Project M has officially finished development

After six years, development of Project M has permanently ceased.

http://projectmgame.com/

Project M Website wrote:

Hello friends,

Six years ago, we started a journey born out of our shared love for competitive fighting games. Eventually, the electrifying passion that coursed through us arced out and drew in more people until our small circle of friends grew into a team, and that team grew into an international community. Project M and its community have grown larger than any of us ever anticipated, and it’s truly heartwarming to see all of the unforgettable connections and friendships that have been forged through this project.

Unfortunately, we’re here to say that we’re at the end of that road.

We’ve learned so much in the process of making Project M—accumulating life-changing lessons in communication, team work, professionalism, work ethic, and more—but there’s only so far we can take those skills in a volunteer project. With this in mind, we’ve made a difficult business decision: We’re ready to finish development here and move on to bigger and better ventures.

We realize that this will come as a shock to many of our fans. Please, forgive us. Again, it’s been an excruciating call to make, but it’s been made a bit easier by our satisfaction with the previous and final release, v3.6. We’ve spent six years polishing Project M, and rather than let it drag on through another several years of dwindling development and change-fatigue in the competitive circle, we’re going to consider our work complete.

In the mean time, we plan to be hard at work on new projects, built from the ground up. We can’t spill the beans just yet, but know that we’re looking towards a fresh start with brand new designs. Rather than splitting our focus, many of us want to dedicate ourselves to this new venture fully. In this way, we hope to maintain the level of quality and professionalism you’ve come to expect from us.

In summary, we are ceasing development of Project M (effective immediately) and will be making no further releases as we turn our attention towards an entirely new venture. As the PMDev team will be formally disbanded, please forward all official communications regarding Project M to video game attorney and business consultant . We appreciate your support and your understanding.

One final time,

PMDev

Thank you for playing!

It should be noted that the team has clarified that they did not receive any cease and desist from Nintendo, this was entirely their own choice.

Honestly I'm sad, but I really look forward to seeing what they do in the future, especially if it means creating a new Smash style IP.

While it's sad to see it end, it's good that they officially ended it rather than letting it dwindle into nonexistence.

I say that because this gives the opportunity for two things:

1) A well defined meta
2) Mods balanced to one solid version.  With this, people can actually add characters balanced to a finalized version of Project M.  I may be modeling and texturing for one soon, actually.

The biggest shame here is that they took down all the downloads. That's alright though; there will be many mirrors soon enough.

It was a C&D guys
Crusade is next

Really sad about this.

I was gonna get Project M and play as Knuckles...it was gonna be great. I truly respect and love the game even though I never got it.

Gonna miss PM.

Lego Shaq wrote:

Really sad about this.

I was gonna get Project M and play as Knuckles...it was gonna be great. I truly respect and love the game even though I never got it.

Gonna miss PM.

You can still find mirrors all over the internet, some places have even collected every single demo version.

Knuckles was leaked with a couple others, it looks like he's got some Crusade inspiration for a few moves.

At least, they used the same source material for the same moves.

Although this news is very disappointing and heartbreaking, I feel like this news could lead to other Smash mods getting a chance to shine (Melee SD Remix and Brawl Minus are two hopefuls of mine)

Tempura Shrimp Party wrote:

Although this news is very disappointing and heartbreaking, I feel like this news could lead to other Smash mods getting a chance to shine (Melee SD Remix and Brawl Minus are two hopefuls of mine)

No, they'll get less chance to shine now. There was a fan-made continuation of PM started, called Evolution, that was cancelled about a day after beginning development.

It's pretty obvious PM was cancelled due to the work of a company. And Minus and SD Remix should lay low.

Lego Shaq wrote:

Tempura Shrimp Party wrote:

Although this news is very disappointing and heartbreaking, I feel like this news could lead to other Smash mods getting a chance to shine (Melee SD Remix and Brawl Minus are two hopefuls of mine)

No, they'll get less chance to shine now. There was a fan-made continuation of PM started, called Evolution, that was cancelled about a day after beginning development.

It's pretty obvious PM was cancelled due to the work of a company. And Minus and SD Remix should lay low.

Won't stop us from trying, Nintendo can only shut us down so many times before people start to notice

armatage wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

Tempura Shrimp Party wrote:

Although this news is very disappointing and heartbreaking, I feel like this news could lead to other Smash mods getting a chance to shine (Melee SD Remix and Brawl Minus are two hopefuls of mine)

No, they'll get less chance to shine now. There was a fan-made continuation of PM started, called Evolution, that was cancelled about a day after beginning development.

It's pretty obvious PM was cancelled due to the work of a company. And Minus and SD Remix should lay low.

Won't stop us from trying, Nintendo can only shut us down so many times before people start to notice

And then we're gonna do what, try and sue the biggest gaming enterprise in the world?

I love Nintendo, so much, my favorite gaming company, but I'm not happy with their decision here.

Lego Shaq wrote:

armatage wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

Tempura Shrimp Party wrote:

Although this news is very disappointing and heartbreaking, I feel like this news could lead to other Smash mods getting a chance to shine (Melee SD Remix and Brawl Minus are two hopefuls of mine)

No, they'll get less chance to shine now. There was a fan-made continuation of PM started, called Evolution, that was cancelled about a day after beginning development.

It's pretty obvious PM was cancelled due to the work of a company. And Minus and SD Remix should lay low.

Won't stop us from trying, Nintendo can only shut us down so many times before people start to notice

And then we're gonna do what, try and sue the biggest gaming enterprise in the world?

I love Nintendo, so much, my favorite gaming company, but I'm not happy with their decision here.

Sue
no
we'd never win, but we can just bury them in attempts before they feel that stopping us is hurting more than leaving us be.
This is something we should be allowed to do, we are not taking money from them so we should not be treated like thieves

and if PM went down, this game will surely be next

armatage wrote:

and if PM went down, this game will surely be next

PM was mostly taken down because Nintendo had been given specific rights to include characters within the game, such as Sega and Konami. This is not the case with Crusade. I don't think so.

PM was taken down because it was a mod of Brawl. This is not a mod of Brawl.

PM was not taken down for legal reasons.  PM was taken down because the devs became aware that Nintendo could take legal actions if they wanted to, and chose to cease development preemptively.  In actuality, there was no reason for them to do so and they let themselves get way too spooked by "news" that should have been common knowledge among the team and has been among our team for a very long time.  Nintendo is not likely to C&D us or SSF2 or PM any time soon, if ever.

Furthermore, assuming PM had good reason to believe that an actual and major legal threat was imminent, this still has no bearing on Crusade whatsoever.

1) Fan games and mods are legally not the same thing at all
2) Even among fan games, there's a certain other fan game that would be gone after way before us
3) We've always been an illegal existence, this is not new.  We've always known this is basically a project we can work on until Nintendo tells us to stop.  If and when that happens, whatever.  It's an eventuality we've been aware of for years.
4) IF project M was taken down for legal reasons, we also have to keep in mind Iwata's official stance on fan projects.  



They only care about things that tarnish their sales or their image.  Project M's entire existence is basically a statement.  A statement that says "you used to make these games well, but you forgot how.  Here's how."  It is VERY detrimental to Nintendo's image, potential future sales of smash games (melee fans wont buy later games because project m reinforces their elitism), it tarnishes their reputation in ability to make quality games, and it even takes fans and viewers away from the Esports of other smash games, ESPECIALLY Brawl and Smash 4
Crusade does NONE of these things, and never will.  The existence of game mechanics from multiple smash games as well as unique and exclusive ones shows a lack of favoritism/elitism.  The existence of oddball character choices means our roster will never be taken seriously enough to diminish from theirs.  Our (current) art quality and existence solely as a pc fan game means we'll never threaten their sales figures.  We also exist in a completely separate market from official smash games.  We do not have a massive Esports following and almost certainly never will.  All said and done, this does not and should not affect us.

Of course, their stance could change at any time unannounced, so nothing is truly certain. Though we can feel reasonably safe based on what we know now that nothing will happen to us or any of the other smash fan games in the near future, and if it it does it will be a C&D rather than a lawsuit, which is nothing to worry about (at least, it's not a reason to preemptively quit).

Perfect Hell wrote:

PM was not taken down for legal reasons.  PM was taken down because the devs became aware that Nintendo could take legal actions if they wanted to, and chose to cease development preemptively.  In actuality, there was no reason for them to do so and they let themselves get way too spooked by "news" that should have been common knowledge among the team and has been among our team for a very long time.  Nintendo is not likely to C&D us or SSF2 or PM any time soon, if ever.

Furthermore, assuming PM had good reason to believe that an actual and major legal threat was imminent, this still has no bearing on Crusade whatsoever.

1) Fan games and mods are legally not the same thing at all
2) Even among fan games, there's a certain other fan game that would be gone after way before us
3) We've always been an illegal existence, this is not new.  We've always known this is basically a project we can work on until Nintendo tells us to stop.  If and when that happens, whatever.  It's an eventuality we've been aware of for years.
4) IF project M was taken down for legal reasons, we also have to keep in mind Iwata's official stance on fan projects.  



They only care about things that tarnish their sales or their image.  Project M's entire existence is basically a statement.  A statement that says "you used to make these games well, but you forgot how.  Here's how."  It is VERY detrimental to Nintendo's image, potential future sales of smash games (melee fans wont buy later games because project m reinforces their elitism), it tarnishes their reputation in ability to make quality games, and it even takes fans and viewers away from the Esports of other smash games, ESPECIALLY Brawl and Smash 4
Crusade does NONE of these things, and never will.  The existence of game mechanics from multiple smash games as well as unique and exclusive ones shows a lack of favoritism/elitism.  The existence of oddball character choices means our roster will never be taken seriously enough to diminish from theirs.  Our (current) art quality and existence solely as a pc fan game means we'll never threaten their sales figures.  We also exist in a completely separate market from official smash games.  We do not have a massive Esports following and almost certainly never will.  All said and done, this does not and should not affect us.

Of course, their stance could change at any time unannounced, so nothing is truly certain.  Though we can feel reasonably safe based on what we know now that nothing will happen to us or any of the other smash fan games in the near future, and if it it does it will be a C&D rather than a lawsuit, which is nothing to worry about (at least, it's not a reason to preemptively quit).

They suddenly became fearful..so they literally cancelled the game in a day. Absolutely nothing leading up to it. I refuse to believe that.

However the rest of your post is completely spot-on.

Obviously it was being led up to behind closed doors, they didn't decide on the same day they took action
If you go look at the twitter accounts of the devs in the weeks before it's obvious they were upset about something

Lego Shaq wrote:

They suddenly became fearful..so they literally cancelled the game in a day. Absolutely nothing leading up to it. I refuse to believe that.

Putting words in my mouth.

Keeping in mind this is all complete hearsay, what we "know" is that they met with a lawyer multiple times who showed them how bad it could be if Nintendo wanted to sue them, these talks went on for weeks before they pulled the plug. I never said they cancelled the game in a day over a little misplaced fear with nothing leading up to it.

On another note, we do not know why Project M actually stopped. It could very easily have been that they got tired of development, started having disagreements within the team, a combination of reasons, who knows.