Okay, good. I already said no subscriptions will be allowed and I understand that it is illegal, and just plain wrong to make money off of what others have done. Thank you DarkCampainer. I almost was about to delete my game, or at least most of it. So thank you for clearing that up. I also have the Credits to Square Enix right here.

Killerdragon wrote:

Please tell me, is it still illegal to make a fan-game if I give credit to the original company???

If you don't have permission from the original creator, you may still be in violation of copyright. In theory, the original creator could still come after you and tell you to stop making/distributing the game, or even sue for damages. In theory. It's unlikely to happen, but any fan game made without explicit permission does take this risk.

Why don't original content creators usually go after fan games? A number of reasons:

1. It's not worth the hassle to go after some kid who made a little game about their work. They'd spend much more money pursuing this than they would ever possibly lose from the fan game's existence.

2. It alienates the community.

3. The fan game may actually be beneficial if it generates more interest in official stuff.

A lot of the nicer big name copyright holders actually embrace their fan communities who make fan games, fan fiction, etc. Point #3 can be a big thing for them, and avoiding point #2 is also a good thing.

Others simply look the other way when it comes to fan generated content as long as it's fairly small scale. I'd guess that most BYOND fan games fall into this category - not big enough to companies to care, regardless of whether they like it or not.

Some common myths:

1. It's not violation as long as you don't make any money. Not true at all. Violation of copyright is violation of copyright, period. Doesn't matter if any money was involved - the original creator has the ultimate authority to determine how and what derivative works are made and distribution.

2. It's not violation if you give them credit. Again, not true at all. See above.


Bottom line, most big copyright holders won't ever notice or care about a BYOND fan game, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're in the clear. There is a (small) risk with creating any unauthorized fan content. If a company notices and doesn't like it, they'll probably just ask you to take it down. In theory they could sue, but that's extremely unlikely unless you get wildly popular and/or make a lot of money. So it's your choice as to whether you want this small risk. As can be seen by the hordes of fan games here, many have chosen to take that risk (though I would bet that most were uninformed choices).

If you want to avoid copyright issues entirely, it's fairly easy to start with the same basic concept and change enough things to make it your own unique creation.

Also note that copyright has been discussed extensively here over the years, so you might do a search and spend some time reading. Just don't take anyone's word as absolute fact! A lot of misinformation has been spread. When in doubt, go straight to the source (for the US): http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

So basically you are saying that there is always that small chance that my game might be needed to be taken down, or I might even be sued, but most likely not, seeing as Square Enix as being such a big company as it is, probably wouldn't even take the time to search and hunt down people, especially on BYOND.

http://www.chrono-trigger.com/

So basically, I am just taking a small risk, and most likely, I will turn out o.k., and if not, I could always just edit the game to become my own original game without needing to change up most of my coding. Please tell me if this is true.

Yep if you take out the copyrighted works you can continue on. Graal used to be Zelda online before Nintendo had them remove the copyrighted content.

Though I suggest just removing the copyrighted content anyway since then you'll be garunteed to have no issues.

Please read Mike's excellent summary. The fact that you do not charge only goes to the question of damages. IT DOES NOT ADDRESS WHETHER INFRINGEMENT OCCURRED. I cannot stress this enough. If you use another's work without permission, you are probably in violation. Whether you claim the work is yours does not answer the question either. If I fully admit that a book was written by Mr. X and publish copies anyway, I am willfully infringing his copyrights.

It is a dangerous area because even if they cannot show an economic loss from the violation other than their costs to get you to stop, they may still recover that (which can be quite hefty) and get an injunction against your further use of their IP (which means all your work is pretty much lost).

Loduwijk wrote:

As has been said by others, it is illegal if you do not have permission even if you do not make money and if you do give them credit.

That said, Enix does not take action against fan games based off of their material. On the contrary, Enix promotes it - at least, last I knew. In fact, Enix used to have a section of their website devoted to fangames others had created (And as far as I know, they might still have that site up and running).

Square-Enix doesn't though. Theodis' post in this thread links to a site for a fangame that got shut down.

are you ever satisfied with a one line post?

didn't think so. but you did there .

O.K. Thank you guys. My game is at the point where it is still modifiable so I can just change it into the original RPG I was thinking of before without drastically changing the code. People will probably also like it more if it is more original, so thank you and I will change all of the copyrighted content. As well, if I can make an original game I could probably add in more stuff which could possibly be good for my game. O.k. From now on, my game will be no longer known as "Square Ultima" but now known as "Lands of Szizar" (I think, if anybody has a better name for my RPG, I will gladly accept ideas!!!)

Uh, I <ABOMINABLE LIE>hate to disappoint you</ABOMINABLE LIE> but you're not as good as you think you are. You're not bugging me even slightly. :P

Anyway, to answer your original question in more detail: I always use exactly the correct number of words/lines to convey what I mean to convey. If a line suffices, a line suffices. If it doesn't, then I'm not going to dumb down the message in order to squeeze it into a sound byte.

The great strength of a forum such as this is that the messages remain in static form, able to be read and re-read at the readers' leisure long after they are written. There is therefore no point in being brief for brevity's sake.