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Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

nintendolife.com

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Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#11

Post by jdietrich »

>The narrative that has played out online is exactly what's wrong with this trashcan fire of a world.

>Everyone is an armchair expert. Everyone thought the worst. You've seen that I've been called a dick, idiot, and everything in between. Because sensationalised news sells. If the narrative was 'I added a sandbox to A Dark Room that lets you mod the game and provide a medium for kids to code (and technical parents to show their kids what they do),' it would have gone unnoticed.

This is just desperate. Nintendo are notoriously protective of their platforms and their IP. It has been an essential part of their business model for over 30 years, going back to the NES10 chip. Expecting Nintendo to disregard their own Terms of Service because this specific breach is well-intentioned is utterly naive.

Rajan says: "I snuck it in assuming that plugging in a USB keyboard and pressing the "~" key wasn't part of the test plan". He intentionally deceived Nintendo as to the nature of his app by including a hidden feature that allows for arbitrary code execution. He announced the existence of that feature on social media. What else did he expect to happen?

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#13

Post by crankylinuxuser »

And this is what happens when people don't own the hardware they buy. Instead, they get awful DRM'ed bullshit, with a monopolistic store 'owner' digitally forcing whatever they say on their fiefdom.

The first computer I had access to had BASIC built in. Having control of a computer of what runs and not is an absolute basic right of ownership.

And from these computers called "game consoles", you the purchaser have none of that.

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#15

Post by miki123211 »

In what way was that code editor malicious? Did it allow i.e. creating your own games, modifying other games etc? I don't think so, since I'd expect apps on such platforms to be totally sandboxed. If you could only enter data into it via a keyboard, you couldn't even use it to download programs off the internet, except doing it the 80s "let's retype those ten pages of code into my computer" style.

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#16

Post by saidajigumi »

The narrative in the article also misses the following point, which I've seen many times over the years, in both game dev and non-game dev shops:

It is massively unprofessional to ship an Easter Egg without broad consent to do so. Planning a fun "secret" for your users? Great! Surprising people involved in the publishing pipeline, esp. in a "will I get caught" way? Not so great. That's where Rajan went off the rails.

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#17

Post by ggggtez »

I wasn't able to find their developer policy, but I'd assume this is a pretty cut and dry case of violating the policies he agreed to when he submitted the game for review.

Nintendo is very protective of running pirated or unofficial games, ever since the late 80's, when knock-off games were rampant and leading up to today with DRM. I'm sure it's against their policies to sell a game where users are allowed to write arbitrary games/code without Nintendo approval.

It would be different if the game was sold as a Ruby interpreter, because then they could at least verify it's capabilities and make an informed judgement about whether they should allow it.

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#18

Post by crooked-v »

miki123211 wrote: post #15

In what way was that code editor malicious? Did it allow i.e. creating your own games, modifying other games etc? I don't think so, since I'd expect apps on such platforms to be totally sandboxed. If you could only enter data into it via a keyboard, you couldn't even use it to download programs off the internet, except doing it the 80s "let's retype those ten pages of code into my computer" style.

If it's a full implementation with OS-level access, a USB device that fakes keyboard input could do all kinds of spyware-like stuff with only brief access to the hardware, and without most users even knowing it's possible.

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#19

Post by icebraining »

tluyben2 wrote: post #3

I love the amount of control we are using over our devices. It is not like people can do anything malicious with it. Anyway; so like Apple (less and less luckily), Nintendo forbids editable code to run on their devices? Or is it allowed if there is a gaming aspect involved? Or just not at all?

It seems a full coding platform is being launched for the Switch[1], so that's likely not the problem. My guess is that they want to approve it first, which seems sensible if it's being published on their store (even if we wish there were alternatives to their store).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176742

Re: Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

#20

Post by crooked-v »

0815test wrote: post #6

There goes my idea of porting Core War to the Nintendo Switch. Ah well.

The 3DS has a sandboxed BASIC implementation available complete with exporting and loading programs (http://smilebasic.com/en/), so other programming-in-a-VM games would probably be fine, presuming the developer was actually upfront about that at the time so proper security and content-rating testing could be done.
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