Damnit, Square Enix. Why again?

[palmertech]

I will make it short, if you care enough, you can research more, but here is the general gist:

The website http://www.chronocompendium.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has been a Chrono Trigger fan site for years, hosting a wiki, tons of information, forums, the whole shebang. In addition, there are literally thousands of threads pertaining to ROM hacks of Chrono Trigger and Chrono cross, with hundreds of different language translation projects. The latest "big thing" was a fangame called "Crimson Echoes", based as a sequel to the original SNES Chrono Trigger. The entire community has helped build the game, myself included.

After 5 years of constant development, and tens of thousands of man hours put into it, and a mere two weeks from the final release... They received a Cease and Desist letter that not only killed Crimson Echoes, but forced them to remove every bit of information on any fangames on the site, and rom hacks, and rom hacking tools, all the forums full of info, and thousands of pages of plot design; All, flushed straight down the toilet, never to be seen again. The web archive is no help, as the content has been pulled from there, too.

The kicker is that they waited SO LONG! Why not the other projects? Why let us make things for years, then kill us with threats of legal action? The ROM scene had been chugging along with other things for years, with no problems.

They are trying to negotiate right now. If that fails, anybody else live in Southern California and feel like visiting the legal office of SE? I am not touching anything that Square Enix makes until this gets resolved, and you know what? If it fails, I am going to pirate the crap out of anything they make.

Links:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 12/0643208" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://digg.com/nintendo/Chrono_Trigger ... e?FC=PRCK0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... l_rom_mod/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://forums.lostlevels.org/viewtopic.php?t=2029" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=361226" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://forums.qj.net/general-gaming-dis ... quare.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=15207" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,8582.0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.oneupstudios.com/boards/show ... php?t=5684" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://kagerostudios.b1.jcink.com/index ... wtopic=328" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://s14.zetaboards.com/ChronoCrisis/topic/6564639/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessa ... c=49443778" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://current.com/items/90037659_squar ... roject.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.gamer.nl/doc/51542/Square-En ... 2-halt-toe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.nintendo-online.de/news/4100 ... anprojekt/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://elhabib.at/2009/05/11/square-eni ... n-hahn-ab/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://kotaku.com/5249897/square-enix-p ... #c12748465" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... hrono-Game" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://ds.kombo.com/article.php?artid=7141" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.destructoid.com/square-enix- ... 1702.phtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.game-focus.com/?nav=new&nid=11455" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.lienmultimedia.com/article.p ... icle=20273" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/12/squar ... -projects/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, I am currently seeking a new avatar. If you have any suggestions, please post.

[Harshboy]

The real kicker is that that hack was like 98% complete and was to be released soon. That's a real dick move from Square Enix.

[bicostp]

That's why I like less evil developers like Valve. (Not only do they know Gang Garrison 2 exists, but they like it, "look forward to" the new version, and linked to it on the TF2 dev blog. And they give you the complete SDK to build new games and mods for the Source engine. They seem to be doing just fine with all this fan-made content around...)

[jjhammerstein]

Do you want another Frog avatar?

[Kurt_]

Bic - Damn straight. Valve really supports the hacker community. Counterstrike was a mod, and they weren't like "F U DATS MY GAME ENGINE!", they were like "Hey, this is sick, can we buy it from you and sell it as a real game?".

Valve is my single most favourite game developer. They're very open with their work and very supportive of their community, which I feel in turn spurs more people to buy stuff from them, especially 15 year old games on sale for cheap, even though we don't need them.

[ShockSlayer]

Bic - Damn straight. Valve really supports the hacker community. Counterstrike was a mod, and they weren't like "F U DATS MY GAME ENGINE!", they were like "Hey, this is sick, can we buy it from you and sell it as a real game?".

Valve is my single most favourite game developer. They're very open with their work and very supportive of their community, which I feel in turn spurs more people to buy stuff from them, especially 15 year old games on sale for cheap, even though we don't need them.

QFT

Too bad about the project, Just save yourself a copy while you can.

SS

[Metallica Man X]

That's BS and then some. All that for nothing simply because SE is a bunch of a-holes?! It's not like you were going to be making any money off of it, right? They must be in a real rut right now if they feel the need to shut down a fan project that wasn't going to make any money, nor take away their sales anyway.

[Negative_Creep]

Their games are crap anyway, probably annoyed that someone might actually do something good with a series of their own for a change.

[Kurt_]

Why not just remove all the copyrights?

Make your "own" game. I mean, the story is different than anything they've copyrighted, right? Change the sprites, make it its own ROM, and you're good.

[ValiantVenality]

Their games are crap anyway, probably annoyed that someone might actually do something good with a series of their own for a change.

WOAH, woah, woah there. I'm just as mad as the next guy about them taking this game down, but you cant say that all of their games are crap. Do the Final Fantasy and the Kingdom Hearts series ring a bell?

VV

[palmertech]

@SS: Cannot "save a copy while I can", it never got released. I happen to have one of the very early betas, when it was about 20% done, but it is hardly anything. I really wanted to play some of those mods, too, but never got around to it. Now I will never have the chance. :'( Apparently SE is watching, and if anybody leaks an betas/hacked ROMs, they are permabanned and get all their info sent to SE for them to do with as they please.

Why not just remove all the copyrights?

Make your "own" game. I mean, the story is different than anything they've copyrighted, right? Change the sprites, make it its own ROM, and you're good.

The problem is "making its own ROM". ROM hacking is not like PC games where you have fairly standardized code and can just port it over; most of the game is using the Chrono Trigger engine, with some SNES Assembly used to add features. Sure, they can change the sprites. Sure, they can change the names, and make it impossible to actually pin to Chrono Trigger. But at the end of the day, the entire game is built around the Chrono Trigger engine. Basically, there is no way to take all that work and make it into a new game without another few years of development.

Now, supposedly, all of the develpors have complied and deleted all the Crimson Echoes data. Even if someone did keep it on a USB flash drive somewhere, it will never, ever, ever get leaked; SE has all the names, personal info, and IP addresses of the few people with a complete copy, so if anyone leaked it, they are all screwed.

@JJ: The idea was to remove my ties to SE, so no Frog. I might keep it, though, and just say that it represent the old Square, before all the good people left and they merged with Enix.

[bicostp]

If they make their own graphics from scratch 100%, change all the text (names, item descriptions, etc) and only release an IPS patch, then they're not redistributing any of Square's IP.

Then again, the patch would be based on a derivative work...

[palmertech]

Yep, that was the tack SE took. They say it is a 150,000 fine for "each derivative work", which is why they were forced to take down all the other ROM hacks.

The other problem is that they were forced to take down all information relating to hacking a Chrono Trigger ROM, so even an IPS patch would be suspect. I doubt there is any legal basis for that, but the derivative work crap is what they are using as their main weapon.

[emeraldz]

I started hating SE a long time ago, so yeah I'll save my rantings. Though, I think they are a-holes for doing this. its a fan sub FFS.

[XCVG]

What dicks! Killing one project is one thing, killing an entire repository of information and tools is something completely different!