Established in 2014, Relic Castle is a fan site that has grown immensely since its launch, boasting a forum and repository of many, and we mean many, fan-made Pokemon games. Now, after nearly a decade of operation, the site owners are throwing in the towel as they’ve recently found a DMCA takedown notice in their inbox. Their statement doesn’t make it absolutely clear who sent the DMCA, but considering its involvement in the Pokemon community, we can take a guess should it be true that Nintendo has to do with the takedown.
On X, the Relic Castle team went on to explain that the site has been non-profit and ad-free since its inception and takes pride in the site’s 20K members and 65K posts. The statement gives some hope as it will continue to live on as a Discord server while the site itself will be visible through the Wayback Machine.
— Relic Castle (@RelicCastleCom) March 21, 2024
Just like the who in this case, we also don’t know the why situation, but some clues have given us some ideas. A lawyer who used to work on Nintendo’s legal team did come forward noting that your project is more likely to get Nintendo’s lawyers knocking on your door if it starts getting press and making money.
Unlike Yuzu, which for all the good it did before shutting down, did have some eyebrow-raising practices behind the scenes — particularly paywalling latest updates — Relic Castle has remained accessible without any sort of fee and was just pointing fans to fan made content. We can only assume this is either a power play by Nintendo proving it can or there’s something hidden that Nintendo knows about.
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GWare is a gaming industry reporter with over five years of experience and a massive supporter of ethical game preservation efforts.