Came here to say this. I grew up in the Sonic ROM hacking and fan game creation community (with this same username - my first posts are around 2001 and still around) and it was so cool to see how SEGA not only didn’t fuck with, but silently actually supported the scene. It was really awesome to see taxman and stealth get to where they did! I remember playing around with the Sonic Retro engine back in the day on my actual Dreamcast hardware. :)

Meanwhile; my friends in the Mario and Metroid hacking scene would constantly be hit with cease and desist orders from Nintendo, and some absolutely insane projects have been basically DOA and had to go underground. It’s quite a bit sad.

I think they've had something of a falling out though.

Sega died and Nintendidn't