Bully Online's project lead previously dismissed concerns about legal trouble from Rockstar and Take-Two, but if this is what it looks like, he may have spoken too soon
Honestly modding and fan games are becoming such lawsuit traps idk why anyone even bothers anymore instead of just making an original game. At least that way you own the Ip and can distribute it however you want.
Make the next big Mario style game instead of a Mario fan game that is never going to have anyone play it thanks to Nintendos lawyers.
That Mario Sunshine total conversion should have been its own thing.
Take Rollin’ Rascal; it’s an indie game that plays almost exactly like Sonic and you even have a ball form. But everything is legally distinct, and it’s a super fun game. There’s a mechanic for “taking over” different robot enemies so you can use their powers on others or the environment to unlock secrets and shortcuts. The company that’s making it previously worked on (I think) a couple Sonic games, and I believe they’re working on a port of Mother 3 as well.
Unfortunately our copyright system mandates that copyright owners must defend their IP from infringement, and making money off of an early access mod that revolves around copyrighted materials you don’t own is definitely infringement.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that, while a fully free version was in the books, Bully Online had a paid early access release that may have drawn scrutiny from the IP holder’s lawyers.
The article clearly states that the mod only allowed paying users to actually play multiplayer. So the mod devs were clearly looking to make some money off of it.
This wasn’t like the GTA online mods. You couldn’t host your own server and had to pay for access to theirs. They never said rockstar forced them to take it down either from what I have seen, it might be they just decided they weren’t making enough money.
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Building on a fountain of legal quicksand. Modders should completely avoid rockstar, Bethesda, and any other greedy corp.
It’s not the modding that’s the issue. It’s the fact that they were selling it.
You can only sell mods in their authorized mod stores. I don’t know if Rockstar has one.
Honestly modding and fan games are becoming such lawsuit traps idk why anyone even bothers anymore instead of just making an original game. At least that way you own the Ip and can distribute it however you want.
Make the next big Mario style game instead of a Mario fan game that is never going to have anyone play it thanks to Nintendos lawyers.
That Mario Sunshine total conversion should have been its own thing.
Take Rollin’ Rascal; it’s an indie game that plays almost exactly like Sonic and you even have a ball form. But everything is legally distinct, and it’s a super fun game. There’s a mechanic for “taking over” different robot enemies so you can use their powers on others or the environment to unlock secrets and shortcuts. The company that’s making it previously worked on (I think) a couple Sonic games, and I believe they’re working on a port of Mother 3 as well.
You literally have no idea what you’re talking about
It’s all fun and games until you try to make money from someone else’s IP
Just look at the mac address then
Lord forbid developers try to monetize their labor on a long dead game by adding new functionality
Unfortunately our copyright system mandates that copyright owners must defend their IP from infringement, and making money off of an early access mod that revolves around copyrighted materials you don’t own is definitely infringement.
US copyright law is a sham, and only exists to benefit the ruling class
No lies detected
who was trying to make money
From the article:
The article clearly states that the mod only allowed paying users to actually play multiplayer. So the mod devs were clearly looking to make some money off of it.
This wasn’t like the GTA online mods. You couldn’t host your own server and had to pay for access to theirs. They never said rockstar forced them to take it down either from what I have seen, it might be they just decided they weren’t making enough money.