Do making a fangame could got you in trouble?

Hi, i have a question about, all the fangames we see out there, i mean one of my favorite was a Pokemon Tower Defense game, as a fangame, it says the game perse is not distributed charging money, but they make money using the ads system, and the powerful fanbase, makes the trafic.

Do an indie developer would get himself in trouble if he declares that is a fangame without the goal of making money out of it?
Do the IP could sue of just using the image of their products?
What kind of PRO/CONS you see?

Thanks again to the community

 

If the IP holder of whatever you're making a fangame of actually still exists then the potential that you'll be hit with a cease and desist is always there.

 

And should you actually hurt their sales, you could be sued for the damages.

 

first of all, i love the snowgirl and the l'oreal lion avatars
related: then there is where it comes the product clone, where the name of the product changes and the images get close of what the original products are, one example could be the Original DOTA which came from a mod of an original product, then they leave any relationship with the original product, then other company came and copy them, and gives birth to League of Legends, would the answer be to have the basic idea of some game, changing names, chars, abilities, etc and sell it as other game?

 

Ideas can't be patented or copyrighted. Only the expression of those ideas can.

So you can make a clone of a game, provided you change enough that it won't be confused with the original. In general, this means changing the art, story, and any other creative assets, but the game mechanics can remain the same. (Though if you want to be successful, you had better try to improve on it.)

 

if you are making lets say, a FPS of pokemon, i mean, you ARE using their IP, but it does not compete, with any of their actual products, this means FREE publicity for them, and you are not making money out of this other than getting experience and "prestige" like, "yeah i was the guy that make that awesome Pokemon FPS", i think you make your own professional publicity by not taking money for your work, but being able to show it everywhere. i was expecting that could be legal, or not getting you into any trouble, the other way, could be sending them a letter about, what you want to do, and get some agreement.
any comment on this approach?

 

Still illegal.

 

It's also important to note that the rights holder is not obliged to send a cease and desist notice. It is normal practice for that to happen - even in cases with companies involved - but it's not a legal requirement. It is possible - however unlikely - that the first you'll hear about it is when you get news of a case against you.

 

It's illegal to make a Pokemon game. And the lawyers at Nintendo are required to shut you down if it becomes popular, whether or not you are charging money. The holder of a copyright has to defend his copyright when people are copying it, or the court can declare that they've let it lapse and other people copying it would be able to claim defense under prior cases. So even if the lawyers at Nintendo want to be "nice" and even if you think you're not hurting anyone, they still have to shut you down.

That said, you're unlikely to get in real "trouble". What will happen is that they'll send you cease and desist letters demanding that you take down your site. If you refuse to, they will eventually have to start filing court papers, and you can probably still get out by taking your site down then. It's only if you continue to refuse to take down your site that they'll be forced to take you to court; then there will be a long court case, you will lose, and they'll take all your money. So if you just want to have the game up for free and fly under the radar for a few months hoping they don't notice you, you can probably get away with it, but once they start sending you cease and desist letters, you're going to have to shut it down.

 

You're thinking of trademarks. They have to be defended. Copyright is a different animal.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

 

Depending on what country your in there are fair use laws where as long as you don't use there own copyrighted material you can make something using stuff that is related to there IP look it up where you are.

 

Your Pokemon game might look like promotion in your eyes, but may appear to be damaging the brand and loosing sales as a result by Nintendo. So in that regard in doesn't matter how your view is, if they deem it dangerous they will shut you down.

However, it really depends on IF they shut you down. They may never find out or may never care about it in the first place. Look at this for example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/...EsImNvbS5hbmRldi5FcmFzQWR2ZW50dXJlcy5GdWxsIl0.

That guy is making money off a Nintendo Character. It's a miracle it has reached almost 1000 downloads.

It's a matter of "if" really. They could take action, they may also ignore you.

 

We live in an era where a company tried to sue over the word 'scrolls'. It is not worth it, man; and any argument your adversary made in court is instantly validated by your coattail-riding, despite the degree; even parodies, easter eggs, homages, and cameos aren't 100% safe so I wouldn't make ponchomon tower defense with Workout-Center Exhibitionist who kidnap entities and use them in the COMBAT COLISEUM NETWORK either...Ok I'll admit it: I know abolutely nothing about Pokemon. What about Tamigotchi? Anybody remember Tamigotchi?

...

Anybody?

...

I'm so old.

 

The point is, making a fan game for practice is de facto okay, but de jure they need to protect their assets. This typically will mean takedown notices. While to my knowledge Nintendo hasn't ever sued anyone over a fan-made game, they certainly could, and should they, they would most certainly have the upper hand along with the benefit of the law. So, even if you get taken to court, your game will still get pulled.

The exception is with ideas. Although ideas can be protected in the form of a copyright, if something is too broad or general, like a genre or game map layout, it is declared to "unprotect able" or "unenforceable" depending on where you live.

So, to answer your question in one word: yes.

 

Ideas can never be copyrighted; only the implementation can be.

--Eric

 

If you do a search in Google for pokemon fan game you'll get a lot of interesting results.

Here is a good read and some advice for you...

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/5/investigation-are-fan-games-legal?page=all

 

No offense to anyone here, but don't listen to anyone here. Talk to a lawyer, period. Taking advice from random people on the internet that may or may not have the qualifications to give you accurate legal advice is crazy. You don't want to risk losing days, weeks, months, years, etc.. of work or worse (being sued) because some guy on the internet said it's ok. Bottom line is don't do it until you've obtained proper legal advice and also contacted the original owner of the IP for permission if still unsure.

 

You don't need a lawyer to know this:

If you use the name Pokemon, you can get in trouble.
If you use any Pokemon characters, you can get in trouble.
If you use music from the games, you can get in trouble.
If you use art from the games, you can get in trouble.

If you make a clone, different name, original music, and original characters and critters, that's perfectly fine (although making things too similar may get you in trouble, to what point, depends how similar and at that point now you may need a bit of common sense or a lawyer.)

Mind you: I said you MAY get in trouble. If you don't get in trouble, it does not mean you are in the right, though. It just means you have not been noticed by the IP owners. Same apply for any game out there using the IP without permission.

Big tip: play it safe and just do something of your own. Feel free to do a clone that uses your own made up IP.

Although it sounds your interest is simply to make a Pokemon game, that will just never workout for you. If you make any money, be it ads or anything, you can face huge legal repercussions (not making money does not mean you will be safe either, but making money makes it worse.)

 

This .

Fan game threads are VERY annoying .
The first reason is these are generally just bad ideas , like in magic no IP laws , the models are on makeafangame.com , land , your unlikely to be able to make something worthy of the name . Poke-games are made with multi million dollar budgets . Not a good idea for your first game , since your bitting off WAY more then you can chew . One of my games is just a 2D platformer demo with a sprite my friend drew up . No ones expecting it to be better then mario , heck its more or less practice( tip start small , Android is very cool with you just putting up half finished ideas, I think this is an important step in the learning process ) .

Second, lets awesome you can make super awesome pokie game . Ok , now your VERY limited on where you can distribute it . Apple wont even let you post it on the app store since its copyright infringement . And various legal action can be taken against you , say after 18 months you have something worth putting out .
Your stuck with an unsellable game .

Its better to take inspiration from games you like , and make something new .

 

While slightly off-topic (you'll see why shortly), I'm going to pursue this idea anyhow, because it will certainly help with the IP issue this thread is about.

What's so darn great about Pokemon? The fact that you collect party members, culminating in the tag phrase, "Gotta catch 'em all!" That last bit is important - the key mechanic isn't the RPG elements (which are merely a vehicle by which to perform said collection), but the collection itself. The game gives a standard 'victory whoop-te-doo' if you defeat The Elite Four, but in the end the real challenge isn't beating the JRPG; it's collecting 'em all.

This is the starting point for your IP in your game. What is something that can be collected, yet used with a different set of game mechanics to make an enjoyable experience? Figure out this, and you'll be about a quarter of the way to a game of your own that won't be at risk for legal action and will provide gamers a novel, enjoyable experience.

To design this, I recommend going and buying some index cards, and making hand-drawn card game out of the mechanics you intend to use, and gauge whether your concept is fun or not. Digitize your idea only when it's ready to be! (I'm learning this the hard way.)

 

Ok I will not use pokemon, or any copyrighted asset.

from now i use as i always make the games, use cubes, when i have an almoust final product, then contact nintendo ltd. if approval of idea, then add characters, if declined, then add characters done by freelance artists, and change part of the idea.

at Shuji, well, i could use your skills in future, the Yoshi game, well, some people do not care about IP
at Eyeshock did not knew about someone sueing about "scrolls", still i think i should not use any IP, about Tamagochi, yeah i remmember it, i think they got a new app for iOS
at SevenBits, well that never sued anyone sounds good, but i will not tempt fate
at Eric5h5, tell that to apple, they really think that a 'square device for multiple purposes' is their IP, or they claim the Touch Interface as their own, since they stole it from Xerox, still, nice words.
at lockbox, great article! thanks!
at Starsman Games, thanks for the tip, maybe my own IP is better
at keithsoulasa, well sorry for the fangame, but the idea of a fangame is to use the Prestige of the name and chars everyone knows and love, not first game(but maybe first by myself, it could take max 5 months a worthy game for me), check Pokemon MMO, i will try to contact them and see how that team proceed inside the law, if not then the inspiration and renew will be the option
at Asvarduil, well, the RPG idea is off, the Collecting 'em all idea is off, so just by changing the chars it could have things from different games, i will focus on the idea of the enjoyable experience, I think the designer approach could be handy, since to test a concept i tend to do working prototypes(since i love programming and it is fun and easy for me), thank you for your reply

thanks for everyone on this thread giving their point of view, the point of the thread is to have this amazing feedback of what could be a Do or a Dont, Again THANK YOU.

 

And that's exactly why its illegal to do so , you didn't invest the money into creating Pokemon , you have no right to take their work and try to make money( directly or indirectly ) off it .

Anyway, this comes up at least once a week if not more ...

 

GamesWorkshop will rip you a new one faster then you can blink if even think about w40k.

 

They are not inside the law at all. If you talking about the game I think you are, they are in Panma, a country with a very young IP law system (their first copyright bill was passed in 1994, in legal terms, that's yesterday.) It still is hard to enforce it and many still live in a pre-law mentality.

It's not easy for companies outside Panma to fight claims there, and even then not sure how far their case would go, and from my understanding, penalties in the country are not harsh enough to scare anyone off big IP copying. I think Mexico has a much more robust system and are more willing to collaborate with other countries to resolve issues.