Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online — a practice which is banned under the country’s 2019 Unfair Competition Prevention Act.
But the devil is always in the details, isn’t it? Unless, that is, you stop reading as soon as you hear what you want to hear, and don’t go any further in the article…
According to Professor Ryo Ogiso of Chou University, prosecutors defer prosecution in 60% of the cases they receive, and conclude the remaining 30% or so of cases in summary trials. This summary trial is a trial procedure in which cases involving a fine of 1,000,000 yen or less are examined on the basis of documents submitted by the public prosecutor without a formal trial if there is no objection from the suspect. Only about 8% of cases are actually prosecuted, and this low prosecution rate is the reason for Japan’s high conviction rate.
Conviction rate is that high because people are admitting things they didn’t do once arested. Why? Because otherwise police will keep you in custody for months. Every attorney says it’s better to admit because you will quicker be able to leave the custody.
So conviction rate is unrealistically high.
No that vote with your wallet shit has gotten old and crusty. I can’t think of a single company that has worked for. There needs to be legal consequences for this, fight fire with fire
Not really. If you treat Nintendo as a lost cause for the foreseeable future, voting with your wallet and not buying any of their products is good for your mental health. It’s about extricating yourself from an abusive business relationship.
They honestly used to be really solid. I’ve been there since the NES. During the GameCube days my house burned down. I had happened to order a cable and then it, of course, got sent back to them. I had completely forgotten about this and they called me to ask if the note was correct that the package was undeliverable because the house being gone.
They sent me a new GameCube and five games of my choosing.
nintendo only does reletively good when their consoles struggle.
whenever they hit something sucessful, they become shrewed and start removing features/make a worse experience at times.
3ds strugles, nintendo gives 20 retro games for free. wiiu struggles, many bogo offers. Switch is sucessful, removes paid for emulated games and pushes them into a subscription service, removes local save backups, removes browser, charges 20$ for online, objectively have a worse online experience to both the WiiU/3DS in many instances. Half asses some games, increases the price of ported games (e.g Tropical Freeze on the WiiU was 50$, then a 20$ nintendo select late in its life, was a 60$ game on the switch)
You’re confusing Nintendo, the company, with the people who work at Nintendo (minus the corporativist scum). They absolutely have some of the best game devs in the world. They also suck and degrade the gaming sphere on a regular basis.
Ofcourse they have their inhouse developers but we musn’t forget the developers at other companies that helped make their systems great (Konami, Capcom, Sunsoft, Hudson, HAL Laboratory, Rare, Argonaut, DMA/Rockstar, etc
Funny how most of these companies are only a shadow of their former selves, with most of the old guard leaving to form their own studios and focus on good games instead of cashgrabs. I absolutely recommend playing Bloodstained – Igarashi is a genius when it comes to MetroidVania
I haven’t liked Nintendo since they decided to just take 30% of all the money Gary Bowser ever makes for the rest of his life, for the crime of modifying hardware that people own so that they can use it however they see fit.
Because Nintendo wanted to sell those upgrades instead of someone patching them into the save file?
It’s really insane if this story is true.
You use a program to create a file. You modify the file that you created with the program using a different program. Company sues you claiming they own the file that you created with the program you legally purchased.
I wonder what tool chain Nintendo uses internally. Could Notepad++ sue Nintendo for modifying a text file created by Notepad++ without always using Notepad++? They’re unfairly cutting Notepad++ out of competition by using vim on txt files originally created with Notepad++ then profiting on the results by selling games that used the modified txt files after compiling them into games.
Japanese copyright law is literally insane. It’s simultaneously completely lax and unapplied (doujin, i.e. derivative fan works) and so constrictive you can’t breathe.
I don’t know what the implications of buying what he was selling are, but it’s possible that it functionally allowed players to cheat in multiplayer, which kind of ruins the experience of other players.
If it only affects a single-player game, on the other hand, I don’t really see a problem being caused.
I’d also add that I kind of feel that at least for this particular form, even if it is multiplayer cheating, while it’s probably not practical to mitigate every form of cheating in a multiplayer game, it’s probably possible to design the game in such a way that it can’t be attacked in this particular way.
It’s not about cheating, it’s about making a profit. Nobody cares if you modify your save files (they do, there are ways they try to prevent that, especially in competitive multiplayer, but it’s not a legal issue). But once you start selling them, that’s when you’re officially in trouble.
They all have multiplayer; you can battle your Pokemon against each other. But they all, also, have exploitable bugs that make cheating without editing a save file easier since you don’t need external tools to execute them. If they were actually concerned about cheating, they’d fix the bugs first.
Just another reminder that Nintendo and the Pokemon Company both hate your guts. They see you as an obstacle between them and your money, and they’d kill you if they thought it profitable. Pirate everything. It’s always morally correct.
You know that Japan has crime? You know that large crime orgs operate in Japan? Everything from drug trafficking, sex trafficking, extortion, protection rackets, arms smuggling is happening.
Next week: Paco Guttierez, age 9, arrested and sued for $200 million after building a cardboard Nintendo game because his family couldn’t afford the real thing
I still remember when they went after the R4 devs and it accomplished nothing because there were already at least 30 other flashcarts by that point with hundreds of R4 copies.
I’m thinking he was probably selling saves with all the Pokémon plus all the Pokémon in shiny and a complete story. I did this with every single Pokémon game prior to switch and put them all on my Pokémon home when they were discontinuing pokebank, but only the ones that are able to be caught legit that way.
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Nintendo moment
Japan is not the Japan we think it is.
A racist xenophobic country that flattens nails and oppresses people for the benefit of the elite due to its hyper hierarchical culture?
Flattens nails? What, to make them difficult to use with a screwdriver?
The nail that sticks out.
On hardware, you mean?
anyone who is too different from the rest will be hounded for it.
Apparently they’re for masonry? Are there a lot of brick structures in Japan?
Not sure why you’d use a screwdriver with a nail…
The nail that sticks out is hammered down, aka tall poppies get cut first, etc.
I think it’s a very safe place because it’s nearly a fascist dictatorship.
With a near 99% conviction rate, it’s pretty safe…because everyone is afraid of even being accused of stepping out of line.
99% conviction rate, and an inmate execution rate roughly equivalent to Alafuckingbama
Exactly
But the devil is always in the details, isn’t it? Unless, that is, you stop reading as soon as you hear what you want to hear, and don’t go any further in the article…
Fair. And also correct on that first sentence.
Conviction rate is that high because people are admitting things they didn’t do once arested. Why? Because otherwise police will keep you in custody for months. Every attorney says it’s better to admit because you will quicker be able to leave the custody. So conviction rate is unrealistically high.
This is too much, this has to stop. Can’t we do anything??
Don’t buy and tell others not to either.
Don’t buy anything from a Japanese video game company.
No that vote with your wallet shit has gotten old and crusty. I can’t think of a single company that has worked for. There needs to be legal consequences for this, fight fire with fire
Not really. If you treat Nintendo as a lost cause for the foreseeable future, voting with your wallet and not buying any of their products is good for your mental health. It’s about extricating yourself from an abusive business relationship.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some instances of voting with your wallet having desired outcomes.
Nintendo please stop. I really liked you
TPC*
“The Pokémon Company” (actual name) is a separate entity from both Game Freak and Nintendo.
Doesn’t matter, they’re both assholes
The first mistake was liking a company.
They honestly used to be really solid. I’ve been there since the NES. During the GameCube days my house burned down. I had happened to order a cable and then it, of course, got sent back to them. I had completely forgotten about this and they called me to ask if the note was correct that the package was undeliverable because the house being gone.
They sent me a new GameCube and five games of my choosing.
nintendo only does reletively good when their consoles struggle.
whenever they hit something sucessful, they become shrewed and start removing features/make a worse experience at times.
3ds strugles, nintendo gives 20 retro games for free. wiiu struggles, many bogo offers. Switch is sucessful, removes paid for emulated games and pushes them into a subscription service, removes local save backups, removes browser, charges 20$ for online, objectively have a worse online experience to both the WiiU/3DS in many instances. Half asses some games, increases the price of ported games (e.g Tropical Freeze on the WiiU was 50$, then a 20$ nintendo select late in its life, was a 60$ game on the switch)
You’re confusing Nintendo, the company, with the people who work at Nintendo (minus the corporativist scum). They absolutely have some of the best game devs in the world. They also suck and degrade the gaming sphere on a regular basis.
Ofcourse they have their inhouse developers but we musn’t forget the developers at other companies that helped make their systems great (Konami, Capcom, Sunsoft, Hudson, HAL Laboratory, Rare, Argonaut, DMA/Rockstar, etc
Funny how most of these companies are only a shadow of their former selves, with most of the old guard leaving to form their own studios and focus on good games instead of cashgrabs. I absolutely recommend playing Bloodstained – Igarashi is a genius when it comes to MetroidVania
I can only agree with that.
I haven’t liked Nintendo since they decided to just take 30% of all the money Gary Bowser ever makes for the rest of his life, for the crime of modifying hardware that people own so that they can use it however they see fit.
And forcing him to be in all of their Mario games (I choose to believe the character is named Gary Bowser too)
I feel the same. Over the recent years it’s becoming abundantly clear that Nintendo hates their fans. It’s actually really sad and disappointing.
For example:
The world is safe for another day.
How is selling modified save data is unfairly competitive?
Competition is unfair to monopolies, so this law prevents competition. /j
Because Nintendo wanted to sell those upgrades instead of someone patching them into the save file?
It’s really insane if this story is true.
You use a program to create a file. You modify the file that you created with the program using a different program. Company sues you claiming they own the file that you created with the program you legally purchased.
I wonder what tool chain Nintendo uses internally. Could Notepad++ sue Nintendo for modifying a text file created by Notepad++ without always using Notepad++? They’re unfairly cutting Notepad++ out of competition by using vim on txt files originally created with Notepad++ then profiting on the results by selling games that used the modified txt files after compiling them into games.
Japanese copyright law is literally insane. It’s simultaneously completely lax and unapplied (doujin, i.e. derivative fan works) and so constrictive you can’t breathe.
Japan is very nuts with these sorts of laws. Can’t even legally physically mod your console
puts a sticker on their PS5
So, I haven’t played Pokemon Violet, but looking at Wikipedia, it sounds like it’s got a multiplayer game mode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Scarlet_and_Violet
I don’t know what the implications of buying what he was selling are, but it’s possible that it functionally allowed players to cheat in multiplayer, which kind of ruins the experience of other players.
If it only affects a single-player game, on the other hand, I don’t really see a problem being caused.
I’d also add that I kind of feel that at least for this particular form, even if it is multiplayer cheating, while it’s probably not practical to mitigate every form of cheating in a multiplayer game, it’s probably possible to design the game in such a way that it can’t be attacked in this particular way.
It’s not about cheating, it’s about making a profit. Nobody cares if you modify your save files (they do, there are ways they try to prevent that, especially in competitive multiplayer, but it’s not a legal issue). But once you start selling them, that’s when you’re officially in trouble.
Cheating in games isn’t illegal, though.
They all have multiplayer; you can battle your Pokemon against each other. But they all, also, have exploitable bugs that make cheating without editing a save file easier since you don’t need external tools to execute them. If they were actually concerned about cheating, they’d fix the bugs first.
Easy headline to lol at, but this poor guy is fucked. He was doing it to earn a living, now he faces 5 years in jail and/or a $32k fine.
Just another reminder that Nintendo and the Pokemon Company both hate your guts. They see you as an obstacle between them and your money, and they’d kill you if they thought it profitable. Pirate everything. It’s always morally correct.
It’s a good thing they got that scoundrel off the streets before anyone got hurt… /s
Cops in japan literally has nothing to do. I bet they’re excited to finally see some action.
You know that Japan has crime? You know that large crime orgs operate in Japan? Everything from drug trafficking, sex trafficking, extortion, protection rackets, arms smuggling is happening.
Exactly. If I were a cop there I’d feel much safer arresting nerds that modify save files.
Articles like this popped every once in a while until bored japan cops become a meme at this point.
Nonsense! They used to stop me all the time for riding a bicycle under the influence of being not Japanese!
Disgusting criminal scum!!! /s
Next week: Paco Guttierez, age 9, arrested and sued for $200 million after building a cardboard Nintendo game because his family couldn’t afford the real thing
Daily reminder that IP law is fucking stupid.
WTF, is there no death sentence in Japan for crimes against humanity and the damage done to rich peoples bottom line? /s
I still remember when they went after the R4 devs and it accomplished nothing because there were already at least 30 other flashcarts by that point with hundreds of R4 copies.
dystopia dystopia dystopia dystopia
Hold on, you can sell made up pokemon that are slightly edited for $84 a pop?
What?
He’s selling modified game save files it sounds like. No Pokémon were hurt or genetically modified in this man’s pursuit of profit.
I’m thinking he was probably selling saves with all the Pokémon plus all the Pokémon in shiny and a complete story. I did this with every single Pokémon game prior to switch and put them all on my Pokémon home when they were discontinuing pokebank, but only the ones that are able to be caught legit that way.
Ah so he was commiting temporal anomalies and risking a subspace collapse from tampering with multiversal duplication.
5 years in prison sounds too lenient (/j)
In the Pokémon universe? Happens like once a week.
A random kid will probably stop them by accident or something.
You can buy jpegs for 100k and sell them for 84 bucks too
$84! Has the price gone up recently? LOL
Urls of Jpegs lol. Not the actual image.
Palworld lookin better and better
Plus, guns