Square Enix Shuts Down Fan Game Effort

from the shut-down-the-fans-and-they-may-shut-you-down dept

Wed, May 13th 2009 7:44am — Mike Masnick

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the story that video game maker Square Enix has forced a fan mod community to shut down a years-long project to create a mod called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes based on the Chrono Trigger world. The game was set to be released at the end of the month before the legal nastygram forced the volunteer fan group to shut down.

It's difficult to fathom how this could possibly make sense. These were fans who were playing up how much they loved the original game universe, and wanted so badly to help spread that, that they spent years developing additional game action, only to have it totally shut down. In an era when treating your fans badly has been shown to backfire badly (especially in the video game world), you would think that Square Enix would have thought twice before sending a legal nastygram threatening huge legal fines.

Once again, this seems like a case where people sent a legal nastygram because they could, not because it was a smart business idea.

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Filed Under: chrono trigger, fans, mods, video games
Companies: square enix

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Avatar28, 13 May 2009 @ 7:58am

maybe not entirely dead
I have seen a few instances where something like this happens and then the original company either buys the product or signs the development team to a deal to publish the game. In fact, I believe that there are a few game studios that got their start this way.

Considering that Square/Enix must have known about this product for awhile, it seems odd that they would wait until it is about to be released to send the nastygram. Makes me wonder if it isn't some sort of tool to force them to hand over the rights to the project or to sell it for much less than what it is worth or what it would have cost them to develop it in house and then Square gets the product for little or no cost to them which they then turn around and finish what little remains and publish it for a massive ROI.

I'm not clear on exactly what US copyright law has to say about derivative works, unfortunately.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 8:01am

While I agree that shutting down these efforts is counter-productive, I still wonder why people think it's a good idea to do stuff like this in the first place. Make something that is different, but still in the spirit of the original, and avoid all the names that might tie it to the original. Sure it won't be as popular since you don't have the built-in fanbase, but if people know that it's like the original game, they'll still enjoy it.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 8:03am

Re: maybe not entirely dead
it seems odd that they would wait until it is about to be released to send the nastygram

Enix doesn't have a great reputation from what I recall.

I'm not clear on exactly what US copyright law has to say about derivative works, unfortunately.

No one does.
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hegemon13, 13 May 2009 @ 8:04am

Were they using original content?
This seems like it should fall under the same guidelines as a fan film. If they were creating mods, or simply creating new content based on the world of Chrono Trigger, it should not be possible to prosecute them unless they are making a profit. That is how fan films and fan fiction work. Why should fan games be any different? Then again, maybe the treatment of fan films/fiction is an unspoken, voluntary action by the copyright holders and not actually a law. If so, Square is full of morons who are entirely blind to the value of a passionate fan base.
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hegemon13, 13 May 2009 @ 8:06am

Re: Were they using original content?
Oops, I never finished. If they were using actual code from the original game, then I could see how it would be a copyright violation. Still, that doesn't make it smart for Square to go after them. I believe that the reason that fan films/fiction are okay is that it revolves around trademark laws (the trademarked characters, worlds, etc), not copyright. As long as the fan content creators are not selling the product, it can't be viewed as competing in commerce, or something like that.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 8:06am

Re:
Because fans care about further adventures of Chrono and the gang. If they just wanted a similar game, there are plenty of other fantasy RPG games out there.
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Anonymous Poster, 13 May 2009 @ 8:07am

Square Enix pulled a dick move here, and I hope it comes back to bite them on their asses.
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Anonymous Poster, 13 May 2009 @ 8:10am

Re: Re: Were they using original content?
Yes, they were using code from the original game. The project was a ROM hack, after all.

The hack itself would not have been distributed with the ROM itself (to avoid actual, major legal ramifications), in much the same way that the Mother 3 fan translation is distributed.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 13 May 2009 @ 8:19am

Re: Re: Were they using original content?
They were probably using a program called RPG Maker. The graphics are pretty close to most RPGs from back in the SNES days and can be adjusted to look identical.

Now, why is Square shutting this down? It isn't like they've had a Chrono game since Chrono Cross. Not like Secret of Mana where they released a new one only a little while ago.
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Anonymous12, 13 May 2009 @ 8:25am

@Anonymous Coward: Thanks for telling people how to think.
Go read the Constitution and shut up. I'm not saying it has anything to do with this case, but it might do you some good.
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Anonymous Poster, 13 May 2009 @ 8:31am

Re: Re: Re: Were they using original content?
As I stated above, the project was a ROM hack.

And while Square Enix hasn't made a new Chrono game in a while, they did just recently rerelease Chrono Trigger on the DS.
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Bettawrekonize, 13 May 2009 @ 8:33am

More examples of how intellectual property is DESTROYING our society. There are MANY people willing to make games for free, willing to write software for FREE (ie: Linux), willing to do lots of hard work for free to help out society (ie: research, etc...), willing to do perfectly good research and spend time to develop products that will HELP society because they want to help society, and then intervenes stupid intellectual property laws preventing new innovations from taking place. Innovation is completely possible without intellectual property, the government can fund scientists at universities to conduct research, benevolent scientists who are willing to do hard, very useful research at VERY low cost with the intent of helping society, and what ends up getting in the way? Intellectual property. I don't really buy this notion that people are unwilling to put in the fixed costs required to create innovation, there are many benevolent people willing to do it (look at the open source community and the developments they create, ie: the GPL and other free software) from all fields who would do a lot to help society but intellectual property gets in the way.
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AJ, 13 May 2009 @ 8:47am

Do it anyway...
Whoops, my computer got hacked and they stole the game and now its on some torrent site... or ... i had it on a flash drive and it got stolen.. or... i sold the pc that had the software on it and it was released by somebody else.. i can think of a thousand ways this could end up released anyway...

I think the best thing to do tho is to just not release it, just like they ask. That way the company doesn't get the benifit of the new customers that would have been interested just because of this MOD.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 8:48am

Re: maybe not entirely dead
"Makes me wonder if it isn't some sort of tool to force them to hand over the rights to the project or to sell it for much less than what it is worth or what it would have cost them to develop it in house and then Square gets the product for little or no cost to them which they then turn around and finish what little remains and publish it for a massive ROI."

I can only speak for myself, but if I was on that team, and Square pulled that card out, I wouldn't turn over jack.

"Oops, hard drive failure. Sorry, all the code files are gone."
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Bettawrekonize, 13 May 2009 @ 8:49am

But it's ridiculous, people are willing to put years of development into producing FREE software and what gets in the way? Intellectual property.
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Bettawrekonize, 13 May 2009 @ 8:54am

This is a perfectly good example of how people are willing to put time and effort and COST into making new, useful products freely available (or available at very low cost) and intellectual property just gets in the way. This can be generalized to many fields (even medicine), not just the field of computer programming. People are willing to put effort, time, research, cost, etc... into making useful products available for a cheap price for the purpose of helping people and intellectual property just gets in the way.
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Danny, 13 May 2009 @ 9:15am

Didn't Bungie do something like this with Halo Wars in which they forced a fan project to shut down just to annouce Halo Wars only months later?

I would not be surprise if Square Enix either:
1. Forced the fan project group to hand over their work via lawsuit threats and make their own game with it.
2. Destroyed all code, notes, etc... associated with the project then make their own official sequel. (with some hyped up "back by popular demand" marketing).
3. Decides that they would rather let the Chrono Trigger franchise (for lack of a better) die than do something with it so they destroy the fan project.

If SE were smart they would hire the project team and make the game an actual sequel. Such a move would build street cred (imagine the praise from fans and gamers over a company that "gets it"), put a good amount of money in SE's pocket (since most of the grunt work has already been done), and possibly get a few new permanent employees out of it. Hell even such a move only produced this one game with that project team I think SE would still profit from it.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 9:27am

This should have been a source mod
There's plenty of successful source mods who base everything on copyrighted material and don't get shut down. Game developers are usually too stupid when it comes to understanding the gaming community and don't know how to find or what source mods are.
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DCX2, 13 May 2009 @ 9:39am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Were they using original content?
You mean re-re-release.
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Sanketsu, 13 May 2009 @ 9:54am

Holy lifestream. What went through their heads before sending that C&D order? You'd think that they'd actually be HAPPY that ANYONE is interested in the Chrono series. Especially with the outright NEGLECT that the series has faced.

Oh, a DS port, whoo... Exciting, yes, a little, but it's not furthering the series any. From the looks of this, it WOULD have been exciting and new.

Bad form Square Enix.... Bad form.
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Ian, 13 May 2009 @ 9:57am

I don't really mind this, TBH.

These fans really should have asked for permission first, and by agreeing that this was completely going to be non-profit now, and in the future.

That's what the makers of the new LOTR fan film did, and it's a great idea.

And you may argue that a fan-created game is a great idea, and should not be under threats by lawsuits, since it's all non-profit anyway, I'm sure Square Enix still wants control over the characters actions, the world they exist in, etc. It's their creation, and non-profit or not, I wouldn't like it if a group were to play around with MY creation and release it. It's SE's characters, and those characters exist in an SE world.

Besides, what if this fan-created mod interferes with the flow of the story that Square Enix has planned for that series? SE did release a new Chrono game recently.

If these fans were so passionate about this RPG, they should at least respect the makers of the game and ask for permission to add to the game.
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Tgeigs, 13 May 2009 @ 10:02am

Hahaha
"Holy Life Stream"

Awesome. Pure awesome.

Question: Does Square even realize that they kinda represent Shinra in terms of corporate evilness?
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Headbhang, 13 May 2009 @ 10:30am

Re:
Ah, I wish Square Enix would get its damned head out of its arse and stop being such a fucking jerk. First Chrono Resurrection and now this... Idiots.
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Sanketsu, 13 May 2009 @ 10:32am

Re: Hahaha
Yeah... Oddly enough Squaresoft helped me form my thoughts on religion back in the day. *^_^*
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Nick, 13 May 2009 @ 10:58am

Copyright Rules?
Keep in mind that they aren't exercising choice here; according to copyright law they are OBLIGATED to defend their copyrights in this manner or the copyright becomes invalidated.

Simply put, if they don't defend their IP in this manner, the IP copyrights are voided, and they lose it completely.
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Sanketsu, 13 May 2009 @ 11:10am

Re: Copyright Rules?
Oh... wow. I did not know that. *goes off to research copyright rules*
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Tgeigs, 13 May 2009 @ 11:11am

Re: Copyright Rules?
"Simply put, if they don't defend their IP in this manner, the IP copyrights are voided, and they lose it completely."

Ok, but does copyright law also mandate that they defend their IP via these nastygrams? Why can't you "defend" their IP by slapping these creators on the back, saying that they did such an awesome job that you want to officially back their efforts by endorsing the project, and putting your logo on their work as a sign of "approval". There, now their efforts are "authorized" by the original creators, so you no longer need to worry about losing the IP rights, correct?
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Paul Brinker, 13 May 2009 @ 11:34am

Bloodsuckers don't think that way
First, a ton of fan made stuff gets shut down vary close to release, (dragon ball mod for example) This is because its hard to shut it down after release. At the same time Square wont even return a phone call if you ask to make a fan made mod of there stuff (like most mega companys).

I've tryed to get "offical" rights to do wierd junk like this before, Basicly geting to the person who can say yes is almost impossable, but you can find people who say no at every level of the company.

This is the same reason old classic games like Master of Magic, Moo2, X-Com, etc. dont get remade with better graphics and less bugs and why Supreem Commander is a "sperical successor".

Sadly the best way to do a project like this is to do it anomously, have no address, identifable person and fake whois information. Connect via proxy to your offical website and simply ignore CnD letters. Bonus points if you can be based out of a country with differnt laws on IP as well.
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Eclecticdave (profile), 13 May 2009 @ 11:36am

Re: Copyright Rules?
That would be trademarks you're thinking of. Copyright doesn't work that way at all.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 13 May 2009 @ 12:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Were they using original content?
I didn't know that it was a ROM hack (now I do since I found one of the sites) and I was just guessing about the RPG maker. It's still a good program and could make an identical copy of Chrono Trigger (in fact I've already seen one).

I actually meant a new game, but you are absolutely correct with the re-re-release on the DS. I completely forgot, I have it on the PSX.

I think my opinion has been changed. This was a legal move, if not smart.
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placidifyThis, 13 May 2009 @ 12:30pm

What matters, this original content?
I am hoping one of the lawyers here can explain what legal precedent has been established to say that ROM hacking is illegal.

I wonder this because there does not seem to be legal ground to say that I cannot take something I own (and I do own the original cartridge for this game) and do whatever I want to its contents. Fanediting is getting bigger by the day, and there does not seem to be legal precedent to stop people from editing the video data on DVDs. So what makes game ROMs special?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 12:33pm

I dont understand why these guys fold. What are they going to do, sue you and try to suppress distribution of the rom patch? Let them try.
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Johann, 13 May 2009 @ 1:43pm

Re: maybe not entirely dead
I don't see anything odd. Square/Enix let them swim, but didn't allow the release. The release attempt led to their demise.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 2:54pm

Why did they fold? Because the letter from the lawyer said the law permitted $150,000 in penalties PER WEEK the romhack was distributed.

Is that true? Probably not. Does the group of fans at chronocompendium want to risk it? Not at all.

Personally, if the romhack was distributed as a patch, without the original rom, I don't see how it would be illegal; but if it was me, I'd cave too.
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Rose M. Welch, 13 May 2009 @ 3:05pm

Re: maybe not entirely dead
Neither is anyone in the U.S., roflmao. It's all grey area right now.
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DS, 13 May 2009 @ 3:38pm

Re:
Really? So you really think that Squenix really is going to just rebadge a fan made rom hack as a real game?

Because Squenix can't make games by themselves?

Squenix has their own issues at times, but really, would hiring a bunch of fan fiction writers really improve their product lineup?

Egads man, think.
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perfidy, 13 May 2009 @ 3:41pm

Honestly they need to talk to some lawyers. There is no way a patch file can be considered copyright infringement.

If it is something an individual can do in their own time to their own property, it is Not Infringement. The patchfile just makes individuals not have to go through so much work for the same end. It in and of itself violates no law.

Unless someone accepts this challenge and explains how the patch is illegal.

Also, if this DMCA request is indeed bogus, doesn't that open SE to legal action?
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TDR, 13 May 2009 @ 4:44pm

Re: Re:
They could do worse. I've seen some fan fiction that's better written than a fair bit of published material out there. Don't make print publishing the ultimate determiner of quality, because it isn't.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2009 @ 5:36pm

What SE needs to do
They need to legitimize the process. Give permission for fans to create fan products, if they sign an agreement that says something like (1) No commercial sale (2) a disclaimer saying that all trademarks, etc., are the property of SE (3) No objectionable/pornographic content... and so on.

It will build a community, without any risk to SE of losing control of their product. I believe that George Lucas does something similar with Star Wars fan-films.
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Bettawrekonize, 13 May 2009 @ 6:44pm

"This is the same reason old classic games like Master of Magic, Moo2, X-Com, etc. dont get remade with better graphics and less bugs and why Supreem Commander is a "sperical successor"."

It is our current intellectual property system that gets in the way of innovation. People are willing to put the effort into doing research and creating software and such without intellectual property. This is a good example of that. The same is true for medicine. Intellectual property gets in the way of that.
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Danny, 14 May 2009 @ 7:02am

Re: Re:
I didn't say just rebadge it. As the owners of the property they would have creative control which means they would have authority to make necessary changes (regardless of who agree with said changes). And its safe to assume that they would go over it with a fine tooth comb and just as safe to assume they would make changes.

Because Squenix can't make games by themselves?
So hiring someone else automatically means you can't make your own games? Does this mean that the big time developers should quit buying small companies becasause "they can make their own games"?

Squenix has their own issues at times, but really, would hiring a bunch of fan fiction writers really improve their product lineup?
Well considering that you don't need a degree in language arts to be considered a good writer there is the possibility that it just might improve their lineup.

Your reasoning seems to be that since SquareEnix is a large company they are better than this small fan project team in every way and therefore anything they make will be better than what a fan project team can do meaning they should not waste their time on projects like this. Congratulations on dashing the hopes of small time developers, people who are trying to get in the industry anyway they can, and people who just want to make a game as a hobby.

And ditto what TDR said. I'm sure we've all seen more than enough examples to prove that big budget does not equal quality content.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2009 @ 1:31am

It looks like perhaps it did leak. Maybe some enterprising souls can finish it.

http://www.torrentreactor.to/torrents/view_1891613/Chrono_Trigger_Crimson_Echoes.html
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taiiat, 20 Dec 2009 @ 10:02am

Re: maybe not entirely dead
this is all too common in the modern world. U.S.A's copyright laws dont really apply to big companies with lots of money - they arent exempt from the laws or anything - but they arent persecuted for anything they do.
all too often big companies will take advantage of groups of fans that will spend time to create a different take on the original game - and use legal force to shut it down - because they can, they wont get persecuted, and because they take advantage of the profit from stealing someone else's work and spend less than it costs to buy a car as opposed to the group that likely spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the project. the big people are corrupted like that. its a shame the people with the political power cant have a single IQ point. they're all twits.
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Christopher (profile), 25 Oct 2010 @ 2:28am

Re: Re: maybe not entirely dead
Actually, there is some caselaw in this: it basically states that derivative works are okay AS LONG AS you are not portraying them as the work of the first person or company who made the thing you are deriving something from AND you are not trying to make money off the thing in question.
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