All copies of the Nintendo 3DS game "Fire Emblem: Awakening" have been rendered useless after SEGA of America filed a DMCA takedown request to Nintendo. The takedown request, claiming ownership over nonexistent videogame Shining Force 4 and "any videogame, media, or human utterance even remotely similar to it", was filed yesterday, causing all copies of the game to be replaced with a notice that "Fire Emblem: Awakening is currently unavailable due to a takedown request by SEGA of America, Inc.".
Yes, Fire Emblem Awakening was the Shining Force 4 I'd been looking for.
— Totalbiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) February 6, 2013
SEGA of America has not released any official statement regarding the takedown, but many fans of the Fire Emblem series blame prolific YouTube game commentator TotalBiscuit, who recently compared the new Fire Emblem game to a hypothetical, unreleased Shining Force 4. SEGA had, in the past, filed DMCA takedowns for a large variety of YouTube videos even scarcely mentioning anything to do with the Shining Force series, and several fans believe this to be a continuation of their much-loathed "Don't Talk About Shining Force" policies.
Nintendo, the developer and publisher of the targeted game, recently published a press release stating that "Sometimes, because of the variables of intellectual property law, different games can be taken down for different reasons. Fire Emblem: Awakening can be purchased right now from the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS, and will be playable in seven to fourteen days when our DMCA counter-notification is acknolwedged by SEGA.".
Fans of the game have taken to the Internet to protest SEGA's decision to take down the game under a new call-in campaign called "Operation PK Shinefall", in which players will spend several days calling Nintendo and SEGA's customer support lines en masse to demand fixed copies of the Fire Emblem game, a proper translation of Shining Force 3, a re-release of Nintendo's MOTHER series on the 3DS, Wii U remake compilations of "The Last Story", "Pandora's Tower", and "Xenoblade Chronicles", a Pokemon game with "all the regions on it in full 3D and also it's an MMORPG", and "real-life Nintendogs".