Ogre Forums

Hi,

I'm a team member of a group current designing a 3d, four player, fighting game. We are in the process of building a demo and we decided it is also time to choose whether to build a completely original roster which was originally planned or redesign and alter classic characters "to avoid copyright infringement issue". The idea came from an original design a friend of mines created that became the topic of discussion most of last weeks at my job. I've discussed legal issues with my music labels attorney who has been in the entertainment law business 21 years. He said that derivatives wit alterations and name adjustments are quite legal. So we thought we would ask the community ( all legal issues aside ) which would u find more interest... completely new characters or all your favorite classics... like MARIO not to be confused with Super Mario or Sonic not to be confused with Sonic the Hedgehog. The possibilities are endless either way. SO PLEASE... let us kno what u think... all ideas and thoughts are welcomed... as well as characters and spin-off ideas or original character ideas....


Thanx For You Time,
Knights of the Fragile Keystroke

There's a lot of popularity in user made content for games which features other IP, like Mugen (2d fighter with a huge community of addons, want to see Peter from Family Guy fight Goku? You can), space sims such as X3 / Iwar2 / Freespace / Orbiter (all have tons of Starwars, Startrek, B5 ships).

But none of those games included that stuff, it's all free user made content. Putting in other IP is probably ok if it's an easter egg, or something which isn't used to advertise the game, and mainly there as a tribute or parody, not as a way to get out of inventing original content. (Like how Halo multiplayer contains a gold Tachikoma from ghost in the shell)
Also if you are lucky and either the original creators don't mind or don't notice.

Even if the law is on your side, that won't stop games companies throwing lawsuits around, they have more cash. Nintendo tried to sue Webzen because the game Project Wiki looked kind of similar to a Zelda game (it was cell shaded and cute).

Even stuff for free can be troublesome. Just mention the term "Foxed" in any mod community.

Mario and Sonic are probably the worst examples, since they aren't just game characters, they are company mascots. Nintendo and Sega are pretty possessive of them.

Wait, how do you get the Tachikoma in Halo? Halo3?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUzN3bWBKAs

Apparently in Halo or Halo 2 (not sure) you can get it by typing "object_create_anew s-tachikoma" in the console.
Never tried, I disliked Halo 1 and never played 2 or 3.

Not sure if it's just a user created thing, or built in, but I've seen it mentioned numerous times and nobody seems to agree on how to get it or why it's there.