Talk:Fangamer

Delete this article

This talk page section contains an unresolved talk page proposal. Please try to help and resolve the issue by voting or leaving a comment.

Current time: Monday, December 23, 2024, 02:50 GMT

The only reason for this article's existence is mainly because Fangamer made merchandise for RareRacers, a brand inspired by Diddy Kong Racing. And... that's pretty much it. Nothing about the brand has any Donkey Kong or Super Mario branding whatsoever. Yes, Diddy Kong Racing was branded as a kart racer featuring Diddy Kong. However, this particular brand avoids any Donkey Kong references in favor of Rare's original characters who are now far removed from the original brand. We don't have articles for Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, just because Tiptup appeared in those games. I do think it's worth mentioning in Diddy Kong Racing''s article, but that's about it.

Proposer: TheUndescribableGhost (talk)
Deadline: August 31, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. TheUndescribableGhost (talk) Per proposal
2. Super Mario RPG (talk) There's Diddy Kong then there's the Microsoft-owned cast of Diddy Kong Racing. Per proposer.
3. DrippingYellow (talk) Maybe I'm being a contrarian here, but given that the pins in question notably lack any direct mentions of Diddy Kong Racing itself (not to mention not being licensed by Nintendo to our knowledge, a crucial qualifier for something Mario-adjacent earning an article on here), I feel like this is enough to disqualify it from being considered official DKR merchandise per se. A good example of the wiki's already-established stance on these sorts of grey-area products is Kinoppe: despite originating from an official Mario manga, we don't cover her author-published, technically legal, spin-off manga in any capacity.
   So, to answer Arend's hypothetical in the comments: no, if there was a "Super RPG Pals" plush set with Mallow and Geno, and Nintendo didn't own the rights to those characters and weren't involved in licensing, then we wouldn't cover it. Rare Racers is to Diddy Kong Racing what Lara-Sue Chronicles is to the Archie Sonic comics.

Oppose

1. Hewer (talk) Articles for merchandise brands are valid, and the Diddy Kong Racing characters (besides Banjo and Conker) aren't really "far removed from the original brand". They were created for and used in Diddy Kong Racing, a game we fully cover, so it makes sense to cover its merchandise.
2. Pseudo (talk) Per Hewer.
3. Mario (talk) Per Hewer. The article is primarily focused on Diddy Kong Racing (not necessarily just Rare characters), a game we do extensively cover in the wiki so it's not too far off we cover brands that deal with Diddy Kong Racing merchandise.
4. Arend (talk) Per all, also see comments.
5. Camwoodstock (talk) Per Hewer. Diddy Kong Racing is under our coverage just fine, ergo, it makes sense to cover merchandise for it.
6. JanMisali (talk) Per all.
7. Ray Trace (talk) Per Hewer
8. Metalex123 (talk) I think we should keep the article. Sure the Diddy Kong Racing characters (minus Diddy and Krunch) are all fully-owned by Rare (and Microsoft), but it still gets full coverage on the wiki, since it is a game in the Donkey Kong franchise, using the name of a Nintendo-owned character in the title. "Rare Racers" is mostly just a marketing name used for that merch brand, since they can't really use "Diddy Kong Racing" for very obvious reasons. The merchandise was clearly inspired by Diddy Kong Racing. If these characters were to reappear in an actual "Rare Racers" reboot game, however, then it would be a different discussion, like how Tiptup, Banjo, and Conker all first appeared in Diddy Kong Racing, but only get full coverage on their appearance in Diddy Kong Racing, not full coverage on the Banjo-Kazooie and Conker series, since those are unrelated to the Donkey Kong/Mario franchises. Per all.
9. Sdman213 (talk) Per all.
10. Starluxe (talk) Per all.
11. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per all; also, given the pose of the characters, the side perspective of the kart, and the art style of solid colors and black outlines, the pin designs are very likely to have been directly inspired by the stamps seen in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (compare this with this), which creates another connection to a racing game from the Super Mario franchise.

Comments

Okay, so imagine, if you will, Fangamer got the rights from Square-Enix to make, say, a Geno plush, maybe a Mallow one too. Both as part of a Square-Enix collection. And these are the only two plushes they make outside of other original Square-Enix-owned characters because they need the rights from Nintendo for the Mario characters in Super Mario RPG; they can do Geno and Mallow just fine because those are owned by Square-Enix. Would one still think this page needs to be deleted because Square-Enix owns the characters and are """far removed from the Mario brand""", or is the page allowed to stay because Super Mario RPG is basically the ONLY game these two appear in?
You see, I feel like the Diddy Kong Racing cast is in a similar boat. Sure, it started out as a Pro-Am kart racer but then has Diddy plopped in for marketing, so one could say it's generally less attached because of this origin, but at the same time, we don't see any of the characters in any other Rare game. Timber is pretty much exclusive to Diddy Kong Racing, and so is Pipsy, and Drumstick, and Taj, and Wizpig. Hell, Krunch became a Kremling due to the rebrand! I think Tiptup and maybe T.T. are the only ones that made a cameo outside of Diddy Kong Racing. Point is, we all associate these characters with Diddy Kong Racing the same way we associate Geno and Mallow with Super Mario RPG, because that's the only games they respectively appear in, despite the fact that Nintendo owns none of those characters. And that's why I suppose covering Fangamer would be fine. (To be honest though, I was actually kinda surprised at first that Fangamer was allowed to make merch of the DKR cast with only Rare's permission) rend (talk) (edits) 17:33, August 17, 2024 (EDT)

My reason for this proposal is mainly because I get the impression that modern Diddy Kong Racing is slowly phasing out the Donkey Kong elements. Like, if there is a successor that uses the same characters, I can imagine how it could get controversial in terms on coverage on this wiki. On that example for the hypothetical Geno and Mallow thing, Geno and Mallow (from my knowledge) have yet to appear outside of the Super Mario franchise, while this particular brand "reboots" it if you will. I guess we never considered that idea. TheUndescribableGhost (talk) 21:07, August 18, 2024 (EDT)

I don't think it really matters whether the characters are made for/associated with a Mario franchise game. If Nintendo loses the rights to them, and they are used in a context with all Mario references scrubbed out, without Nintendo's apparent involvement, then we don't give it an article, plain as that. Mention it in the characters' articles, sure, but how can we treat it as official merch for a game and give it full coverage when the branding of the game was actively replaced? DrippingYellow (talk) 13:47, August 19, 2024 (EDT)

@Metalex123 What, does the "marketing name" matter less than an "actual" name? How does it not contribute to the un-Diddyfication of this merch brand? We don't have articles for anything else featuring Diddy Kong Racing assets or characters when they're not Mario-related, including Jet Force Gemini, which has the full Greenwood Village track as a playable racing stage even in the Xbox rerelease, not to mention the multiple games that Tiptup has appeared/been referenced in.

@ThePowerPlayer How does the look of the artwork being a reference to Mario Kart make it any more "officially" Mario-related? I know a lot of bootleg merch that could get an article by this logic...

I'll die on this hill, by the way. This article simply seems too obvious of an inconsistency to have lying around. 10 people voting oppose and then immediately abandoning discussion won't sway my mind on that. DrippingYellow (talk) 17:03, August 26, 2024 (EDT)

Cool down. People "abandoned" the discussion because the main point against the proposal has already been voiced repeatedly: the Diddy Kong Racing IP is joint owned by Nintendo and Microsoft, and this Diddy Kong Racing-related merchandise was licensed by one of these companies, making it official and worth covering. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 10:19, August 27, 2024 (EDT)

It's not "joint owned", otherwise Nintendo would have been credited, and there wouldn't have been any need to avoid referring to Diddy Kong Racing by name. As I have voiced, Diddy Kong Racing is a mess of certain assets being owned by Nintendo and the majority of them being owned by Microsoft. The proposal already made it a point that Tiptup's Banjo appearances are not covered, despite Tiptup obstensibly being a DKR character, so I don't see how this is any different. And still nobody has commented on how this is a different case from Kinoppe-chan Forever, or if we should also be covering that as well. DrippingYellow (talk) 12:04, August 27, 2024 (EDT)

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL) is literally credited in Diddy Kong Racing. Regardless of who owns what of this game, it and the resultant property are entirely within the wiki's breadth of coverage. Based on that fact, my and others' point is that merch licensed by Microsoft that represents their slice of this property is germane to this wiki.
Regarding Kinoppe, your comments inspired me to create this topic on the forums lol -- KOOPA CON CARNE 12:18, August 27, 2024 (EDT)

...Where in all of that did you get me claiming that Nintendo wasn't credited in the game? Of course Nintendo had full rights to the game then (if the back of the box is to be believed, they even owned Banjo at one point). And for DS, the box does indeed state that "certain characters are licensed by Rare". And regarding the wiki's breadth of coverage, I again point to Tiptup in Banjo not being present in any capacity on the wiki beyond a mention in the opening paragraph. Should we expand on that in the page? I'd like to get confirmation that the facts are being acknowledged before chalking up disagreement to a difference in MarioWiki philosophy. DrippingYellow (talk) 13:01, August 27, 2024 (EDT)

"It's not 'joint owned', otherwise Nintendo would have been credited"--this was your response to me saying that "the Diddy Kong Racing IP is joint owned by Nintendo and Microsoft". Tiptup's appearance in Banjo-Kazooie is not explained in detail on this wiki for the same reason the wiki doesn't describe Banjo or Link from the perspective of their series: he's a crossover character, in this case pertaining to the Banjo-Kazooie series, who just happened to debut in a Mario-related title. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 13:27, August 27, 2024 (EDT)