Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
Yes, there's no way for me, or you, or anyone else to know exactly what Nintendo did, but common sense suggests that Nintendo wouldn't waste a ton of money on some minor detail that 99% of players wouldn't care, or probably even notice, if they changed. I'm not saying that there's nothing that would require licensing, but the idea that Nintendo CAN'T release the game in the US or MUST pay for licensing is dumb because there are always alternatives, namely removing or altering the problematic content. But either way, the "copyright violations" of the game have always been pure fan speculation nonsense. It's like these people have never played any other games. There are games loaded with obvious references, and if they didn't get into legal trouble, why would Nintendo get into trouble over "Oh, this song kind of sounds like this other song"? It's just stupid. I've played many games with songs that blatantly rip off mainstream music and others where the songs sound extremely similar by pure coincidence, and if those companies didn't get into trouble, why would Nintendo for even less? I mean, do you guys think Working Designs had the money to get licensing rights for every single real-world thing that they referenced? Because I bet they didn't license anything. Probably a mixture of fair use and nobody caring.

My observation was simply that, an observation, not an argument. But, c'mon, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that most collectors, even if they bought their games for real cheap and plan to never sell, like the idea of their games being valuable. As for what happens when games are re-released digitally, I can think of many instances in which prices have lowered. That doesn't necessarily mean a "nose dive", but it's still a hit to value either way. Earthbound will probably never be really cheap again, but maybe someday it'll get into the 50-100 dollar range, which I think prospective buyers could find justifiable, as opposed to the ridiculous prices as of late. Yes, there are always collectors and, yes, given that just about everyone on Digital Press is a collector, we still prefer physical releases, but if you think only collectors have being buying Earthbound, I think you're sorely mistaken. A lot of the buyers are nostalgic young adults re-buying their childhood games, or people who became obsessed with Earthbound because of Smash Bros., or people who just got sucked up into the massive hype surrounding the game online. Whatever their reasons, plenty of the buyers are people who just want to play the game and want to do so in an official manner.
I agree with you and you're right that my recollection of most of the references in Earthbound is that it would easily fall within fair use/parody among other copyright exceptions. That's not to say that if they keep the game as-is that there wouldn't be some licensing or clearance related expenses which could be significant. Indeed, if there are modifications to the game on the VC as a result of overly cautious IP attorneys at Nintendo, those differences could be enough to prompt people who would otherwise be content with the digital copy to seek out the cart version.

As for your second point, given the ease of downloading emulators and obtaining roms of this particular game, I can't imagine that a significant portion of the people buying it on cart over the past 18 years are the kind of people that will be satisfied with just a digital copy, identical to the original or not. The game has been steadily climbing in value for a long time, just as many NES and SNES games have been, including many that have previously been released on VC. It's not like a handful of collectors are sitting on a massive pile of this game. The value is tied to the supply that has been established over the past 18 years and while there might be some people who decide the digital copy is enough, I just don't agree that it will have much long-term impact either way. If anything, it might inspire people playing the game for the first time to seek out the original just as many of us have been inspired by various digital re-releases to seek out original copies of those games.