The Game Awards will be held next week, celebrating AAA gaming as well as smaller projects. Two fan games based on Nintendo IPs, AM2R and Pokemon Uranium, have disappeared from the “Best Fan Creation” nominees.
AM2R is a fan remastering of Metroid 2: The Return of Samus. Released earlier this year, the project was hit with a DMCA claim. The game files can no longer be hosted on the project’s website and must be found on upload sites or torrents. Pokemon Uranium is an original project that took nine years to complete. The creators removed the game files from their site to avoid legal action from Nintendo.
Nintendo has taken a hard line stance against fan creations and projects. In addition to these larger projects, they were allegedly responsible for a DMCA that took down over 550 titles from Game Jolt. Their aggressive protection of intellectual property lead a parody mash up of No Man’s Sky and Super Mario to create a new game: DMCA’s Sky.
Both games were up for consideration in the “Best Fan Creation”category of The Game Awards. They have since been removed, leaving Brutal Doom 64 and the Skyrim mod Enderal: Shards of the Order as the only remaining nominees.
The removal of the games has not gone unnoticed to developers, with one Pokemon Uranium designer expressing some disappointment:
It is currently unclear why these two titles have been removed from consideration. Kotaku has reached out to both The Game Awards and Nintendo for clarification.
Update—4:38 p.m.: Nintendo has declined further comment and has referred Kotaku to representatives of The Game Awards.