Pokémon fan games are a dime a dozen these days, and while they’re all based on the iconic game series most of them share a commonality, Pokémon Essentials. For those, like me, who don’t dabble in game development and who haven’t heard of Essentials, it’s basically a game creation tool that was made in 2007. It provides pretty much everything you would need to create a Pokémon-type game, including music, sprites, tiles, maps and game mechanics built into the UI. So you can see why Nintendo wouldn’t be so happy that it exists.
The company that hosted the Wiki, via which users of the tool can get a walkthrough on how to create their games, Fandom, spoke to The Verge and said that “[They] received a DMCA notice on behalf of Nintendo notifying [them] of content that was in violation of its copyright holdings. After carefully assessing the violations in regards to the Pokemon Essentials wiki, [they] came to a decision to take it down.”
Pokemon Uranium – taken down by Nintendo
Anyone in the gaming community would know that Nintendo takes its IPs and copyrighted property very seriously, and that to stand up to them is to lose a fight that hasn’t even begun. But that said, parts of the Pokémon fan game community are hoping to just keep a low profile online and to keep creating games. Since Essentials gained some features due to fan distribution of custom resources, I very much doubt that this will be the end of the tool’s life.
The last developer and owner of Essentials, Maruno, said “The Pokémon Essentials Wiki, and all the downloads for Pokémon Essentials, have been deleted due to a copyright infringement claim by lawyers representing Nintendo of America,” on his Twitter account. So whether it is still going strong or not, PE will never see the light of day again (because it’s gone underground, get it?).
