Pokémon Uranium and AM2R dropped from The Game Awards’ “Best Fan Game” category

Fan games and popular mods are surprisingly given the light of day at The Game Awards. It’s one of the few award ceremonies that praises the hard work of everyday gamers, but that is apparently only applicable for non-Nintendo properties.

Both Pokémon Uranium and the Metroid II fan-remake, AM2R, made the original nominee list for “Best Fan Game,” but they mysteriously vanished from the award shows’ website overnight.

It’s a secret to everybody!

Actually, it’s no secret at all. Nintendo has been adamant in shutting down any and all fan games that use its properties as of late. The Game Awards is certainly well within its right to honor the hard work put into these games, but at the same time, Nintendo, who is a sponsor of the event, is well within its right to threaten and pull support from the show if it goes against its wishes.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what happened here.

The short list of fan-games is now even shorter

With the scrubbing of these two worthy games, the Best Fan Game category is now only represented by Brutal Doom 64 and Enderal: The Shards of Order. Unlike Nintendo, Bethesda realizes that its properties only benefit from mods and fan participation, meaning you won’t see these vanishing anytime soon.