Brand fatigue is definitely a real thing, I will agree with you there. In the same boat, so is genre fatigue. If you play a lot of platformers, you’ll eventually get bored and move on to something else. Nintendo clearly has no right to go after other platforming games that have copied from Mario’s mechanics, so why should they have the right to go after games that use Mario’s aesthetic or name?
Fan games are not normally morally wrong, but I do think it’s kind of trashy to try and make money off of someone else’s brand if you’re not doing it out of passion. I just don’t see it as a legal problem, much like how crappy off-brand ripoffs and lazily made games aren’t a legal problem. It’s also worth noting that the people making the most money off of the IP are just executives that likely had little to no part in creating the characters and care less about appreciating the artistic work than most fan game makers.
Look at Sonic P-06, a fan-made remake of Sonic ‘06. It’s highly polished, has fleshed out features that never made it into the original game, and is absolutely a labor of love. The original came out a buggy pile of garbage because it was forced out by those aforementioned business-people before it was ready. Most companies’ strict protection of their IP just prevent works of art like P-06 from seeing the light of day. I think that SEGA’s no Sonic monetization policy being enshrined into law would be a reasonable compromise.
Nintendo clearly has no right to go after other platforming games that have copied from Mario’s mechanics, so why should they have the right to go after games that use Mario’s aesthetic or name?
This argument doesn’t hold water to me. How are you conflating a brand with all games in a genre? IP and brands are a signifier of what to expect. Sherlock Holmes is a great example of what used to be an IP known for a very specific style of mystery story but now just means “genius problem solver maybe with a drug habit.”
Fan games are not normally morally wrong, but I do think it’s kind of trashy to try and make money off of someone else’s brand if you’re not doing it out of passion. I just don’t see it as a legal problem
We are going to just have to agree to disagree. Spiritual successors happen all the time. The reason people make fan games is that there is a lexicon built into their project already. It’s a shortcut instead of building (and considering) what is meaningful to your game in a lexicon. Additionally, a lot of people do not consider how their changes affect the lexicon throughout all games. So what you are left with is mostly people who don’t truly understand, never talked to the creators, never worked with them, assume everything from a product perspective, pushing out something that adds to the brand without any true coherency or consideration of future titles.
I for one see it as wrong to attempt to take someone’s work and not only pass it off as your own but also potentially break their ability to make future iterations of their work.
Look at Sonic P-06, a fan-made remake of Sonic ‘06. It’s highly polished, has fleshed out features that never made it into the original game, and is absolutely a labor of love.
Perhaps a labor of love. From my initial parsing of reviews, looks like they didn’t attempt to change anything but kept close to the source material.
Most companies’ strict protection of their IP just prevent works of art like P-06 from seeing the light of day
I feel like that’s okay. There are plenty of original and better ideas out there. It doesn’t prevent things from being made. P-06 being “still terrible but better” doesn’t really say anything. The fact that games like Black Mesa, Sonic Media, Skywind, and very specifically Zera: Myths Awaken also exists, a game that started as Spyro 4 and Activision sent a C&D, so they rebranded. These things are easily fixed and honestly, it’s great if fans want to attempt to build a game off of someone’s IP then ask the IP holder if they can continue with it. If not, they can just rebrand and create their own universe. Temtem is a great example of what happens when people are forced to create their own thing. It becomes more impactful and allows for a more interesting product. Not just a cookie cutter game.
I get what you’re saying. The problem is that you can’t argue your case just by giving examples of how IP enforcement can lead to people innovating more in the way that I can. The debate is asymmetrical because all I have to do is show that IP violation doesn’t uniquely negatively affect IP holders in ways that legal activities can’t, demonstrating precedent for that kind of competition/harm being legal. You need to justify forcibly imposing limitations on what people are allowed to do, which has a higher “burden of proof” if you get what I’m saying.
I don’t think that’s all you have to show. In fact I feel like a lot of your examples have missed the point entirely. The point isn’t that there are other ways that could maybe impact the sales or recognition a game gets. This conversation also jumps between copyright and trademark protections. Copyright is about protecting actual assets. You take my assets and make something else with them without my consent, you’ve stolen my work. That’s a bad, immoral thing. Equally ties to the copyright of characters and story. You take the building blocks I’ve made, you’ve stolen my work. Trademark is about protecting brand recogniztion and deals with IP violations.
With that covered, the point of copyright is to ensure the people who did the work get paid for their work. That large or small companies don’t have to worry about someone stealing their works and allowing them to innovate.
So when you say, whatever people will just make another game in the genre, that’s innovation. What if it’s bad? Not everything is good, that’s still positive innovation. You always mentioned large IPs but the truth is that the law is equal and that large corporations are already taking people’s work without asking. We do not need more of that.
For fan made games, there isn’t a huge point to do them without the blessing of the IP holder and you might point to large studios vs small fans but think of it in every scale. Especially middle to small studios being stolen from. It’s just a fan game doesn’t really hold water when it’s potentially putting people out of business because of the issues I’ve already shown. Imagine if copyright wasn’t enforced and someone just re-uploaded existing games. Where do you draw a line on the charges a fan game needs to make in order to qualify. I can tell you right now 99% of players wouldn’t buy a game on steam if there was another fan game of it exactly but for free. So then you have to draw up all these lines that are frankly unfair to the creators. So just let them choose. Their works belong to them. Not to just people who might like the game.
So I don’t see any point for which a looser copyright law would be overall more helpful to society. We need courts to allow for smaller creators to justify fair use but that doesn’t cover anything we talked about.
Where current copyright seems to draw the line is on recognizable characters. Where I draw the line is on direct asset or code flipping. I can’t see any functional difference between saying you own, for example, the platformer genre VS saying you own short, plump plumbers in red caps named Mario. I think we might fundamentally disagree in an irreconcilable way there.
Brand fatigue is definitely a real thing, I will agree with you there. In the same boat, so is genre fatigue. If you play a lot of platformers, you’ll eventually get bored and move on to something else. Nintendo clearly has no right to go after other platforming games that have copied from Mario’s mechanics, so why should they have the right to go after games that use Mario’s aesthetic or name?
Fan games are not normally morally wrong, but I do think it’s kind of trashy to try and make money off of someone else’s brand if you’re not doing it out of passion. I just don’t see it as a legal problem, much like how crappy off-brand ripoffs and lazily made games aren’t a legal problem. It’s also worth noting that the people making the most money off of the IP are just executives that likely had little to no part in creating the characters and care less about appreciating the artistic work than most fan game makers.
Look at Sonic P-06, a fan-made remake of Sonic ‘06. It’s highly polished, has fleshed out features that never made it into the original game, and is absolutely a labor of love. The original came out a buggy pile of garbage because it was forced out by those aforementioned business-people before it was ready. Most companies’ strict protection of their IP just prevent works of art like P-06 from seeing the light of day. I think that SEGA’s no Sonic monetization policy being enshrined into law would be a reasonable compromise.
This argument doesn’t hold water to me. How are you conflating a brand with all games in a genre? IP and brands are a signifier of what to expect. Sherlock Holmes is a great example of what used to be an IP known for a very specific style of mystery story but now just means “genius problem solver maybe with a drug habit.”
We are going to just have to agree to disagree. Spiritual successors happen all the time. The reason people make fan games is that there is a lexicon built into their project already. It’s a shortcut instead of building (and considering) what is meaningful to your game in a lexicon. Additionally, a lot of people do not consider how their changes affect the lexicon throughout all games. So what you are left with is mostly people who don’t truly understand, never talked to the creators, never worked with them, assume everything from a product perspective, pushing out something that adds to the brand without any true coherency or consideration of future titles.
I for one see it as wrong to attempt to take someone’s work and not only pass it off as your own but also potentially break their ability to make future iterations of their work.
Perhaps a labor of love. From my initial parsing of reviews, looks like they didn’t attempt to change anything but kept close to the source material.
I feel like that’s okay. There are plenty of original and better ideas out there. It doesn’t prevent things from being made. P-06 being “still terrible but better” doesn’t really say anything. The fact that games like Black Mesa, Sonic Media, Skywind, and very specifically Zera: Myths Awaken also exists, a game that started as Spyro 4 and Activision sent a C&D, so they rebranded. These things are easily fixed and honestly, it’s great if fans want to attempt to build a game off of someone’s IP then ask the IP holder if they can continue with it. If not, they can just rebrand and create their own universe. Temtem is a great example of what happens when people are forced to create their own thing. It becomes more impactful and allows for a more interesting product. Not just a cookie cutter game.
I get what you’re saying. The problem is that you can’t argue your case just by giving examples of how IP enforcement can lead to people innovating more in the way that I can. The debate is asymmetrical because all I have to do is show that IP violation doesn’t uniquely negatively affect IP holders in ways that legal activities can’t, demonstrating precedent for that kind of competition/harm being legal. You need to justify forcibly imposing limitations on what people are allowed to do, which has a higher “burden of proof” if you get what I’m saying.
I don’t think that’s all you have to show. In fact I feel like a lot of your examples have missed the point entirely. The point isn’t that there are other ways that could maybe impact the sales or recognition a game gets. This conversation also jumps between copyright and trademark protections. Copyright is about protecting actual assets. You take my assets and make something else with them without my consent, you’ve stolen my work. That’s a bad, immoral thing. Equally ties to the copyright of characters and story. You take the building blocks I’ve made, you’ve stolen my work. Trademark is about protecting brand recogniztion and deals with IP violations.
With that covered, the point of copyright is to ensure the people who did the work get paid for their work. That large or small companies don’t have to worry about someone stealing their works and allowing them to innovate.
So when you say, whatever people will just make another game in the genre, that’s innovation. What if it’s bad? Not everything is good, that’s still positive innovation. You always mentioned large IPs but the truth is that the law is equal and that large corporations are already taking people’s work without asking. We do not need more of that.
For fan made games, there isn’t a huge point to do them without the blessing of the IP holder and you might point to large studios vs small fans but think of it in every scale. Especially middle to small studios being stolen from. It’s just a fan game doesn’t really hold water when it’s potentially putting people out of business because of the issues I’ve already shown. Imagine if copyright wasn’t enforced and someone just re-uploaded existing games. Where do you draw a line on the charges a fan game needs to make in order to qualify. I can tell you right now 99% of players wouldn’t buy a game on steam if there was another fan game of it exactly but for free. So then you have to draw up all these lines that are frankly unfair to the creators. So just let them choose. Their works belong to them. Not to just people who might like the game.
So I don’t see any point for which a looser copyright law would be overall more helpful to society. We need courts to allow for smaller creators to justify fair use but that doesn’t cover anything we talked about.
Where current copyright seems to draw the line is on recognizable characters. Where I draw the line is on direct asset or code flipping. I can’t see any functional difference between saying you own, for example, the platformer genre VS saying you own short, plump plumbers in red caps named Mario. I think we might fundamentally disagree in an irreconcilable way there.
Agreed, we aren’t going to see eye to eye if you are thinking owning Mario is equal to owning the whole platforming genre.