Okay, for starters I’m going to say right now, I have ZERO intention of publishing such a game and NO intention of ever trying to sell it.
This is something I wanted to try my hand at for fun. I just think it would be a neat project to try and port a whole videogame into a vastly different medium.
The thing I’m worried about is: would it even be legal for Dashingdon to host it? I mean yeah I’d have disclaimers about none of it being my own intellectual property but… I’m not sure if it would still be okay to make publicly playable, even for free.
I also have doubts about CoG even allowing it in the forum.
Obviously I would love to share my project but, this being a special case, I don’t want to step on toes or worse.
My safe assumption is: if you’re not sure, just don’t.
But I wanted to ask because hey, who knows?
Another disclaimer just in case: No I haven’t even started such a project. It only exists as an idea right now.
Republishing an entire game, just in another medium, doesn’t sound like it would fly. My optimistic side would like to think it should be fine, but the realist is informed that it would be a violation of copyright. Creating different stories in the same universe, with easter eggs and such is fine as far as I know. In the case of this…
Regardless of you rightfully choosing to not monetize, you would be making every aspect pf a game’s plot public for free. If I’ve never heard of the game, and got curious enough to read the whole project, but not choose to buy the actual game, as much as I don’t owe that to the game devs, just being able to read the whole thing, to play through he whole story is a bit like pirating.
Taking someone else’s work and trying to port it as closely as possible without their permission is not cool and definitely is way over in copyright infringement territory. They’d be within their rights to issue a takedown notice, and both COG and dashingdon’s would be within their rights to refuse to have it on their platform.
“Fan fiction” on the other hand is a grey area. Some authors/companies don’t seem to mind it, some do. So it might be ok depending on the circumstances if you wanted to write your own stories set in the game’s world provided you don’t charge money for it, and they don’t take exception to it.
If you change all the character names and organizations and don’t use any of the unique skill/weapon/damage language the game in question uses, they’d be hard-pressed to say you stole it in a court of law. But you’d also have a harder time marketing “Bert Sampson” with lime green skin than you would our favorite yellow-skinned Bart Simpson.
Plus there’s the whole question of if your Favorite Video Game would even be fun ported over to choicescript. How much “I hit the headcrab with my crowbar” would people enthusiastically engage in?
So, even if it’s legally possible to scrape off the serial numbers, I doubt that it would be worth the effort, especially if you can’t use the popular game in question’s name or elements in your marketing.
I agree with everything you said, but I explicitly stated that I would not publish it. At most it would exist as a blog post. Not as a credited, distributed work.
There’s generally three things that are a problem when using somebody else’s IP and that’ll get you sued into oblivion:
1 - You’re making money.
2 - You’re costing them money.
3 - The IP belongs to Disney.
If you want to port a videogame, you’re probably NOT kosher, as the owners can claim that, by revealing their story to the public, it results in less interest in their game, and are thus costing them money. If you want to make a story set in, say, the Mass Effect universe, but does not follow Shepard or their companions, you miiiiight be kosher? Again, I’m not a lawyer. If it has anything even remotely to do with Disney, DO NOT! It doesn’t matter if you’re kosher or not, the Mouse will sue your ass until you’re bankrupt, regardless of case merits.
You’d be surprised. Shit, SOMEBODY might as well make Half-Life 3, Valve doesn’t seem to be going to.
Well like I said this isn’t something I would ever be having published. The game I’m thinking of came out in 2006. I really don’t think the developers are reasonably concerned about making sales on it any longer.
In fact there’s a group of people actually building a standalone remaster of the entire game, to be released on steam. They apparently haven’t got a cease and desist and their project has been a known quantity for a few years. So as far as making it goes, I think I’m okay.
it doesn’t seem like you’re going to take no for an answer, but here’s a specific section from the dashingdon tos:
Your user content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any third party’s legal rights, and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action whether against you or DashingDon.com or a third party (in each case under any applicable law).
i would just find something else to do, honestly. maybe you’d like to use the other IP as (distinctly separate) inspiration or you want to build off the mechanics in a unique way.
It’s not that I won’t take no for an answer, I already said I probably won’t bother with it since it’s not something I’m certain about, legally speaking.
A few of the replies I got seemed to miss what I said about not publishing anything, so I was clarifying.
There is one thing you are forgetting: If it is on the INTERNET, it’sn’t yours anymore. Its for all to see.
When it’s personal project? Often it mean personal use, just you and your project in a folder canoodling. But as soon as you put something outta there, that’s it.
The game change. Even if you say you aren’t going to Publish it, it doesn’t matter. Under the law, the fact you made it and uploaded it on the Internet is a breach already.
I have seen peoples think the same way, and it take years before the owner notice or decide to do something…but they always end up doing something.
The issue is that you will be dragging both COG and Dashington in the mess if one decide to show up and come knocking. So let’s say the Original Owner just tell you to take the link down? Well COG could do something, or they could be dragged in a Lawsuit because you used their CHOICE OF SCRIPT to make it. Dashington offer a free service…what if he doesn’t like that either?
I mean if you said: I be using some free Software to make it, and upload it on my money knowing the risk? You can do that.
But as soon as you decide ‘’‘I’m using X script to make Y game that belong to Z, and upload it on W’'? Yeah that’s just calling for trouble for everyone, you in the middle.
Aside from the legal issues (it could potentially be argued that this work would be seen as a replacement for a purchase of the game you’re adapting), it’s also kind of a shitty idea in the first place.
As a creator, you take inspiration from a wide variety of work. You steal, you examine, you interrogate, you remix, you adapt. But if you’re just copying what someone else has done, completely wholesale, you’re not growing as a writer at all, and what you make isn’t your own.
The drive to copy someone else’s work can be strong, because you want others to feel the same way you did when you first experienced that work, and you want to be a part of that. But this isn’t the way to do it. Take ownership over your work. And don’t worry if your own work doesn’t live up to its inspirations.
I have my own work. I wasn’t trying to imply that I believe there’s any merit in copying someone else. Nor would I ever try to take any credit for their work.
My interest in it would be just the challenge of trying to adapt a game made in one medium to an entirely different medium, and seeing what’s better or worse about either one. Doing that just seems… idk, fun? Interesting?
where did you get that??? Just because the game came in 2006, it doesn’t make it…well not that old.
I though you were talking about Abandonware games. But this? You nuts?!
Bethestha is either sold or gonna be sold to Microshit, and they are still collecting money and Oblivion is still an ALIVE Game, where peoples are still buying it and making mods for it.
Its right there behind Skyrim still being recommended for having better atmosphere and story telling.
If you picked Daggerfall…or Arena? Maybe (Well I don’t think they ever release their fingers from those no matter how old they get).
They will get one. You just watch.
It happen before. Some group did the same, don’t remember what game it was, they waited till they were done and started spreading the word…and here the Dev came and told them to scrap it completely or get sued.
Pick a game nobody owns anymore.
Edit: Is this the group you were talking about???
IF they are the one you were talking about, here the difference between you and them:
We are currently in the process of porting and rebuilding Cyrodiil along with all of its quests, locations and characters into Skyrim and Skyrim: Special Edition.
They are making it as a Mod within Skyrim. And that’s okay, as far as Bethesda goes.
And then they will stream showing their work, for Charities.
The way you wrote the above original post, implied something else completely. Someone is remaking Oblivion on Steam.
Here who own Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an open-world action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios , and published by Bethesda Softworks and 2K Games
Here how long the game can last if you do everything: he Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is about 27½ Hours in length. If you’re a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 184 Hours to obtain 100% completion.
And they have a deal with Playstation! Look!: Oblivion is now playable on ps4 | Fandom. So PlayStation now added the elder scrolls 4 Oblivion today. PlayStation now is a subscription service that let’s you stream games instead of downloading and play . It’s$10 a month to have PlayStation Now and you do not need a PlayStation console.
So yeah, it is still making them money!
And how many it took to make the game?: With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion having a development team of roughly seventy people , it’s the largest development team for any The Elder Scrolls game.
Even these modders are still looking for help to re-make it as a Mod.
Using this game as an inspirational work is a legit thing you can do.
Is it the quest structure you find so compelling? Is it the character creation that you feel will translate over well? etc…
The classics are often used by many game designers to inspire.
The next step – giving it your own twist is the key here… what can you do to improve in your game that people will embrace and even cheer about?
One of the things that many designers do is take a concept from the past, for example multiplayer maps, and then figure out something new about them that will give the new game its own flavor.
So, one of the later fps games came out with a zombie swarm map… that was really popular, then there was the decreasing map size added… so on and so forth.
I think it is really cool that you want to take your inspiration from a classic game, but then, I’d want to see you and your ideas, the way you figure out details and put them together.
In other words, your creation, not theirs, is what I want to see.
This is about modding; there are a lot of different things to take into consideration, and unfortunately, what is and isn’t allowed sometimes changes over time. For example, for years GTA’s older titles had PC mods that updated and bug fixed the originals.
That was allowed for years, but once Rockstar saw they can make money on remastered versions of these games, these types of mods all a sudden had cease and desist letters and dcma takedown notices issued.
Bethesda has in the past been very generous in what they allow. With Microsoft buying them, I am not sure what, if anything will be changing in the next 5 years. Heck, people do not even know if titles will become xbox exclusives or not…
I already started on a game of my own, purely made from my own creative thought, no one else’s which is deeply inspired by many mechanics found in many classic games, not limited to this one.
I’m not trying to “copy” oblivion to say “ooh look at this cool original thing I did” I’m well aware that it wouldn’t be original. I have my own work for being original.
I do not think what I tried to communicate came through.
The last thing I would say then, is to contact both CoG and Dashingdon directly with details and getting your answer directly from them both.
CoG for licensing questions regarding Choice Script in such situations and Dashingdon for hosting questions. No one else here would be qualified to give you definitive answers.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion… Wait, are you talking about Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge? IIRC that’s a free mod that requires the base game, so it’s not standalone and wouldn’t take sales away from the original Oblivion. And it’s not a straightforward remaster–it has different lore, characters, and story. And a different levelling system if I remember things right.
