AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
They won't and they can't. First of all, the argument they would have that this modification (NONPROFIT, MIND) Would be making them sell less copies, theres enough "DO NOT BUY THIS GAME" videos (i.e reviews) on the youtubes to essentially stop their profits for them.
Also, if we keep a low profile, they wont find out about it to begin with. and if we dont go advertising it, they can't claim STEALING PROFITS.
The end of legal argument.
How about the developers that get these projects actually test a game before they release it. I have not heard one good thing about ACP since its release. did no one at Gearbox play the game before the release? someone had to play it and say "Uh guys? this game is not good" the other guys were like "STHU! SEGAs check already cleared!!!" sad too because its such an Iconic franchise, with so much potential. The last AVP was good, i thought, but no one played it. whats up with that?
People did play it, it was popular, but for some fucked up retarded reason, they didn't release dedicated servers until about 2 months after release. This meant people were forced to play on servers with dodgy connections and bad ping. It was really fucking shit, which is a stupid shame because it was a good game. But fuck. What a moronic mistake. Killed the game, without question. Take a lesson here. Dedis on release or gtfo.
BeigeAlertTexasJoin Date: 2013-08-08Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
Don't do it. I remember for a long time there was a Command and Conquer Generals mod in development that would essentially turn the game into Starcraft II (this was long before SC2 was announced). Things seemed to be going well, it looked fun and playable at one stage, then out of the blue, they got a cease and desist letter from Blizzard. No defending it, they had to flush all that work down the toilet... metaphorically speaking.
Don't waste your time trying to ride the popularity of another franchise, there's a VERY good chance you'll get shut down before you release, and after you've put in a ton of irrecoverable time that could have been better spent creating something of your own.
And "but it's free!" is not even remotely close to any sort of plausible defense. The bottom line is you are using somebody else's copyrighted work/idea. If they don't want you to use it, you can't.
But still what happened to expanding creative ideas, i mean as long as you are not gaining any financial profit out of these ideas why would they want stop the creation of a harmless mod. I believe all these mainstream company's trying to do is put a cap on peoples imagination and creativeness. I mean come on even if people were going to create a new original idea, i can guarantee that someone in one of these company's will say that a certain element within that idea would breach a certain copyright act. For example lets say someone wants to use the idea that an alien will use the body of a human as a way to create more aliens, I bet a there will be cease and desist letter from a certain company because they have used something like this (But not at all the same) in there precious content. Therefore saying that if any content/idea is similar but not the same as the content we have created, you can not use this in your work. As they think they own an idea or anything related to it. I mean what the fuck!!! Who owns an theoretically idea that doesn't even exist. Oh wait yea big companies/organisations who think they rule the world!!!
There's a mod for Medieval 2 Total War called Third Age Total War (LotR full conversion mod). It's a complete mod that uses altered sound assets from Battle for Middle Earth and Medieval 2 (both owned by separate companies) and completely unique skins and modifications to units. It seems like a full release Total War game until the voice work and custom maps come into play. It's also completely free.
It's a shame there's too much risk involved with making a mod like this especially with SEGA's reputation. Really frustrates me that multi-million dollar companies can't even manage a fucking half decent AvP/Aliens game yet indie devs do a much better job. Totally useless.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
Also it can be claimed it's fan art. because gaming is now considered an art form, and game mods are considered fan art. well, that's the case in australia, not sure about the rest of the world... i can imagine the home of the free and the land of the brave has worse copyright laws than us.
If it gets some attention, it will get killed by cease and desist, it's almost guaranteed. It does not matter at all if you make or do not make profit, copyright law stated that you cannot use someone else's IP without his explicit consent which you will never get. There is so called "good faith" use, but after you receive a cease and desist letter, you have to either stop or face charges.
Look what happened to Alien Assault, a completely free game that was originally a GW's Space Hulk implementation. They had to rename/reskin everything to a generic "space soldiers vs. monsters" to get off the hook.
Don't waste your time, if you have quality idea for a mod, it will get attention without the need to mimic a cliched franchise.
Comments
Also, if we keep a low profile, they wont find out about it to begin with. and if we dont go advertising it, they can't claim STEALING PROFITS.
The end of legal argument.
People did play it, it was popular, but for some fucked up retarded reason, they didn't release dedicated servers until about 2 months after release. This meant people were forced to play on servers with dodgy connections and bad ping. It was really fucking shit, which is a stupid shame because it was a good game. But fuck. What a moronic mistake. Killed the game, without question. Take a lesson here. Dedis on release or gtfo.
Don't waste your time trying to ride the popularity of another franchise, there's a VERY good chance you'll get shut down before you release, and after you've put in a ton of irrecoverable time that could have been better spent creating something of your own.
And "but it's free!" is not even remotely close to any sort of plausible defense. The bottom line is you are using somebody else's copyrighted work/idea. If they don't want you to use it, you can't.
The Aliens mod for KF is still intact
It's a shame there's too much risk involved with making a mod like this especially with SEGA's reputation. Really frustrates me that multi-million dollar companies can't even manage a fucking half decent AvP/Aliens game yet indie devs do a much better job. Totally useless.
Look what happened to Alien Assault, a completely free game that was originally a GW's Space Hulk implementation. They had to rename/reskin everything to a generic "space soldiers vs. monsters" to get off the hook.
Don't waste your time, if you have quality idea for a mod, it will get attention without the need to mimic a cliched franchise.