04-01-2019, 05:25 AM
I posted this announcement on the mainsite, but I'm reposting it here because it's extremely important, and it'll likely reach some extra people. Anyway, I am here today to reveal to you all the culmination of our legal discussions we had previously mentioned. For the past few weeks, we have been in talks with Nintendo of America (NoA) regarding our existence as a fangaming website.
As you all know, Nintendo is very protective of their IPs; especially in regards to the Super Mario franchise. Because of this, NoA has, as feared by many, finally contacted us about the our making and distributing of fangames.
Thankfully, however, they have been very reasonable with us and have allowed us to continue to function how we always have:
"We love seeing the fact that there is an entire website dedicated to Mario and his franchise. Because of this, we don't want to see MFGG taken down." - A quote from our discussion with NoA officials.
However, due to the pressing "fangame issue" and our argument as to why fangames are perfectly legal, Nintendo has decided to take a step that would appease both parties: Buying out MFGG.
Now that we are officially one with Nintendo, we have undergone a few changes:
1) Name Change
To keep consistency with the Super Mario franchise, our new name is "Super Mario Fan Games Galaxy." Nintendo felt that this name was a better fit, as it now contains the name of the franchise itself, rather than just its main character.
2) New Appearance
We have swapped out our blue and black color scheme for the traditional red and white of Nintendo, to better fit into the brand. With our new color scheme, we're looking perfectly nice and official.
3) Community Changes
Due to Nintendo's stance on chat platforms such as Discord, the current Discord will be repurposed into a Technical Support chat, for fast and easy access to solutions for your problems with our games. As a result, the forum will become the sole community board and place for discussion.
And finally, the smallest change of all:
4) Monetization
To help keep MFGG afloat, we have entered into an exclusive advertising contract with NoA, and we will be advertising their games from now on with pop-up ads. We are also looking into the idea of charging a small fee in order to play our fangames, with all profits going to Nintendo themselves, and may be testing out the feature soon.
And that's about it. We are happy to finally announce this partnership, and we hope that it will lead to a better and brighter feature for MFGG not only as a fangaming site, but as a community.