Square Shuts Down Fan-Made Chrono Game

[yourbeliefs]

The problem is that these guys circumvented the program's protection by hacking into the ROM, and then went and sang and screamed to the hills about the game's development and release. If they REALLY wanted this to be released they would have just quietly put it on the internet via a BT client or something and let it spread from word of mouth, not put a whole web site up dedicated to it.

 

[HazukiHawkins]

Square haven't really moved me since they sold their souls to Enix following the disturbing money bleeding exercise that was the fantastically misnamed FF The Spirits Within, which had nothing at all to do with the canon, as well as the needlessly, retardedly action-packed Advent Children. 90 minutes of near-death scares does not equal a movie, it equals total disbelief. I mean, the guns never seem to hurt anyone, which makes me wonder why anyone still uses them. Even Vincent can't seem to cause anyone harm, since the bad guys have endless stamina and lightning-fast sword-to-bullet blocking abilities... I didn't hate the movie, but I wouldn't expect it to earn its production money back.

What was I talking about? Well, anyhow, I'm pretty sure Square Enix are just looking out for a lovely old cash cow here, one they're gearing up to milk... long past its gruesome, humiliating and wholly undeserved death.

 

[HazukiHawkins]

The problem is that these guys circumvented the program's protection by hacking into the ROM, and then went and sang and screamed to the hills about the game's development and release. If they REALLY wanted this to be released they would have just quietly put it on the internet via a BT client or something and let it spread from word of mouth, not put a whole web site up dedicated to it.

This is also a good point. Perhaps both parties involved are wrong, in their separate ways.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I hate Square Enix anyway, but hey, I ain't complaining about having another reason.

 

[Worsle]

It is

Since they already did this exact same thing with a Chrono-Triger themed game that was written from scratch (Chrono Trigger Resurrection) a few years ago I'm not surprised at all by this. This was a ROM hack, that means that they took the original programming and altered it. That's definitely infringement, it's a modified version of Square's product.

I'm normally against IP holders over-extending their rights but in this case it's totally justified. If you take someone's product, modify it a bit and distribute it, then it is infringement.

And this is why copyright law needs to be fixed, as there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. Either that or every person on the planet who has "modded" their cars in some way shape or form should be in the same sort of predicament, or even the people who sell mod parts.

The law is wrong, and it will be changed. It's just up to society to determine when.

Copyright law might be wrong but do you expect square to change it? Or even just let people run away with there IP? Its not like we are even talking about a standard set of laws here either, it varies from country to country. We really need an international agreement on it and given the number of groups that would need to agree to this I just don't see it happening. It is a pity they can't or wont give a limited licence here but that is how it goes.

Also in this case cars and IP make a poor comparison. Unless you are talking about some one taking a car reverse engineering it and then producing multiple copies of it. There is a difference might not always be right but IP can't be treated the same as a good like a car.

 

[Sevre]

I would like to point out the best thing to do would be to keep the game in development secretly and wait another 4 or 5 years till Square go bust and release it then. That may have been said before but I am not reading 3 pages for Chrono-Trigger.

 

[Blood_Lined]

You'd think the cease and desist letter would have been sent BEFORE the release date was less than a month away after 5 years in the making.

 

[The Wooster]

To put it into perspective. Black Mesa: Source, a source engine remake of Half life 1 is nearing completition and despite the fact it directly competes (and is a better product than) an official Valve product (Half Life: Source) Valve's reaction so far has been "Cool".

That's why Valve owns Steam and Square-Enix spend their time sucking whatever cash they can out of the FF7 license.

What irritates me is that they can get away so completely with pissing on their fans.

 

[spuddyt]

Couldn't they just BUY it off them?

 

[bickster]

I have a couple things I would like to say on this.

One I agree with Square Enix for nixing the game. The reason I agree with this is because it was their developers that spent the original amount of time creating the game and while Modders maybe trying to help or do something in their honor or various different reasons it still comes off as 'we can make a better game then you'. Now that may have in noway been the case here, but I personally like paid developers to create my games. I have heard many people before say I can do it better, but they need the base idea first.

Now I think it was a very wrong move for SE to wait as long as they did. If they had an issue I think they could have said something from the beginning, because now those people did waste a long time making a game that maybe could have been good and they could have used it to elevate into a career in gaming. So the way it was handled is very much depressing. But at the sametime, the people developing Echos had been saying from the start if SE wanted to shut them down they would scrap it. With that in mind I think they should have just simply done a small demo base, then sent that with a letter to SE and presented it and asked for the permission to continue it under the knowledge that it is non-profit in anyway and a project they would like to work on.

I do not think in anyway that if they had taken the proper steps like that SE would have shut them down. Then I think they would have encouraged it or if it was very well good enough, may have released it under an actual title on the PS3 downloads or something like that. So really the entire situation is avoided by taking the proper steps and attempting to do things properly.

 

[Worsle]

To put it into perspective. Black Mesa: Source, a source engine remake of Half life 1 is nearing completition and despite the fact it directly competes (and is a better product than) an official Valve product (Half Life: Source) Valve's reaction so far has been "Cool".

You know using officially sanctioned mod tools and a rom hack are very different? Hell remaking a game and creating a new sequel are rather different too. Seriously this is a stupid comparison to make. Lets look at the GW case from a few years back. Here we have a war games/model making company whose fans have decided to make a movie. They tell GW about it but because of a mix up GW thinks they have told them to stop and the movie makers don't. So it comes time for the movie to be realised and GW see this and force it to stop. Yes years of work but now it can't be realised. Seems like a nasty thing to do but because of the German copyright law there is no way they can give a temporary licence, either they give up their IP (ie there business) or they stop the movie. Though the movie did appear on torrents later that does not matter, GW has to be see to be defending their copyright or any one can come up and take it

Couldn't they just BUY it off them?

Well for the simple fact it is there IP, making the act of buying it a really really terrible president to make. Instead they would either have too give them a limited licence or have them buy a licence to use the IP. However unless some one here is a lawyer and knows the copyright laws of the country(/ies) the group was from we can't even say if that is possible.

 

[The Wooster]

To put it into perspective. Black Mesa: Source, a source engine remake of Half life 1 is nearing completition and despite the fact it directly competes (and is a better product than) an official Valve product (Half Life: Source) Valve's reaction so far has been "Cool".

You know using officially sanctioned mod tools and a rom hack are very different? Hell remaking a game and creating a new sequel are rather different too. Seriously this is a stupid comparison to make.

Really? I would say, taking into account Sqaure Enix's decision to shut down a 3d PC based remake of Chrono Trigger it's actually quite apt.

In fact your own example is rather dubious, German copyright law has little effect on a Japanese/American company. Particularly when you consider Japanese law's more relaxed attitude when it comes to derivative works (take for example the bustling Dojinshi scene where pornographic manga based on copyright works are sold legally and openly).

If Valve prove anything it's that being overly aggressive in defense of your copyrights is not the only way to ensure success.

 

[Slycne]

If they were gonna send a cease and desist letter why wait five years? I'd understand if it was a few months in or a year, but waiting that long seems a little harsh to then make them cut development.

I imagine they figure that the vast majority of these project fall by the wayside on their own, so no reason to send a cease and desist right away and catch flak for it.

It's also entirely possible this is the first that anyone around the legal department caught wind of it.

 

[Worsle]

To put it into perspective. Black Mesa: Source, a source engine remake of Half life 1 is nearing completition and despite the fact it directly competes (and is a better product than) an official Valve product (Half Life: Source) Valve's reaction so far has been "Cool".

You know using officially sanctioned mod tools and a rom hack are very different? Hell remaking a game and creating a new sequel are rather different too. Seriously this is a stupid comparison to make.

Really? I would say, taking into account Sqaure Enix's decision to shut down a 3d PC based remake of Chrono Trigger it's actually quite apt.

In fact your own example is rather dubious, German copyright law has little effect on a Japanese/American company. Particularly when you consider Japanese law's more relaxed attitude when it comes to derivative works (take for example the bustling Dojinshi scene where pornographic manga based on copyright works are sold legally and openly).

If Valve prove anything it's that being overly aggressive in defense of your copyrights is not the only way to ensure success.

I bolded some thing for you. Official mod tools allow for copyright protection as you sign your claim away at the door. If we where talking about a group that was creating their own version half life from scratch we would at least have a valid level of comparison. Also the location of square-enix is fairly irrelevant as it is the location of the modding group that sets the copyright law that is involved, GW is a British company but the film makers where German meaning German law is what mattered (also I never said it was a direct comparison only it is the most similar event I can think off). Though really unless you happen to be an expert in this area I see no reason why square-enix should not get the benefit of the doubt at least. I also vaguely remember star craft mods for other games being closed down too, but you know I am not 100% on that.

Copyright law is complex but there is one simple point to it, if you don't protect your copyright at every turn you risk loosing all claim to your IP. Dōjinshi seems to be a fairly good example of this really, it would be pretty much impossible to stop it in Japan now as there is just to much of a history of it.

 

[Do4600]

Achievement Unlocked: You are an extreme asshole.

Best thing I've read all day.


Wow...I really don't have the words to express just how stupid this whole thing is. I mean jesus, Chrono Trigger is 19 yeas old, and from what this sounds like, it would be a completely different game all together. Besides that, they haven't released a Chrono Game since 2000 and if they don't release another one after this whole thing, they should burn in hell for not letting the fans have some fun with the characters that they made a success and enjoyed so much that they spent five years adding another part to the story-line. This makes me glad I haven't bought another Square-Enix game since 2000.

 

[Valiard]

Personally I think they should pull a Valve, ok so they stopped development on the game great, but hire the people to do a proper job hell even cover the years between Chrono Cross and Trigger so we can see just what the hell happened to Guardia?

 

[FallenRainbows]

Now let's hope somebody secretly made a copy of the code and releases it anonymously a few years later...

If they destroyed it they are pretty stupid, they will have a back-up somewhere.

 

[The Wooster]

To put it into perspective. Black Mesa: Source, a source engine remake of Half life 1 is nearing completition and despite the fact it directly competes (and is a better product than) an official Valve product (Half Life: Source) Valve's reaction so far has been "Cool".

You know using officially sanctioned mod tools and a rom hack are very different? Hell remaking a game and creating a new sequel are rather different too. Seriously this is a stupid comparison to make.

Really? I would say, taking into account Sqaure Enix's decision to shut down a 3d PC based remake of Chrono Trigger it's actually quite apt.

In fact your own example is rather dubious, German copyright law has little effect on a Japanese/American company. Particularly when you consider Japanese law's more relaxed attitude when it comes to derivative works (take for example the bustling Dojinshi scene where pornographic manga based on copyright works are sold legally and openly).

If Valve prove anything it's that being overly aggressive in defense of your copyrights is not the only way to ensure success.

I bolded some thing for you. Official mod tools allow for copyright protection as you sign your claim away at the door. If we where talking about a group that was creating their own version half life from scratch we would at least have a valid level of comparison.

I'm going to have to stop you there, game mods (and entirely original games) using the source engine SDK can be sold comercially providing copyright assets aren't used. What you seem to have missed is that I'm not just refering to this current case but Square Enix's legal position in general, particularly their rather hasty legal threats towards a pc remake of chrono trigger with an original engine. Their attitude toward an upgraded remake of an older product, I believe, is very much the opposite of Valve's and thus the comparison.

 

[chuckman1]

But but but *cries* how could they do that waha *sniffle*.
They're the same as EA with Thrill Kill.
That's one more company I have to boycott.
Now I won't be able to play FF13 'cause it was made by such asswholes.
Well they haven't been the same since the change to Square Enix.
Those damn corporate dicks.
I'm lookin' for the game until I find it *searches internet*.