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[Question] Legality of making a Pokémon game with RPG Maker XP

Nickvasilias

    • 4
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    10
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    • Seen Jul 11, 2014
    Hello, i want to know if it is legal to create a pokemon game with rpg game maker xp official bought version ! Also, i want to know if it is possible.
    I dont know if it matter but i live in Greece.
     
    I guess it's fine if you credit the company but i think you will have to draw certain pokemon from scratch(unless you find them drawn).And no living in Greece makes no difference.
     
    you can make a Pokemon game just like the official ones with Pokemon Essentials, it has pretty much every feature that exists in Pokemon games up to(most of) gen 5
     
    JayTheKing said:
    I guess it's fine if you credit the company but i think you will have to draw certain pokemon from scratch(unless you find them drawn).And no living in Greece makes no difference.
    Click to expand...

    Do you i have to inform nintendo ? It is going to be free to play .
     
    It has to be a non-profit game
     
    You're going to be using the Pokémon brand without permission (and Nintendo will never give you permission), so it's technically illegal. However, it's also very low key, and as long as you don't do something stupid like try to make money off it or claim it as your own franchise or become too popular, the Nintendo lawyers will just ignore you.
     
    If you're looking for guidelines to follow, I would adhere to the U.S. standard of fair use. It's generally understood that you aren't required to inform the publisher if you are using a material for commentary, education or parody.

    Another option you might consider is (I'm a little rusty on ROM Hacks, so this may be incorrect) creating an ISO patch for an existing Pokemon ROM. Therefore, you would be publishing only the patch and the user would be breaking the law by illegally downloading the base game.
     
    I'm going to echo everyone else in the thread and say while it's definitely a legal grey area, as long as you don't go about trying to make a profit off of the resulting game you'll probably be in the clear. I mean, a lot of people have been doing this for the better part of a decade and haven't had any legal troubles.
     
    Here's how I think it works:

    Technically, you need permission to use any assets that aren't yours. Using them anyways is bad even if you give proper credit. So all this fan-made stuff we make is technically illegal, and they could have our entire site taken out if they want. We could ask for permission but good luck asking, and good luck getting them to say "yes".

    Thing is, companies probably don't care about fangames. There have been fangames that the companies approve of, and there have been fangames they've taken action against, but these are special cases. A company isn't going to stop a small group of people from making one little game not all of their customers are going to play or even know/care about - why take action against us when it's not harming them? It'd waste time and money.

    Now, if you SELL a fangame, THEN that draws their attention because us making money off their assets doesn't sit well with them. It's why that MLP Fighting Game was C&D'd and it's why companies are starting to want a cut of ad revenue on LP videos.

    Hopefully that sums it all up. Short version: There should be no issue with fangames as long as you don't profit from it.
     
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