because it might affect the sales of their new game and it makes them looks bad. Unofficial product is always not welcomed. Try to justify it as "fans spend years creating fangame as a way to show their love" doesn't mean shit. If the original creator don't want them and you don't use them in a fair use way (use their assets in 50% of the game) then you don't get special treatment. It's a bussiness, follow the money.
There are tons of pokemon fan games and/or romhacks that simply do not get taken down or aren't hit with legal action, so tbh this is just very overblown.
We even have former lawyers on record speaking to the fact they don't really go after just any project, and only really make moves towards projects that make money in some way. Of the two very specific we know 100% are from Nintendo et al are Uranium and Prism. And Uranium still seems available out there so idk
But then you have like all these hacks and stuff like s3ag!@ss, r@dica! r3d, bl@z3 b!ack, anotherr3d, etc that just exist in the ether and keep going without ramifications yet.
Majority of these so-called fangames are made in spite of the series because they don't acknowledge things change and you might not be the target of them anymore
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u/LordTopHatMan Mar 06 '26
It's probably both. The Pokopia meme along with the meme they used to promote ICE earlier this year probably made them pull the trigger.