Crimson Echoes

[bluestarultor]

I'm actually with Noncon on this. It's Square's IP, with the emphasis on P, as in "property." It's Square's stuff to do with as it pleases. Doing otherwise would be like a guy going and digging up a person's dead pet under the presumption that the owner wasn't using it. Maybe the owner doesn't WANT to use it, hmm?

People feel so entitled these days it's almost nauseating. They feel they "deserve" a game, or "deserve" their fan game, or "deserve" to be able to make a fan game, when the only thing they "deserve" is a whack upside the head and a "what the fuck."

And of course it's bad press for the company as people wave the "stomping on the little guy" flag over it.




Frankly, as a game designer, myself, I can give the honest personal opinion that people who make fan games are misguided at best and at worst are entitled, opportunistic, lazy, and/or just plain sticky-fingered (in the sense they're thieves, not wankers). There's a real stigma against things like decompiling code in the programming industry because it's simply not your work, and I feel the same way about using someone else's other resources, such as graphics, sound, or setting. It's plagiarism, is what it is, only instead of stealing their words, you're stealing their art.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Frankly, as a game designer, myself, I can give the honest personal opinion that people who make fan games are misguided at best and at worst are entitled, opportunistic, lazy, and/or just plain sticky-fingered (in the sense they're thieves, not wankers).

I'm going to chalk this up to Bluespeak and just let this go.

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

I'm going to chalk this up to Bluespeak and just let this go.

Funny enough, I can't.

Originally Posted by Bluespeak

Frankly, as a game designer, myself, I can give the honest personal opinion that people who make fan games are misguided at best and at worst are entitled, opportunistic, lazy, and/or just plain sticky-fingered (in the sense they're thieves, not wankers).

You're not actually a game designer. You know next to nothing about how designing games actually works, and the legitimate designers of games are usually overworked code junkies on teams of 14-25 that have to deal with supervisors that see half-thought ideas online and demand to have them put into a game. People who make fan-games are idealists. People who make Fan-anything usually have a story to tell, and despite being fanfiction, can occasionally be good. [See: Nukleapower.com] I'm going to pretend that your post up there about "Fan games" didn't include Fanfiction of all types, such as the work of Brian Clevinger.

Originally Posted by Bluespeak

There's a real stigma against things like decompiling code in the programming industry because it's simply not your work, and I feel the same way about using someone else's other resources, such as graphics, sound, or setting. It's plagiarism, is what it is, only instead of stealing their words, you're stealing their art.

If by "Stigma" you mean "Standard practice that pretty much everyone does" then you need to look up what Stigma means. Companies recycle code like motherfuckers. Spore, for example? Recycled Harry Potter. I'm not joking at all. It is the exact same engine.



So, if we take it from the angle you brought it in, The Spore Team stole from the Harry Potter team, since they were different devs inside the same company, but didn't write unique code.

[bluestarultor]

Mirai, there's a wee problem with a "tribute" when it comes to games. You can make a tribute to a movie with an AMV, or a tribute to a book by recording a few scenes with some friends acting, but you don't remake the movie or rewrite the book.

The problem here is the media. They were specifically using a media, in fact the SAME media, to create a story. Nobody cares if it was canon. They were using Square's resources. They were creating a product using items that were not theirs to use in the same format as the originals and had a pretty darn high profile. That would be the difference between writing Twilight fanfiction and writing Twilight fanfiction, getting it published, and then distributing copies of it for free in a paperback. The fact of the matter is that so long as it stays on some blog somewhere, nobody cares, because it's not in the same format. It doesn't matter if you give it away for free or not.




If they had chosen to write it as a story, or make a small movie, or do ANYTHING but make it a game, it would have been a non-issue. They didn't, and they knew the risks. I'd personally put that team under the misguided category of my previous statement. They wanted to bridge the gap in the most honest way possible. On the other hand, they realized what might happen and accepted it, which was the most honorable thing they could have done. I really do look up to their honesty and wish them well in future projects. Hopefully, the work they put into that project reflects what they'd be capable of doing an original one, because from what I saw, it was a good product.








Edit: Nik: No, "stigma" is an appropriate word. There's a real disdain for people who decompile code from other programs to use in their own. An engine can be legitimately purchased, and I have NO idea what I said to indicate that programmers didn't recycle code as much as humanly possible. On the other hand, they recycle code they have the legal rights to, or else they'd get sued.

And no, maybe I'm not a "real" game designer, but I'm in the process of designing my own games and can say, personally, that if someone went about mucking around with the resources I've spent the past three years creating, I'd be a wee bit pissed, ESPECIALLY if they used it to create another game. Maybe it's because I'm a small time schmuck, but those resources are mine; I made them. It would be a real kick in the balls if someone just up and stole all my tiles to make another game from. Every last one of them was hand done by me for my own purposes. If I wanted other people to use them, I'd have posted them as a sprite sheet somewhere and been done with it by now.




Edit: And to be specific, no, I have absolutely nothing against fanfiction so long as it's not in the same format. 8-Bit is by no means a video game, so there's no problem with Brian doing it. Conversely, I think Brian would be pretty flattered if someone whipped up a decent Atomic Robo game, as it wouldn't be competing with his market. On the other hand, if someone started up a competing site called 16-Bit Theater and started copying his 8BT comics with 16-bit sprites, I think he'd be rightfully pissed.

[Kroze Gamegod]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

The problem here is the media. They were specifically using a media, in fact the SAME media, to create a story. Nobody cares if it was canon. They were using Square's resources. They were creating a product using items that were not theirs to use in the same format as the originals and had a pretty darn high profile. That would be the difference between writing Twilight fanfiction and writing Twilight fanfiction, getting it published, and then distributing copies of it for free in a paperback. The fact of the matter is that so long as it stays on some blog somewhere, nobody cares, because it's not in the same format. It doesn't matter if you give it away for free or not.

Oh god I totally hate it when people do shit like that, especially when they keep their tribute in the same stupid medium because thats just asking for trouble. And it even angers me more when I see people get insanely popular over it and they don't have anything else under their belt so that just means all they can do is steal stuff and just are dirty thieves who's reinterpretation on said project should be immedately discounted and stupid and they should burn in hell for all eternity! The only thing I hate MORE than that is people who are British! God, I would hate to ever be involved with something like that. ANGER!!!!

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Edit: Nik: No, "stigma" is an appropriate word. There's a real disdain for people who decompile code from other programs to use in their own. An engine can be legitimately purchased, and I have NO idea what I said to indicate that programmers didn't recycle code as much as humanly possible. On the other hand, they recycle code they have the legal rights to, or else they'd get sued.

See I was hoping you wouldn't continue this argument and just drop it. Now look what you've done. EvilNESS covered one angle, I'll cover the other.

Actual companies don't give two damns about code-theft, blues. Most companies don't HAVE unique code, it's just old code assembled in a new way. It's the Havok engine how many times over in every game? You think that every company is going to use the same engine in a unique way every time?

Ever wonder why the character models in Bionic Commando and X-Men Origins: Wolverine move in, essentially, the EXACT same way? Why they look so similar in motion and pose that they could be the identical model, reskinned?

Code is borrowed, recycled, reused over and over. Choice bits of code are given to publishers sometimes to be disseminated, too- I've played the middleman between a company and Nintendo trying to work out a minor motion bug. Even the Consoles have recycled code that's shared between companies.

Originally Posted by Blues

And no, maybe I'm not a "real" game designer, but I'm in the process of designing my own games and can say, personally, that if someone went about mucking around with the resources I've spent the past three years creating, I'd be a wee bit pissed, ESPECIALLY if they used it to create another game. Maybe it's because I'm a small time schmuck, but those resources are mine; I made them. It would be a real kick in the balls if someone just up and stole all my tiles to make another game from. Every last one of them was hand done by me for my own purposes. If I wanted other people to use them, I'd have posted them as a sprite sheet somewhere and been done with it by now.

Edit: And to be specific, no, I have absolutely nothing against fanfiction so long as it's not in the same format. 8-Bit is by no means a video game, so there's no problem with Brian doing it. Conversely, I think Brian would be pretty flattered if someone whipped up a decent Atomic Robo game, as it wouldn't be competing with his market. On the other hand, if someone started up a competing site called 16-Bit Theater and started copying his 8BT comics with 16-bit sprites, I think he'd be rightfully pissed.

Which relates to this scenario not at all, since you're currently USING your shit and not letting it sit for 8 god damn years.

But IF somebody did it, hey, it's your right to get pissed off if one of your sprites shows up in a game. Now, if you were designing your game in something other then RPGcreator I'm sure that I'd call you a game designer, but right now you're more something more of a... tweaker. Yeah, that's a good word. You're playing a game that's about making games, essentially. [PS It's okay, being a game designer is a really shitty job. Don't aspire to it.]

Edit: And I think he'd be incredibly pissed of someone made an Atomic Robo game without his permission and started profiting off it because that's a stupid example all together. You clearly lack any idea of what 'fanfiction' means and are confusing it with 'ripping off'.

http://fanfiction.net <-- There's fanfiction here.

I don't think "16 Bit Theatre" would be anything but idea theft.

[Locke cole]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

I don't think "16 Bit Theatre" would be anything but idea theft.

I'll say!

That Captain SNES guy worked hard on that crossover parody!

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

See I was hoping you wouldn't continue this argument and just drop it. Now look what you've done. EvilNESS covered one angle, I'll cover the other.

Actual companies don't give two damns about code-theft, blues. Most companies don't HAVE unique code, it's just old code assembled in a new way. It's the Havok engine how many times over in every game? You think that every company is going to use the same engine in a unique way every time?

Ever wonder why the character models in Bionic Commando and X-Men Origins: Wolverine move in, essentially, the EXACT same way? Why they look so similar in motion and pose that they could be the identical model, reskinned?

Code is borrowed, recycled, reused over and over. Choice bits of code are given to publishers sometimes to be disseminated, too- I've played the middleman between a company and Nintendo trying to work out a minor motion bug. Even the Consoles have recycled code that's shared between companies.

Fair enough. I had that fed to me as an academic discussion, but it would require decompiling code anyway to find your own decompiled code in there, so it's not surprising that it's just academic.

And when I speak of "decompiling," Nik, what I mean is if someone were to take a program written by a competing company, run it through special software to reduce it back to the source code, and then take that source code to use in their own project without permission. NO code is original; that's why it's there. It provides a structure that allows instructions to be performed by the machine. What I'm talking about is if someone wrote a program before you to, say, play music, and you're going to write your own program to do the same thing, so you decompile their code, steal their engine for your own project, and then paint it up a bit differently without giving credit.

Which relates to this scenario not at all, since you're currently USING your shit and not letting it sit for 8 god damn years.

But IF somebody did it, hey, it's your right to get pissed off if one of your sprites shows up in a game. Now, if you were designing your game in something other then RPGcreator I'm sure that I'd call you a game designer, but right now you're more something more of a... tweaker. Yeah, that's a good word. You're playing a game that's about making games, essentially. [PS It's okay, being a game designer is a really shitty job. Don't aspire to it.]

Edit: And I think he'd be incredibly pissed of someone made an Atomic Robo game without his permission and started profiting off it because that's a stupid example all together. You clearly lack any idea of what 'fanfiction' means and are confusing it with 'ripping off'.

http://fanfiction.net <-- There's fanfiction here.

I don't think "16 Bit Theatre" would be anything but idea theft.

Nik, buddy, you're not giving me enough credit. At all. I'm writing my games all from scratch using tools that I've written myself and have developed a version 0.1 of a scripting language of my own design that will be interpreted in code that I will write myself. If I wanted to use RPG Maker or some crap, I could have probably been done with several of my projects by now. I'm not even using XNA.

Putting that aside, unless a Robo game would somehow interfere with Brian's own projects and were not distributed for free, he'd probably be less pissed than if someone started publishing comics using Robo or a thinly-disguised copy. Obviously, it's always better to ask permission before embarking.

I'll continue this later, but I have an appointment I need to get to for my classes.

Okay, I'm home now.

I know the difference between fanfiction and ripping something off, but I think it's just best at this point to point out that I agree with most of what you've said and this entire argument is probably because I'm still crappy at expressing myself. You've actually expressed a lot of my points better than I was able to.




Basically, a lot of my viewpoint boils down to this: there is a lot of untapped talent out there. I'd like to think I'm a part of it. There was a point where I was hoping to do fan-games of my own, and I know the excitement behind it. On the other hand, I realized that it's more trouble than it's worth and that I could express my talent with my own original work. I did dabble a bit in ROM hacking and RPG Maker, but I never got very far with any of it, mostly because it was tedious and restrictive and all sorts of other stuff. I'm sure there are programmers out there who are stunningly brilliant, but as I said, I find that doing fan games is misguided. I find it misguided because I realized I was misguided. Hacking a game is not going to net you a job. All the major work is already done for you. Maybe if you do a piece of original work, it's not going to make you famous, but at the same time, it shows a lot more of your abilities. It shows you can program an engine. It shows you can write an original story. It shows you can write new music. It shows you can design an interface and characters and items and a whole world from nothing. It shows you can do graphics well enough to express all that stuff.

That's why I call these people misguided at best. They really don't understand what employers want to see or what shows their skills. If you can show someone a fully-formed original game, they are going to see what you, or you and your team, are really capable of. It's overall a much better reflection on you to do your own work.

[Yumil]

If you want to make a fangame to show how much you love the original, don't try to do a remake, rewrite, or anything like that. If you do any of that, you honestly think too much of yourself to make anything good. Why do you think you can do a better job than the original's creator...it just seems wrong to me.

No, if you want to do a fangame, make something original. Use your own characters, your own art, your own music, and your own story. The gameplay can be similar(gameplay isn't part of the copywrite:o), just as long as everything else is different. Throw in references fans of the original would get, and they'll know it's a homage.

Heck, look at Rosenkruez, it's got Mega Mans gameplay, throws references not only to Megaman but other games, and isn't using any Megaman resources(sure, some are close, but for the most part it's an original game). Rosenkruez is a true fan game.