As the rise of generative AI continues to take hold of the web, spurring recreations of beloved game series and franchises, developers like Nintendo might be working toward legal action of sorts against users producing such "inspired" content.
Former Nintendo marketing managers Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang theorize as much, anyway, first explaining why they believe the company hasn't done so yet – and it all basically boils down to ample preparation, as it did with Palworld when the Nintendo-owned Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against developer Pocketpair for patent infringement. As Ellis says, Nintendo is likely being "a bit more cautious" with its approach to AI.
"If you think about, 'what is Nintendo gonna do,' they may be a bit more cautious in really thinking this out and thinking through the strategy of, 'If we're going to do this, and this could potentially become a major legal precedent, it has to work and we have to win, and what is the angle that we can find that we're going to win?'" Yang chimes in that it's all about the "approach," agreeing with Ellis' own thoughts on the matter.
"It's kind of like with Palworld – they actually somehow surprisingly couldn't take action on the most obvious thing, which was just the designs of those characters. They had to find a backdoor angle, and they did," Ellis goes on. "Nintendo's lawyers are very good. I think they can probably find something, but they're going to be incredibly careful about what is the entry point to that."
It's not a simple situation to navigate, after all. As Ellis concludes, "They know that this is going to dictate how the rest of this whole back and forth goes – potentially for years."
It will be interesting to see what steps Nintendo ends up taking regarding AI, as well as whether or not other devs follow suit. The company, as the former marketing leads stated, hasn't exactly held back when it comes to Palworld, recently going as far as claiming two new patents as its legal case against Pocketpair rumbles on.
Only time can tell for certain, but I would argue that Ellis and Yang are probably right – and doubly so when taking something like generative AI into account. These aren't ordinary recreations or inspired art pieces… most literally draw directly from the source.
