Square Enix shuts down fan projects

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:48 am

http://kotaku.com/5249897/square-enix-p ... n-projects

I guess people can't even do rom hacks of Chrono related games anymore?

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue May 12, 2009 6:39 am

this is gonna get sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo overblown...

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Tue May 12, 2009 11:40 am

snkcube wrote:http://kotaku.com/5249897/square-enix-p ... n-projects

I guess people can't even do rom hacks of Chrono related games anymore?

No suprise, given they went and shut down CT: Resurrection a long time ago.

Why they went and shut this down after over five years is beyond me.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Tue May 12, 2009 4:10 pm

snkcube wrote:I guess people can't even do rom hacks of Chrono related games anymore?

They can.. but you shouldn't actually dare Square-Enix to invoke copyright laws.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:17 pm

*sigh*

The videos on the site don't look half bad, either. What a shame.

I know that they must feel obligated to shut down these projects for a great number of reasons, but it feels really wrong to see them do this time and again to what I would consider the series' most dedicated fans.

What do I think they should have done? I'm sure you're all totally curious. It is my opinion when you see such talented people working tirelessly on such grand (in terms of scale) projects such as these, ask them to stop if you must, but at least offer them a shaking hand afterwards. I'm sure that any of these developers would be more than happy to join the SE team, and put their technical knowledge to use on official projects. I understand it's a far-fetched scenario, but it has certainly happened in the past.

I dunno. It just seems like a waste of talent when you cut off a potential great piece of work and then kick the people involved to the curb as well. In a perfect world, hard work like this would be rewarded somehow.

But it's not a perfect world. And life will go on.

Post by **grinvader** » Tue May 12, 2009 8:18 pm

You'd think they would have figured out they only have to fucking shut their traps until they're actually done and spread it beyond controllability.

But nooooo
Ignorance is something, but how many CT projects have been crushed before ? 4 ? 5 ?

Serves them right.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Tue May 12, 2009 8:45 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:they went and shut down CT: Resurrection a long time ago.

Does anyone seriously think that project was actually going somewhere?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Tue May 12, 2009 9:37 pm

grinvader wrote:You'd think they would have figured out they only have to fucking shut their traps until they're actually done and spread it beyond controllability.

But nooooo
Ignorance is something, but how many CT projects have been crushed before ? 4 ? 5 ?

Serves them right.

Legal action would hurt more (someone's probably gonna go away for a while), although by then, you couldn't actually stop the chaos.

Although, silence does a whole lot more good. Blabbing about anything on the Internets will get you tracked down like a heat seeking missile... or something.

AFAIK, there was only 1 prior CT project that was affected. I guess people don't take these things serious enough.

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Wed May 13, 2009 2:06 am

We need more cave stories.

... As in, totally original games made by awesome people, if you are really that talented on programming or game design, you should be smart enough to not invest your time and effort on something you don't really have any creative control.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Wed May 13, 2009 3:25 am

SQUARE-ENIX SHUT DOWN 3D REALMS! THEY KILLED DUKE NUKEM FOREVER!

*ahem*

Yeah... you guys DO know that they not only CAN sue, but HAVE A LEGAL OBLIGATION to sue in case of trademark infringement, right?
And that if they ignore something the courts believe they know/should have known about, they LOSE THE TRADEMARK?

In short:
Spamming your ROM hack across the internet and daring Squeenix to sue you is a bad idea.
And ESPECIALLY don't get your fans out talking about it like it's an OFFICIAL sequel.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:21 am

I totally loled at this part of the c&d letter:

"We understand that you intend to instruct others how to circumvent our copy protection using Temporal Flus in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 1201. We demand that you cease and desist any and all efforts to rip, hack or circumvent our copyright protection measure or to teach other to do so."

There is no copy protection on the snes version of the game and I'm pretty sure any software made before the DMCA isn't even covered under it. Sounds like they were possibly mistaking it for the DS version of the game. At any rate the CE team sure got scared a bit too easy, if I was them I would have just kept working on it.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:51 am

powerspike wrote:At any rate the CE team sure got scared a bit too easy, if I was them I would have just kept working on it.

And then have the possibility of being sued and then paying massive fines? I'd rather stop as it's just not worth being sued by a big company.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:52 am

adventure_of_link wrote:Why they went and shut this down after over five years is beyond me.

To sting the community and shock it into realizing that they will happily let people waste time so long as nothing is released?

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:55 am

snkcube wrote:
powerspike wrote:At any rate the CE team sure got scared a bit too easy, if I was them I would have just kept working on it.
And then have the possibility of being sued and then paying massive fines? I'd rather stop as it's just not worth being sued by a big company.

I agree and yet an unofficial release would be impossible to trace legally speaking.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Wed May 13, 2009 6:11 am

snkcube wrote:
powerspike wrote:At any rate the CE team sure got scared a bit too easy, if I was them I would have just kept working on it.
And then have the possibility of being sued and then paying massive fines? I'd rather stop as it's just not worth being sued by a big company.

I knew people would bring up the fines. Do you honestly think it would hold up in a court of law? What would they get out of suing some small fry guy doing something for free and not even distributing any of their copyrighted material? Nothing I'd say. At any rate there's just as incriminating projects out there such as q_gears which aims to recreate FF7 and the qhimm.com wiki which document the internal workings of the Final Fantasy VII engine. I'd say their legal team is full of retards.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Wed May 13, 2009 6:54 am

how does the small fry defend themselves? free lawyers?

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Wed May 13, 2009 8:38 am

powerspike wrote:
snkcube wrote:
powerspike wrote:At any rate the CE team sure got scared a bit too easy, if I was them I would have just kept working on it.
And then have the possibility of being sued and then paying massive fines? I'd rather stop as it's just not worth being sued by a big company.
I knew people would bring up the fines. Do you honestly think it would hold up in a court of law? What would they get out of suing some small fry guy doing something for free and not even distributing any of their copyrighted material? Nothing I'd say. At any rate there's just as incriminating projects out there such as q_gears which aims to recreate FF7 and the qhimm.com wiki which document the internal workings of the Final Fantasy VII engine. I'd say their legal team is full of retards.

Read Gil's post.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Wed May 13, 2009 9:50 am

Well I did, I just didn't think much of it. So they literally asked them to sue them? If that's the case then I really have no pity for them. If it was just over hyped then that's different. I'll go so far as to care if an entire game is literally pirated and resold, but other then that I have no sympathy for a company that tramples on it's fans in such a way. It's just my opinion I guess, anyway it doesn't even appear to be legit according to the threads on romhacking.net that were started for it. Haha guess I wasted my time.. oh well.

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.p ... 2.165.html
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.p ... 3.105.html

franpa wrote:how does the small fry defend themselves? free lawyers?

Watch a couple of old episodes of matlock and pray to god during the trial.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:04 pm

powerspike wrote:Well I did, I just didn't think much of it. So they literally asked them to sue them?

No. That was hyperbole.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:40 pm

The C&D seems pretty fake to me. A convenient excuse to walk away from a project you don't want to finish. I'd really like to see someone contact SE to verify that letter's authenticity.

But even if it was real, C&D or not, if I worked on something for five years, you bet your sweet ass I'd be releasing the work anyway. They can sue and put a fan in jail, and collect maybe $5k from seizing all my assets. Great PR move there, which will net you absolutely nothing as a business.

Even smarter would be to not make it easy to get your real name and address. Eg register with domainsbyproxy, a cash credit card and a fake persona. Upload the final release to megaupload via Tor, and let the Streisand effect take care of distribution.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Wed May 13, 2009 10:33 pm

powerspike wrote:Well I did, I just didn't think much of it. So they literally asked them to sue them? If that's the case then I really have no pity for them. If it was just over hyped then that's different. I'll go so far as to care if an entire game is literally pirated and resold, but other then that I have no sympathy for a company that tramples on it's fans in such a way.

There've been projects before where the license holder has admitted they actually liked the project, but that, due to US law, they had no choice but to act once they became aware of it.

Yes, Squeenix may very well have only just now become aware of the project. Believe it or not, ROM hackers and their fans do not make up the majority of the internet.

Again, it's not a matter of respect for the fans, it's a matter of legal necessity.

Glenn: I was under the impression that at one point they DID actually dare Squeenix to sue.
Though I admit that I have not followed any of the hacks in question.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Wed May 13, 2009 11:28 pm

byuu wrote:The C&D seems pretty fake to me. A convenient excuse to walk away from a project you don't want to finish. I'd really like to see someone contact SE to verify that letter's authenticity.

But even if it was real, C&D or not, if I worked on something for five years, you bet your sweet ass I'd be releasing the work anyway. They can sue and put a fan in jail, and collect maybe $5k from seizing all my assets. Great PR move there, which will net you absolutely nothing as a business.

Even smarter would be to not make it easy to get your real name and address. Eg register with domainsbyproxy, a cash credit card and a fake persona. Upload the final release to megaupload via Tor, and let the Streisand effect take care of distribution.

I'm of the opinion that this is a publicity stunt...

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Thu May 14, 2009 12:25 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Again, it's not a matter of respect for the fans, it's a matter of legal necessity.

Fair enough, man they could of done a better job not having sqaure-enix get on their ass about it (if it turns out to be completely true). This whole thing is rather confusing if you ask me.

Awakened · Post by **Awakened** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:59 am

I've been playing the demo of Crimson Echoes and it's better than I expected. I'd say more engaging so far than the extra content in CT DS.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Thu May 14, 2009 2:23 am

powerspike wrote:
Gil_Hamilton wrote:Again, it's not a matter of respect for the fans, it's a matter of legal necessity.
Fair enough, man they could of done a better job not having sqaure-enix get on their ass about it (if it turns out to be completely true). This whole thing is rather confusing if you ask me.

There's nothing confusing about it. The people behind the hack are liars, and not very good at it, no less.

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