"Limbo of the Lost" and copyright
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:25 pm
I was searching for something totally unrelated on Google, but one of the results pointed me to a game called 'Limbo of the Lost'. I didn't think much of it and nearly skipped the search result entirely until I recognised the name in the summary, Steve Bovis.
I don't know how many of you remember this guy, but he came around here a few years back, first asking for help on a Dungeon Master clone and invoking the wrath of the Copyright Gods regarding some content in Dungeon Maker. You can read all his posts here:
http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/sea ... hor=sbovis
So, after a bit of reading and following some links, this story about Limbo of the Lost is very funny. It's basically a game that stole most of it's content from other popular games and tried to pass it off as it's own. I always thought that guy was very suspect, this story just proves it.
Here's some links:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06 ... hing-tale/
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=2874037
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?to ... 5#msg18305
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6192438.html
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?to ... 4#msg17414
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/de ... le_id=9644
And here's an absolutely top quality trailer!:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34863.html
These guys had neither the talent nor the time to develop what they wanted, so they tried to save time be using other people's work. Of course, that's not acceptable. And it made me feel uncomfortable because, in essence, I'm in the same position with my custom adventure for RTC: Bloodbane Rising as it uses work from other games (albeit only a few -- most of the stuff comes from public domain assets which *are* acceptable to use).
Now, I tried to justify this to myself by saying that my custom adventure is a freebie, but nope, that doesn't cut it. It's still stealing at the end of the day and that simply isn't on. I admit it, I've been naughty. In fact, any of us who have used other people's work for our own custom adventures have basically broken the law.
It's obviously completely unacceptable to use other people's work and to try and profit from it, but what about when you're just doing it for fun and as a hobby?
I would love to ensure that every asset used in BloodBane Rising is either original, comes from public domain libraries and resources, or has permission to be used if it was created by someone else. But the reality is that it would take me many many years as a one man developer to do that, which simply isn't possible. (I suspect that this is really the main reason behind Limbo's thieving -- I don't think it was malicious, they just wanted a way of achieving their vision *quickly* and thought they could get away with it. I can't condone it but I kind of understand it.)
Anyway, I only have two choices: Either I give up in the knowledge that I realistically can't achieve what I want, or simply limit the adventure with assets that I can either create myself or source from public domain or royalty free sources.
As I don't want to give up, choice two is the route I'll be going. Now, where are my pencils?
I don't know how many of you remember this guy, but he came around here a few years back, first asking for help on a Dungeon Master clone and invoking the wrath of the Copyright Gods regarding some content in Dungeon Maker. You can read all his posts here:
http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/sea ... hor=sbovis
So, after a bit of reading and following some links, this story about Limbo of the Lost is very funny. It's basically a game that stole most of it's content from other popular games and tried to pass it off as it's own. I always thought that guy was very suspect, this story just proves it.
Here's some links:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06 ... hing-tale/
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=2874037
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?to ... 5#msg18305
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6192438.html
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?to ... 4#msg17414
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/de ... le_id=9644
And here's an absolutely top quality trailer!:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34863.html
These guys had neither the talent nor the time to develop what they wanted, so they tried to save time be using other people's work. Of course, that's not acceptable. And it made me feel uncomfortable because, in essence, I'm in the same position with my custom adventure for RTC: Bloodbane Rising as it uses work from other games (albeit only a few -- most of the stuff comes from public domain assets which *are* acceptable to use).
Now, I tried to justify this to myself by saying that my custom adventure is a freebie, but nope, that doesn't cut it. It's still stealing at the end of the day and that simply isn't on. I admit it, I've been naughty. In fact, any of us who have used other people's work for our own custom adventures have basically broken the law.
It's obviously completely unacceptable to use other people's work and to try and profit from it, but what about when you're just doing it for fun and as a hobby?
I would love to ensure that every asset used in BloodBane Rising is either original, comes from public domain libraries and resources, or has permission to be used if it was created by someone else. But the reality is that it would take me many many years as a one man developer to do that, which simply isn't possible. (I suspect that this is really the main reason behind Limbo's thieving -- I don't think it was malicious, they just wanted a way of achieving their vision *quickly* and thought they could get away with it. I can't condone it but I kind of understand it.)
Anyway, I only have two choices: Either I give up in the knowledge that I realistically can't achieve what I want, or simply limit the adventure with assets that I can either create myself or source from public domain or royalty free sources.
As I don't want to give up, choice two is the route I'll be going. Now, where are my pencils?