Charity joy-cons get slapped with trademark claim, a bad look for Nintendo

Nintendo has slapped artist CptnAlex with a trademark claim after he released a series of custom “Etika” Joy-con shells for charity.

The initial crowd funding campaign had raised $10,000 in support of the JED Foundation, in honour of fellow content creator Desmond “Etika” Amofah, who had tragically taken his own life last year. The JED Foundation focuses on promoting mental health and suicide prevention.

While Nintendo allegedly had no problems with CptnAlex selling the modified controllers, they did take exception at him using the term “Joy-con”. The name was allegedly printed on the product he was selling. 300 controllers had already been sold when company lawyers issued a cease and desist. Another 200 that had been sold through Etsy had to be trashed.

CptnAlex has said on Twitter that this news story has been causing him a lot of mental stress. So I’d strongly advise that people do not pester him. It seems like he is planning on selling a redesigned Etika shell on Indigogo, so you can hop on there if you want to get something cool that goes toward a good cause.

The real issue here is Nintendo’s rather poor behaviour in this matter. People have rightly pointed out that they were fully in their legal rights to issue the C&D. Which is 100% true. It’s also important for IP holders to protect their trademarks, so they do not lose their status. However, this is one of those “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” situations. The general public doesn’t care who’s legally in the right when it comes to this torte bull. All they care about is that you shut down a campaign for a good cause. It’s really bad optics for a family friendly brand. Especially when suicide prevention and mental health are coming to the forefront of public health awareness.

If I were in their position, what I would have done is publicly support the charity drive, and offer to match any donations. Then on the down low, issue out a press release to creators reiterating that they need to get Nintendo’s permission to use their trademarks. This way no lawyers need to be involved, the situation is clarified for the future, and the company gets PR points making a charitable donation. What they chose to do instead comes off as petty and greedy.

This isn’t the only controversy Nintendo has run into this week . A Smash Melee competition was cancelled after the company protested the use of a modified game which adds netcode to the GCN title. Nintendo likened this to piracy and shut the whole thing down. Again, it’s in their right to do this, but Melee still has a huge competition level player base. They cannot play in person due to the CCPVirus, and Nintendo no longer supports the game. So what were they supposed to do? Again, this is a bad look on them when things could have easily been dealt with without getting shyster laywers involved. Maybe that legal team needs to work better with the PR department, or start looking for new jobs.

Sigh, it’s already been a busy week for games industry scum baggery, and it’s only Tuesday.

Source: Nintendo Life