image

The gang behind Did You Know Gaming has been doing an absolutely stellar job of chronicling Nintendo’s history, including looks at never-announced games, prototypes and more. As you might have guessed, Nintendo isn’t exactly a fan of their coverage, and it seems they’ve stepped in to squash a recent release.

Did You Know Gaming has confirmed that their Heroes of Hyrule video was smacked with a copyright strike. This means the video is no longer available for fans to watch, and DYKG has commented on the situation.

“Nintendo has removed our Heroes of Hyrule video from YouTube. This was a journalistic video documenting a game that Retro Studios pitched to Nintendo nearly 20 years ago. This is an attempt by a large corporation to silence whatever journalism they don’t like, and a slap in the face for video game history preservation. We are exploring all available options to restore the video.”

[Did You Know Gaming]

It’s extremely likely Nintendo won’t comment on this situation at all. There’s no doubt the Big N is upset with DYKG sharing never-before-seen details on these pitched Legend of Zelda projects, and clearly they believe they have legal ground to stand on in taking the video down. Nintendo obviously has deep pockets should this go a courtroom route, and you can bet DYKG wants to avoid that at all costs, literally.

As DYKG said, they’re looking for a way to bring the video back online. It’s not clear what path they could take to do that, but hopefully we see the feature return in the near future. For now, you can see a summary of the video in our previous coverage.

Add Comment

Comments (8)

kuribo

1+ y ago

Very unfortunate. It was a very interesting video.


malikhalo

1+ y ago

Is Nintendo's argument that they own the rights to a game that never existed and can take down any mention of it? How utterly stupid.


sligeach_eire

1+ y ago

Dr Nintendo showing their alter ego Mr Nintend1¢K.


ngamer01

1+ y ago

@malikhalo

If there are three things Nintendo hates it's: 1) Adult content of their IPs, 2) Leaks/pirates, and 3) People profiting off their works. Nintendo probably dinged DYKG for leaking content and profiting off the leaks too since the video was monetized. Also Nintendo cannot repurpose previously shelved pitches that was spilled through DYKG.

This is assuming if this ordeal isn't some troll masquerading as Nintendo again as there was a rumor somebody was impersonating a NoA employee when Nintendo fan vids were getting flagged some time ago on YouTube.


the_crimson_lure

1+ y ago

DYKG's comment is really aggressive, considering they don't really know the motivation behind Nintendo's removal.

It's well established at this point that Nintendo will hold onto concepts for a long, long time and repurpose them whenever they feel they finally found a fit for them.

Usually there's also a clause in the contract that states you aren't allowed to talk about the work you're contracted for, even after you've left the company that was contracted.

It was an interesting video, sure, but "slap in the face for video game history preservation" is a bit strong.


A cancelled game remains as Nintendo's property even if it never comes out. It's not an ideal situation, especially if you worked on the game and want to use the material in your portfolio. But having the game leak, or be divulged by a former employee, doesn't change the ownership of the game.


marl0

1+ y ago

Pretty gross move by Nintendo.


joeshabadoo

1+ y ago

Calling it gross is an overstatement. It’s a rather complex and nuanced situation. Great videos from a great channel but they were swimming around in some murky waters and had to understand that some of that art depicting certain characters might not be cool to publish without pushback. It will hopefully be properly adjudicated but neither side has acted in gross fashion yet