Content creator Captain Alex had created the ‘Etikon’ controller shells in August 2019 in honour of popular Nintendo community figure Desmond “Etika” Amofah, who tragically took his own life earlier that year.
All proceeds from the controller shells were reportedly donated to the JED Foundation, a mental health and suicide prevention charity. According to ‘Alex’, Etikons had generated over $10,000 for the charity by the end of 2019.
However, on Sunday ‘Alex’ confirmed to JoyConBoyz – a YouTube channel created in memory of Etika – that Nintendo had sent him a cease and desist letter at the end of September, demanding that he stop selling the Etikons.
Shortly after JoyConBoyz posted a video on the topic titled “Nintendo hates us”, Nintendo even reportedly ordered a copyright strike against the channel.
First campaign was not successful.
— CptnAlex (@Cptn_Alex) December 7, 2020
Second campaign was successful.
Remaining stock of Joycons were for sale my Etsy since last year.
Nintendo sent me a cease and desist at the end of September.
Here’s a picture of me with a bin of all the shells I can’t sell anymore pic.twitter.com/ytdWzObh9x
To clarify, I have NOT been given a reason as to why the video has been claimed: pic.twitter.com/OmizTfJew7
— JoyConJames (@thejoyconboyz) December 7, 2020
The news attracted a significant amount of criticism on Twitter, where both ‘Nintendo’ and ‘Etika’ were top trending topics on Monday with over 150,000 tweets.
“Mental health is so important, really hope Nintendo reconsider this,” wrote one user.
Another user said: “It’s just so baffling that Nintendo will turn a blind eye to many, many custom shell designers for Joycon and other controllers, but will C&D the ones that are raising money for charity under Etika’s name.”
Responding to fans on Twitter, ‘Alex’ confirmed that the cease and desist was related to his use of the Nintendo Switch logo and Joy-Con phrase.
“Nintendo didn’t shut down my business completely, they just had me remove some designs and I’m modifying most of them,” he wrote. “Controller modification isn’t the issue, use of copyright is.”
Around 300 controller shells had initially been sold via crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo, before ‘Alex’ put the remaining 200 for sale via online marketplace Etsy.
Posted:
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion
Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-criticised-for-blocking-custom-etika-joy-cons-which-raised-10k-for-charity/
"Nintendo criticised for blocking Etika charity Joy-Cons" :: Login/Create an Account :: 2 comments