Pokemon Prism Leaks After Nintendo Cease and Desist

Fans step in to preserve the ROM hack.

By Alex Osborn

Pokemon Prism, the fan-made ROM hack for Pokemon Crystal Version, has been make available online.

Pokemon Prism creator Koolboyman shut down his website and the project after receiving a cease and desist from Nintendo, but shortly thereafter, the files for the hack circulated on 4chan by fans allegedly unaffiliated with the project who, in a README text document (via Kotaku), referred to themselves as "a group of people interested in seeing ROM hacks succeed."

Kotaku reached out to group of anonymous distributors to find out why they took it upon themselves to make the ROM hack available to the public. "Regardless of Nintendo's legal rights, we do believe that they are destroying their fans' hard work for no reason and at no gain," they said. "Nintendo could have used this (and any other good ROM hack) as an opportunity to promote the Pokémon series in general. They don’t even have to do anything other than let the games live."

Pokemon Prism was in development for eight years and expected to release on December 25. Despite having several pre-release versions, Koolboyman did not receive a cease and desist from Nintendo until December 21, which took the anonymous group of distributors by surprise. "We assumed that if there was going to be a DMCA takedown notice or a cease and desist, it would happen long before now," they said.

In an effort to protect the creators of Prism, the team of leakers removed the credits from the ROM hack and added in a thank you message to fans who finish the game.

Pokemon Prism isn't the only fan-made project to recently shut down, with support for Pokemon Uranium ceasing earlier this year. Additionally, a fan-crafted remake of Metroid 2 called AM2R was shut down by Nintendo in August.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

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