Pokemon Uranium, a fan-made project which has been in the works for about nine years, has received multiple takedown notices from Nintendo of America.
The fan-made project launched last week and has since been downloaded a total of 1.5 Million times. Pokemon Uranium was a free-to-play PC title, with a long-time development plan. The project started in 2007 and has gone through many different variations since it’s inception. The game features uniquely designed Pokemon and a custom-made adventure which strays from the traditional formula.
“After receiving more than 1,500,000 downloads of our game, we have been notified of multiple takedown notices from lawyers representing Nintendo of America.
While we have not personally been contacted, it’s clear what their wishes are, and we respect those wishes deeply.” Said a post from the official Pokemon Uranium website. “Therefore, we will no longer provide official download links for the game through our website. We have no connection to fans who re-upload the game files to their own hosts, and we cannot verify that those download links are all legitimate. We advise you to be extremely cautious about downloading the game from unofficial sources.”
It is disappointing to see a title like Pokemon Uranium took down, but, it is something that was bound to happen. Most first-party IP’s are backed be extraneous legal teams, who work around the clock to protect their game’s assets. It seems like every year, we hear about fan made projects being taken down, regardless of popularity. An example of this can be shown by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, with the popular vanilla server Nostalrius being shut-down after years of operations.
Fans wanting to get their Pokemon fix in can enjoy Pokemon Omega Ruby, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Pokemon X, or Pokemon Y before Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon become available later this Fall. Alternatively, Pokemon GO is also available on iOS and Android devices in most parts of the world.
Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon will be available for the Nintendo 3DS on November 18th, 2016.
