Matthew Byrd

Aug 31, 2018

Nintendo is working hard to remove Pokemon Essentials from the internet

Nintendo’s war against fan-created games continues as they move to take down an online toolkit that fans have been using to create Pokemon games for the last 11 years.

According to a post on PokeCommunity, Pokemon Essentials (an RPG Maker program specifically designed to create Pokemon games) and the wikia pages associated with it have been removed due to a copyright claim from Nintendo. Elsewhere, other corners of the online Pokemon community have reported that they have received similar takedown notices related to the Pokemon Essentials software. 

On PokeCommunity, global moderator Marin informed the website’s users that they shouldn’t “freak out” about this claim and that there’s “no reason to get angry with Nintendo or anyone else involved. It doesn’t need to be a bigger deal than it should be.”

However, some are arguing that this particular takedown doesn’t make any sense. Their belief is based on the idea that Pokemon Essentials is based on old technology and therefore isn’t really a threat to any new Pokemon projects. The software’s developer even believes that Essentials helps young developers learn certain design techniques that can be valuable to their growth as creators. 

Still, the truth of the matter is that it’s impossible to be surprised by this move. Nintendo has been aggressively pursuing the takedown of online Pokemon projects for years now. Many of those projects – such as the ambitious Pokemon Uranium – used the Pokemon Essentials software. It was only a matter of time before Nintendo was willing and able to go after Essentials rather than individual projects. And, as everyone knows, they gotta catch ’em all…

If it’s any comfort to fans of Essentials, the software’s community is confident that it will spread online due to the small file size of the technology and the fact that it has been passed around so much over the last decade.