MUGEN: Mario vs. Chun Li

MUGEN is the last 2D Fighting game you ever need to play.

It was designed with an open structure allowing the easy creation of fighters, which of course opened the door for a community of remixers to import the characters from any game ever made.

Unfortunately, since the video game industry (like every other media industry) doesn't 'get it' -- finding the characters is difficult due to their copyright infringement, and the original developer Elecbyte seems to have been shut down.

When will industries support and nurture the remix culture (or mashups as it's trendy to say now)? Don't they realise that an enthusiastic community will do the work of 1,000 developers working on a product?

It would be smart if Nintendo had bought Elecbyte, and transferred all their licenses to the development of MUGEN for the Gameboy. Game companies should license their sprites and sounds and see what the community will make with them.

*Sigh* ... I hope copyright law will reconcile itself with the information age in my lifetime.

In the meantime, we'll have to leave it to the French who are happy to thumb their nose at the rest of the world's legislature. To get started with MUGEN -- French site Mugen Fury has a link to download the original software and other resources.

[Found via Destructoid]