actually surprising to me. We getting a first person Switch game?

 

[Kartanaheart]

It really saddens me that I'll never be able to see Aegislash and Dhelmise in that mod after patiently waiting for years (for Aegislash, atleast)
This piled on top of the Soundcloud thing is too much bad news for me.

 

[Wobb]

:( I'm going to miss Pixelmon. I played the mod for 4 years (It's been a thing for 5 years) and I've had a lot of fun with Pixelmon. And now I'll never be able to have an Arceus or Sylveon or any good Gen 4 Pokes.. They were just about to come out!

I hope Pokemon makes Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon good >:(

 

[Raffy98]

I was really planning to play it, but I think I got ninjad. RIP. This really sucks.

 

[Maserati777]

This is kind of making me like the Pokémon company less.

 

[mew_nani]

Can we even call this protecting their IP anymore? I've heard that floated around as an excuse for them taking down fan games in the past but now they're just taking down a mod for a completely different game which wasn't originally designed for Pokemon simply because it had Pokemon in it that you could catch. Are they gonna issue cease and desist orders for fan made Pokemon maps in Minecraft too? Or force people to stop making skins or Nintendo franchise-related mods in other games simply because they feature Nintendo related things? This mod was never designed as a replacement for an actual Pokemon game; just a fan made add-on for a sandbox game.

There's at least one other Pokemon related mod for Minecraft called PokeBlocks, but seeing as how Nintendo is using copyright law like a hammer that one probably won't be up for much longer. Come to think of it aren't there still those Pokemon Go ripoff games using stolen assets that take real money for sale on the App Store?

 

[Z25]

I've been lurking across Reddit commentary about this for a good time (because really, I had nothing else to do, lmao) and even some Redditors that liked playing Pixelmon kind of admitted that the devs brought it on themselves; and in fact some were surprised it took TPC this long to take action considering something of this scale and massive popularity would usually get shut down in mere moments. The mere fact that Pixelmon was something that was up and playable for years having a decent following while going under TPC's nose is something of an amazing feat in itself, if I'm going to be personally honest.

And there's an argument to be made that in the case of Pokemon App Store ripoffs, some have argued that TPC doesn't bother C&Ding them because a large majority (if not almost all of them) are Chinese knockoffs and Japan and China have kind of a complicated relationship as it is and Chinese companies don't give a damn about C&D's to begin with anyway and even if it were remotely effective TPC would just be playing whack-a-mole and even they know it.

I think this is a good way to put light on this situation.

I think the bigger picture seems to be missed by people. As I stated, they made MONEY off of the mod. As someone who was on a server the past few months, that server made about 1000 USD( you can estimate this based on the community goal that was set up) a week. Why? Because they sell items for battling on servers, legendaries, keys for crates and more. All while the store always has a sale.

That's a lot of money, and abusing an IP that isn't theirs for money is a big no no by any company standards.

Especially when they made sure to push giving them money the past few months to buy from the store by adding a community goal in order to get people to pay more for more rewards for everyone.

The fact that this is arguably the biggest Minecraft mod and most used one, is another factor. It is also part of the reason why they can make so much profit. Plus they added things like Mega Evolutions a super new feature to Pokemon that put them in more danger.

When your this big and profiting like that, it crosses the line of what a mod is. That's why it was taken down, not just because it existed. If it wasn't like this, I'd bet the mod would never be touched.

 

[Lusus]

Come to think of it aren't there still those Pokemon Go ripoff games using stolen assets that take real money for sale on the App Store?

Pretty much all knock offs like that are made in China (and you can basically see them for every kind of game). China has different laws and what not when it comes to this stuff, the court also favors Chinese companies. I heard that some Chinese companies make a cheap rip off, milk it for money, then when it quickly dies just start a new company under a new name and make a new rip off, and basically repeat the process. So I would imagine for most companies it isn't worth bothering to deal with mobile app rip offs, everybody knows mobile market is a joke anyway.

Riot Games is suing games like Mobile Legends that are clear rip offs, but they are owned by a Chinese company Tencent so that probably makes it worth it.

 

[Mewtwolover]

Once again, another great fan-work a fan-made project that took years to make was shut down. First it was Pokemon Uranium, then it was Prism

Those two are still being developed.

Pixelmon deserved to be shut down because the developers made money with it like Z25 said. However, it can be revived even if the original developers doesn't release the source code because it's a JAR file which can be opened edited with right tools.

 

[mew_nani]

Well... when I read it got shut down on Polygon it didn't mention they were basically running an illegal market using the Pokemon IP so yeah.... that would definitely justify a take down. What in the heck were they even thinking doing that? I take what I said back; that one kinda needed to happen.

 

[Alex]

Well, I think the creators had it coming the minute they started profiting from the work. Originally, I thought the Pokemon Company was just At It Again shutting down fangames based on their franchise (which I really dislike), but the income changes everything. I'm sure it was a lot of fun and they put a lot of time into it, but it wasn't their franchise to profit from.

 

[BlazingCobaltX]

Fangames & hacks that don't make any money should be allowed to stay, but the moment you make profit, it's over.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I could post ADoseofBuckley's video explaining why TPCi had to do this, but that would be starting to get repetitive considering how everyone refuses to listen and continue believing fans have every right to create these type of fangames.

 

[Hikamaru]

It's fair to say that if your fan project gets very popular, Nintendo will take you down. This is my stern message to anyone who creates Pokemon fan projects, as this news has been the latest wake-up call after the Uranium and Prism controversies.