Cease and Desist

Nintendo played this game 85 times.

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Nintendo has collected 9 coins.

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Nintendo re-locked content 40 times.

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Nintendo invited lawyers to smash 36 times.

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January 2025

Nintendo attempted and lost a trademark battle against a Costa Rican supermarket

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against a Costa Rican supermarket named Super Mario for trademark infringement. Nintendo lost the trademark battle and the supermarket gets to keep the name Super Mario.

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November 2024

Nintendo files a lawsuit against Pocketpair

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, alleging patent infringement related to game mechanics similar to those in Pokémon games.

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June 2024

Nintendo files a DMCA Against 'Heaven Studio'

Heaven Studio, a fan-made software designed to create Rhythm Heaven styled charts, was removed by Nintendo after receiving a DMCA takedown.

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April 2024

Nintendo related content removed from the GMOD Steam Workshop

Nintendo sent out a DMCA notice to Facepunch, forcing Garry to remove years of user-created addons related to Nintendo from the Steam Workshop.

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March 2024

Yuzu and Citra emulators stomped by Nintendo

Yuzu (a Nintendo Switch emulator) and Citra (a Nintendo 3DS emulator) were shut down after their developers settled a lawsuit with Nintendo for $2.4 million. The settlement also resulted in the emulators no longer being available.

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November 2022

Youtube channel videos removed for using a mod

The Youtube channel, OctoBoy, was making Splatoon 3 videos using a mod that allowed for better camera angles similar to the trailer videos the developers use. These videos were removed by Nintendo via a copyright claim.

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June 2022

Metroid Prime covers were removed from Youtube

Covers and remixes of Metroid Prime music were removed after the owner of these videos was contacted by a lawyer from Nintendo asking them to remove them.

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June 2022

Youtube got more than 500 Copyright Claims

Youtube channel, DeoxysPrime received over 500 copyright claims over complete soundtracks of Nintendo games.

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May 2022

Nintendo closes the DP sound library months after its launch

In February 2022 Nintendo created a sound library for the music of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. 3 months later they decided to close the service.

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March 2022

Nintendo issued a takedown on scans of a SM64 guide

Scans of a japanese Super Mario 64 strategy guide from 1996 were uploaded to archive.org. Nintendo issued a copyright takedown and the scans were removed.

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March 2022

Steam Deck videos removed by Nintendo

Videos on Youtube showing the Steam Deck (Valve's first handheld console) emulating Switch games, were apparently taken down by Nintendo.

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February 2022

Nintendo removed Smash from Evo

The organizers at Evo (The Evolution Championship Series) made a tweet stating that Nintendo decided to removed the Smash tournament from the lineup of games on 2022.

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February 2022

The eShop for the 3DS and Wii U will shut down on 2023

Nintendo announced the eShop services for the 3DS and Wii U consoles will be closing down in March 2023. Only already purchased games will be available to download once the date arrives.

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February 2022

Youtube channel received over 2,200 "copyright blocks"

The GilvaSunner youtube channel used to post videogame music soundtracks, it received more than 2,200 "copyright blocks" from Nintendo, forcing the owner of the channel to remove the the channel.

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January 2022

Pokemon FPS videos removed

Nintendo issued a copyright claim and removed videos containing the gameplay of the fan made FPS Pokemon game across youtube and the original twitter post.

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November 2021

Gary Bowser pleads guilty

The Canadian hacker was found guilty, ordered to pay $4.5 million, and was sentenced to 40 months in prison. He was released in early 2023.

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October 2021

The price for the switch online expansion revealed

An expansion to the switch online catalog to include Nintendo 64 games, Sega Genesis games and a DLC for Animal Crossing NH. This expansion costs $50 on top of the original service and fans didn't like the new price for the service.

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September 2021

Low Tide City cancels Tournaments for SSB mods

LTC was organizing Tournaments for Project+, Beyond Melee and 64 Remix, but Nintendo contacted the organizers and the tournaments were cancelled.

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August 2021

Riptide Project+ tournament was shut down.

The company contacted the organizers of the event and discouraged them from making any tournaments or setups regarding Project+.

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August 2021

2D Prime is discontinued

A certain games-related company asked the team behind the fan game "Prime 2D" to discontinue their work on their game. They removed the download links for the game as well as the download links for the music.

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August 2021

RomUniverse owner is ordered to destroy its pirated games

After its owner hinted he might try to re-establish the site, the court ordered him to destroy all of Nintendo's pirated games.

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August 2021

A Japanese dev loses lawsuit and it settles for millions

Nintendo sued developer Colopl over patent infringements, the damages Nintendo claimed continued to increase and Colopl decided to settle with for $30 million instead of continuing the lawsuit.

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June 2021

RomUniverse loses the lawsuit and has to pay millions

The ROM site, RomUniverse loses the lawsuit filed by Nintendo and now it's forced to pay $2.1 millions in damages to the company.

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April 2021

Gary Bowser is sued

A 51 year old Canadian and console hacker is sued by the company. According the Nintendo he was a member of the hack group, Team Xecuter.

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April 2021

Bowser's genitals hit with copyright takedown

A 3D modeler that makes NSFW art was hit by a copyright takedown on Patreon and its artwork was removed from the platform. The 3D model is now open source and free to download.

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February 2021

Mainstage 2021 Project+ tournament was shut down.

After Riptide shut down their project events, the organizers of Mainstage 2021 decided to remove Project+ tournaments on their own.

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December 2020

Leaked documents revealed surveillance on hacker

A series of leaks contained documents showing how Nintendo obtained personal and sensitive information on a 3DS hacker, apparently the company wanted to talk to him in person.

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December 2020

Nintendo shuts down "Etikon" controller memorial

A legal threat from Nintendo has shut down the manufacturing and sale of custom-designed Joy-Con controllers honoring Desmond “Etika” Amofah.

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December 2020

The Splatoon 2 tournament stream was canceled

The NA stream for Splatoon 2 was cancelled when the company realized teams used #FreeMelee on their names in support for the SSBM community.

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December 2020

The original Fire Emblem had a limited release

Nintendo released the original Fire Emblem game for the NES, in english, for the first time. The game was only available for 3 months since it was removed from the switch store after March 31st 2021.

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November 2020

Multiple streamers banned for playing Hyrule Warriors: AC

Multiple streamers where banned on twitch for playing the game early, even when the game came out in certain countries 12 hours before and even if the creator was streaming in countries where the game was already out.

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November 2020

The Big House 2020

Because of the pandemic "The Big House" 2020 event had to take place online and this forced organizers to use a software called Slippi to play the game online using emulators, but Nintendo forced organizers to cancel the event.

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October 2020

TLoZ the missing Link takedown

A game made with the engine of OoT was created by fans and after sometime Nintendo issued a copyright takedown of the game.

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October 2020

Resellers of hacking device have to pay millions

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against companies reselling hacking devices for the switch and won the case. The resellers had to pay $2 million in damages after they lost the lawsuit.

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September 2020

A sex game received a takedown

A fan porn made game of a Nintendo character received a DMCA Takedown on Github. The company said that the game didn't fall under fair use and Github took down the repository and website.

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September 2020

Super Mario 3D All-Stars had a limited release

The game includes re-releases of three iconic 3D Mario games was announced but will only have a limited run, after march 31st 2021 the game is not on the eshop or stores.

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September 2020

Super Mario 35 had limited time to play

The game was similar to Tetris 99 where you play the original Mario Bros game against 35 other players, a similar concept to a battle royale. It was free for members of the Online service and after march 31st 2021 the game was shut down.

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September 2020

Nintendo wants permanent Injunction to piracy stores

The company asked the court to issue a default judgment and permanent injunction to shut down several stores that sell Team-Xecuter's Switch hacks and mods.

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August 2020

Open source payload injector is Takendown

An Open Source payload injector, it loads custom firmware on the console, received a cease and desist notice. The creator decided to shut down the project and contacted the company through his lawyer to settle the matter.

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May 2020

Lawsuits are sent to resellers of switch hacking devices

Nintendo filed two lawsuits against resellers of devices made to hack the switch console and allow users to play pirated games on all models of the console.

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May 2020

Super Mario 64 PC port

A fan made pc port of the game and the company filed copyright takedowns for any video on youtube showcasing the game and websites hosting the game.

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March 2020

Sony removes Mario creation from dreams

Nintendo sent a complaint to Sony about their IP being used in one of their games. The IP problem was a Super Mario creation made in the game "Dreams" by a player.

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February 2020

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Only allows 1 island per console

No matter how many accounts or copies of the game players have, the game only allows one island per console. Previous versions of the franchise worked similarly on past hardware, but the company did not provide an explanation this time.

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September 2019

RomUniverse is taken to court

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against ROM site, RomUniverse, for copyright and trademark infringement since the site distributed ROMs from games made by the company.

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September 2019

Donkey Kong remake receives takedown

A company created a remake of the game as a technical demo on Github and Nintendo sent DMCA takedowns of the project and every fork made to it.

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August 2019

Copyright takedowns are sent to Youtube game music channels

Nintendo sent DMCA Takedowns to Youtube channels that posted official music of their games.

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July 2019

Nintendo removes popular Mario Maker 2 level

A content creator named GrandPooBear made a popular Mario Maker 2 level that was later removed and it didn't appear to have any explanation as to why it happened. three years before, his levels on the original Mario Maker were also removed.

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July 2019

Mario royale (Infringio) Taken down

A fanmade battle royale version of the original Mario game was created by a fan and Nintendo constantly issued takedown notices, even when the creator made different changes to the game.

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April 2019

A C64 fan port of Mario Bros taken down

A fan made a Mario Bros port for the Commodore 64 after working on it for 7 years. But some days after releasing it to the community, Nintendo sent takedown to websites that hosted the project.

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April 2019

Nintendo removes SSBU stages it deemed inappropriate or "political"

Nintendo removed stages it deemed inappropriate, but also stages it considered to be a "political statement" like stages that contained the trans flag. Not all stages with trans flags were removed and the article suggest the company was struggling to moderate the content of the platform.

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November 2018

Nintendo stops the Creators Program

Nintendo shut down the Creators Program that allowed content creators to create videos on Youtube of their videogames in exchange for a cut of the ad revenue.

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November 2018

Two ROM sites were ordered to pay millions and shut down

Two ROM sites offered copies of different games and Nintendo filed a lawsuit and won, which forced the sites to pay millions and shut down the websites.

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September 2018

Switch Online launches with fan criticism

When the Nintendo Switch Online service, priced at $20, launched it was the subject of various fan complaints.

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August 2018

Nintendo shuts down Pokémon Essentials

Pokémon Essentials was an RPG Maker XP tool that allowed fans to make Pokémon fan games. Nintendo took down the tool from multiple hosting sites. Additionally, the wiki on how to use the tool was also taken down.

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July 2018

Two ROM sites were sued

Two ROM sites offered copies of different games and Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the operators of the two websites.

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September 2017

The Creators Program restricted Youtube partners to Livestream

A policy update to the Creators program told Youtube creators that they weren't allowed to broadcast content on Youtube Live from their accounts.

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September 2017

Super Mario 64 Online gets Copyright takedowns and strikes

The Super Mario 64 online game project made by a fan was removed from Patreon and Youtube after Nintendo sent copyright claims and takedown notices.

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June 2017

Donkey Kong remake for Roku was shutdown

A fan made a remake of the game for Roku as an excercise. But the company filed a DMCA takedown and the game was removed from github.

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April 2017

Breath of the NES is received a takedown notice

The fan game was an attempt to recreate the BoTW demo that Nintendo presented on GDC. After the creator received the takedown the game was removed.

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February 2017

Go-Karting company is sued for copyright infringement

The "MariCar" Go-Kart company allowed customers to race in the streets of Tokyo dressed up as Mario Bros characters. Nintendo sued them for copyright infringement.

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December 2016

Pokémon Prism is cancelled

Pokémon Prism and Pokémon Brown, two rom hacks made as fan games by a single developer, were cancelled and removed, respectively, by the creator after a legal document was sent by Nintendo requesting the removal of both of the romhacks and further involvement by the developer.

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September 2016

Pokémon Uranium is taken down

A fanmade game is created and a few weeks later all the download links are removed by its creators, it was later revealed that Nintendo sent a legal leter to the creators

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September 2016

Takedown of more than 500 indie games

526 fanmade indie games based on games by Nintendo received a DMCA takedown on Gamejolt, a website dedicated to hosting indie games.

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September 2016

No Mario's Sky receives DMCA takedown

A free fan game made as a parody of No Man's Sky and Mario received a DMCA takedown on itch. It was removed from the website but the developer modified the game to just be a No man's sky parody.

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August 2016

The original release AM2R gets blocked everywhere

A fanmade remake of M2 got removed with takedowns by Nintendo and evey website that hosted the ROM received DMCA takedown notices.

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April 2016

Fanmade Zelda 30 Tribute shuts down

A group of fans made a voxel version of the first Zelda game, Nintendo issued a copyright strike and told them to remove the game.

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November 2015

"Zelda Maker" is taken down

A fanmade "Zelda Maker" game was created and Nintendo copyright claimed the creator videos on Youtube and sent a DMCA notice to MediaFire where the game was hosted. The creator revamped the project with new assets and a new name.

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April 2015

Fanmade HD remake of Mario 64

A Unity indie developer made a fan recreation of the first level of Mario 64 and a few days later received a copyright infringement notice for the webplayer and the standalone builds of the game.

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September 2015

Videos about speedruns and ROM hacks are removed

The company removed videos on Youtube about ROM hacks of their games, specifically speedruns and videos showcasing ROM hacks.

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July 2015

A GBA browser emulator is taken down

A Game Boy Advance emulator was uploaded and hosted on github by a developer. The emulator inluded ROM copies of games and Nintendo sent a takedown notice, the website and the code behind it was removed.

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January 2015

Nintendo shared cut of content creators revenue on youtube

Nintendo created the "Nintendo Creators Program", to allow Youtube users to create content from their games but only the ones white listed from the company, and giving Nintendo a cut of the ad revenue of each video.

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May 2014

A GBA emulator for iOS is taken down

A high-school student made a GBA emuator for iOS that allowed to be installed without jailbreak, Nintendo sent a Takedown requesting to remove the code from Github.

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May 2014

Nintendo says 'No' to gay game characters

After the company released Tomodachi Life, a life-simulation game, a fan launched a social media campaign asking to allow same-sex relationships in the game. Nintendo replied that "(Nintendo) never intended to make any form of social commentary with the game".

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January 2014

A book about Earthbounds development is cancelled

Marcus Lindbloom, the english translator for the original Earthbound decided to make a book talking about the time he worked on the game, He contacted Nintendo to get an approval but the company replied telling him that he signed an NDA and he couldn't publish the book.

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October 2013

Full Screen Mario Bros taken down

A fanmade version of the NES game was made to run on browsers with widescreen support, Nintendo took legal action and forced the creator to remove the working game.

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July 2013

Evo 2013

Fans of SSBM raised thousands of dollars in charity to participate in EVO and Nintendo pushed to cancel the stream and then the event. In the end Nintendo decided to revert the decison

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May 2013

Nintendo claimed ad revenue on videos from users on youtube

Nintendo used the Youtube content ID to claim revenue from user generated videos. The company registered it's copyright content on the system in order to include or claim money from video ads.

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April 2010

MLG SSBB 2010

The MLG Orlando 2010 had a SSBB tournament and wasn't allowed to stream the tournament online because Nintendo didn't give MLG the necessary live streaming rights.

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April 2010

A fan made Pokémon MMO was shut down

A group of fans created an MMO version of Pokémon and Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter requesting them to take down the website and surrender the domain name too.

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January 2010

Zelda fan movie was shut down

A fanmade movie based on the story of OoT was uploaded to the internet and then Nintendo contacted the group behind it and requested to remove, at the end of 2009 the movie was removed.

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March 2004

Firestorm GBA Emulator

The development of Firestorm, an upcoming commercial GBA emulator in 2004, was chilled when Nintendo filed a patent on technologies commonly used by emulators at the time.

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June 2001

Console Clasix received a cease & desist letter

Console Clasix, a rental service that operates with thousands of physical ROMs, was sent a cease & desist letter to stop the service. They replied stating why it wasn't illegal and never heard from Nintendo again.

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January 1999

UltraHLE Cancelled

UltraHLE, an early Nintendo 64 emulator, was pulled from its website by its developers out of fear of legal action from Nintendo. Nintendo had previously expressed interest in legal action against UltraHLE.

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July 1991

Nintendo sues the Game Genie

The Game Genie was a tool made to modify the behaviour of NES games. Nintendo decided to sue the makers of this tool alleging that modifying the game created a derivative work and this violated their Copyrights.

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August 1989

Nintendo sued Blockbuster for copying instruction books

Nintendo wanted videogame rentals to stop renting their games and since Blockbuster used to make copies of the instruction booklets for each game, Nintendo sued them for copyright violations.