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Warner Bros takes down fan-made Mortal Kombat HD remake

EGGXI

EGGXI

Scary Bat
Fred Marvel said:
a really stupid mobile game that was really hard apparently but the game got taken down beause of copyright issues i guess the layout was stolen from mario so other games that were the exact same thing with a different background anc character showed up
Flappy Bird
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Common misconception but that's not why it was taken down. Literally Nintendo did nothing on this one at all, the guy just hated the attention despite the shitload of money he got for it.
 
VenomX-90

VenomX-90

"On your Knees!"
And what about MUGEN? that has ALOT of sprites and characters used from all the fighting games to date in 2D for that and which is actually fun if you have the time for it.
 
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Jimmypotato

Jimmypotato

Mid Tier
NRS seems to like to put a game out every 2 years since MK 5 basically. there was a little delay in that time frame after Midway went broke which put MK9 out in the spring of 2011 and not the fall of 2010 which would have put it 2 years after MK vs DC.

2 Years after MK9 we get Injustice.

So unless something insane happens, I fully expect MK10 or another NRS game out in the spring of 2015.

I would put money on it.
 
Braindead

Braindead

I want Kronika to step on my face
Fred Marvel said:
a really stupid mobile game that was really hard apparently but the game got taken down beause of copyright issues i guess the layout was stolen from mario so other games that were the exact same thing with a different background anc character showed up
Flappy Bird

Iron Pants (showed up after fb got taken down)

there were many others also
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I got 118 at Flappybird. Hold dat.
 
EGGXI

EGGXI

Scary Bat
RunwayMafia said:
...what a fool.
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He did an interview with Rolling Stone where he explains a lot of what he felt and what the pressure and attention was like, and the harassment his parents received over it etc.

Yeah the money was great but he seems like a really chill and simple dude and hearing him talking about all the stuff that happened it does sound a bit messed up.
 
Rathalos

Rathalos

Play Monster Hunter!
Not that surprising, it is Warner Brothers after all.

Though over the week, two interesting things happened, WB announced the WB Game Vault, where they would use some of their classic Midway IP's and some new stuff and make smaller downloadable titles for the PC, they announced Gauntlet with it.

Two days ago on Giant Bomb Boon was mentioning at one point they wanted to try working with sprites again and make a Mortal Kombat 2 Directors Cut type thing, but it never got off the ground.

It's almost certainly nothing, I just thought it was a fun coincidence, even more with this news.
 
Eddy Wang

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
That's sad, i just hope they don't take down BlackCyrax's MKOW project as well, now that i came to think of if, what if he already got a call from NRS too?
 
CrimsonShadow

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
GrandMasterson said:
It's like WB is legitimately retarded or something. Why don't they just hire them to finish it and then sell it?

Some suits are so damn stupid they don't see an opportunity when it's staring them in the face.
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It's not always that simple. Building a fan project is different from building a production game.. There's a whole other level of testing, accuracy, portability, team integration etc. required and a lot of that has to be planned for and built in from the ground up. There are different legal considerations, licensing considerations, engine/technological considerations, etc.

So although it's always a fan's dream for that happen, it's not always feasible in a lot of cases. If a company wants to do something, they'll often do it themselves. Sometimes they'll hire a former project guy to help work on it (like DotA2), but it's rare nowdays that the actual fan work becomes the game itself.
 
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MKF30

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
This is cool but there's something called copyrights and since WB owns the rights to MK now...

As someone who's worked with Bleed with voices, I support his projects though.

From a business/owner perspective, I can also see where WB's coming from though. I think they've been rather nice about it, they could easily have said "stop or we will sue" or something like that.
 
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Zoidberg747

Zoidberg747

My blades will find your heart
Mr. Mileena said:
They can just change the character names and special moves, tweak the outfits and stages, etc
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Not that simple. If there is any resemblance at all to any MK characters, stages, models, moves, etc. They are able to sue. If you change all that they are pretty much making a brand new FG, and I doubt the creators would want to do that.

There is no way around a cease and desist letter. You either stop what you are doing or get sued. I think the reason they are targeting this may be because they want to keep the option of making an MK 1 HD remake open as they may think it profitable.

WB has actually been nice enough to let them keep the artwork and everything, most companies wouldnt even do that.

LtLuthor said:
There's no potential lost revenue if they don't distribute anything that works stand-alone without the original game's files. In this case,IF it is simply a hack and not a full game by itself (requires original game's files), WB has no case in saying they lost revenue. People still need their game to play this.

The only other requirement is that the modders cannot make money from their project.

I'm not sure if the project meets both those requirements, as I'm not familiar with theem- but it's quite possible that they do.

These cases often revolve around the large company (WB in this case) basically knowing they have no firm legal basis to make them take it down, but have enough money to throw a crapload of lawyers at the little guy to win regardless.

It happens disturbingly often....
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Loss of revenue has nothing to do with it, but the copyright infringement definitely does. They would certainly have a legal basis in this case.
 
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Bleed

Bleed

Noob
I didn't get a C&D letter, what I got was an E-mail from WB asking to get in contact with them, I did so and they explained the situation. There were no threats from the person I spoke to, she basically said a game free or not is too much and crossing the line of what they can allow. She didn't seem too informed on the matter, sounded more like she found the website we had tracking progress, read a little bit about the project and sent me an E-mail quick to nip it in the bud.

Nothing on paper, just verbally telling/asking us not to release a game and that we need to take down the website. She did not say so, but if not, of course they would take further action. This was an early warning before things got out of hand. I don't want to deal with any legal problems, so whatever, they ask and I comply, simple as that.

Our stuff is just getting too much attention, that's all I think prompted this to happen.
 
Bleed

Bleed

Noob
I don't have a problem with that. I stuck with MK because I love the series and it helps in areas where I struggle, like concept art, story development, direction. I'm better at making the assets.

Using MK as a guide also helped to improve our skills overall. I've had to do a lot of research, in order to figure out how to get a certain result. Lighting, Texturing, Rendering, animation, rigging, etc.

Overall it's been a great learning experience, unfortunately there is a limit to how much of that we can share.
 
9.95

9.95

Champion
I worked in Intellectual Properties for 8 years. In the simplest possible terms, what this has to do with is either:

1. The fan made game, while free, would compete with a currently live IP that the company is still making, or capable of making, money off of. (In this case MKAK)

2. The fan made game, while free, competes with a currently dormant (but legally owned) IP that the company is retaining in order to keep options open or to protect it while something is in development.


This is standard IP fare. Think about Killer Instinct. Everyone went nuts when the IP was renewed but it took a while for anything to actually be announced. Part of that was due to the denial of the renewal due to the confusion with the TV show of the same name, but the reason the IP was retained for all those years was so that MS didn't LOSE it to a competitor.
 
Art

Art

Grave_Intent
Sounds like WB got a CnD issued to them for trade mark reasons. Sniff... O' well I hope it means we get a MK10 announcement soon!
 
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