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Chrono Ressurrection Forced to Cease & Desist
Kethinov writes "The Chrono Ressurrection Project (previously mentioned on /. here), an attempted 3d remake of the popular 2d game Chrono Trigger, has been shut down by Squenix in the form of a cease and desist letter. Quoth their website, "it is with our deepest regrets in that we have to announce the closure of the Chrono Resurrection project. Square Enix Co., Ltd recently issued a Cease and Desist letter which will mean the project is closed indefinitely." The site retains two trailers and a number of screenshots."
Remove all trademarks, and you are golden. Perhaps do a rockstar, and rename all the car names in a quirky way.
The screenshots look awesome, keep the engine and just remove trademarks.
beautiful screenshot
Good luck to 'em
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Constantly rehashing Squaresoft titles into new titles with only minor and insignificant changes is the only way Square-Enix makes games nowadays.
Can't have your biggest fans steal your business model, hmm?
Hate me!
yes, if the game was worth playing just because of the names it wasn't worth squat in the first place.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
These folks shouldn't have caved in so quickly.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Freecraft received a C&D letter and ended up changing their engines name to Stratagus with the FCMP media renamed to Aleona's Tales.
x e| 8310061|FAF827D537033A8E3E7EA97BC9E5CA93|/
For old memories sake, Freecraft still works out of the box here (eDonkey link)
ed2k://|file|freecraft-030311-win32-with-fcmp.e
One can only hope they carry on in secret, and it gets leaked.. or like someone suggested change the names a little.
So does this mean square are thinking of making a 3d version..... I very much doubt it.. damn party poopers....
Why can a C&D letter make one give up of a project in wich probably he has spent so much time? I would call my lawyer first, and to be honest I would call him BEFORE starting the friggin project. If we start to obey to those nasty letters, in no time almost all free/open software will vanish.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
And I just bought one of their games. Now my stomach is starting to turn.
Awesome * pi ^ tan(90)
Great work on this, I think it was a closed source endeavour?
The engine is his XUEngine, with the following tools.
- XuStudio (World Editor, Character Editor, Particle Editor, Cinema Editor)
- XuExporter
- XuViewer
- XuConverter
I'd love to have a go with these tools, the work is good quality.
*cough*open source*cough* think about dual licensing, open source GPL and a commercial license.
I am not sure how those work in though, IANAL.
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I tried this from a pic on his site, and it was googles birthday!
o gl e.jpg
http://www.opcoder.com/images/funny/frenchmilgo
well, it didn't work for me.
Happy birthday anyway google (note link is on that dudes site, so kinda on topic)
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But doesn't the story come from the original game? I don't think you can keep the story while changing the names etc.
I am a bit skeptic about this kind of fan games (although Maniac Mansion Deluxe was really impressive), but when I saw the trailer I was really stunned. Give it a try!
It is a shame Square (and all big corporations really) is so annoying with a non comercial project that would even give a boost to Chrono series popularity and pave the way for a third official game in the series.
I am all for closing people profiting from other's trademarks, but when hardcore fans do a game/hack/mod/expansion just for the pleasure of doing it without gaining a penny... I don't understand why companys force them to cancel these projetcs.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but...
Look, Square is required to defend, vigorously, its trademarks and copyrights. If they don't, they lose them, and that could cut into their profits significantly. Furthermore, this crosses way beyond any legitimate extrapolation of fair use. Just as translating a book into another language or re-scoring a song for another set of instruments requires the permission of the original copyright-holder, re-implementing a game down to the plot, character designs, and underlying system of mechanics is stepping past the boundaries of fair use. There is no way they could legally have distributed or published this project with Squeenix's permission.
It looks like the folks involved have talent and skill, maybe they should be working on making their own game, instead of copying somebody else's? They'd have to start from scratch in many areas, but the screenshots certainly look like they have a suitable graphics engine, and seems like a demonstration of general know-how in the area. Why shouldn't they leverage what they've learned to create a new, different game which isn't someone else's idea warmed over and regurgitated?
Canthros
I don't really get why this is such a big deal. Square have every right to send out a C&D letter in this case; they own the rights to the original game. Whatever you think of the law in this case, there's no denying that Square are perfectly within it. Maybe they're planning to re-release or remake the game themselves (see the previous re-releases of the old Final Fantasy games).
To be honest, the real question here is why anybody would be so dumb as to sink so much time and effort into a project like this without checking from the very start that something like this wasn't going to happen. In terms of sheer lack of common sense, it's kind of like building your house on stilts over the San Andreas fault.
There's a long history of games projects being shut down for reasons like this. For a while, it became common to refer to this as "Foxing", because of the propensity of a certain well-known media establishment for doing just this, but it's hardly limited to them. Anybody remember Nintendo and Great Giana Sisters?
Why is everyone hating so bad on Square/Enix?
It is their game.
I have an idea. I am going to redo the Star Wars trilogy but I am going to make it all in cartoon format and then release it for free to the internet and expect to not get told to stop by LucasArts. The developers knew this time would come what they were hoping on was a buyout by Square for their idea and work. What they didn't realize is that Square could churn this out faster then they could spending all of their saved money.
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. George Patton
Disclaimer: IANAL!
I've been working on an "unofficial sequel" of Chrono Trigger for a number of years now, albeit slowly. We're now at the point where our development is progressing much faster than ever before. Last night when I found out about this, I started writing a letter to the EFF in order to consult with them regarding the legal implications of creating a not-for-profit derivation of a commercial game made a decade ago. The way I look at it, after researching a few court cases, such as the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music , which ruled that it is legal to parodize a commercial project, AS LONG AS one does not market it commerically. However, UCT2 isn't a parody in the sense that it makes fun of Chrono Trigger. It's a honest-to-goodness sequel that closes up a lot of plot holes that Chrono Trigger and the bastard sequel, Chrono Cross, created.
I used to think that as long as I wasn't duplicating the product and wasn't marketing it at all, and making it available for free download, I would be safe from any legal issues but in light of the cease-and-desist order for CT:R, I'm starting to get nervous. I mean, I'm no match for a team of highly paid corporate lawyers.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
OR: come up with your own story and characters, THEN you are truly golden.
So much effort went into this, but why didn't he just come up with his own ideas instead of ripping off other people's? He would not have problems if he had his own story, characters and world and only used Chrono Trigger as the inspiration for the gameplay mechanic. Then we would have even more respect for what he was trying to achieve.
Still, a shame that such a project (which seemed to be making quite some progress) gets shut down : Hell, they are not doing it for the profit ; but purely because of being a fan of the (imo fantastic) Chrono Trigger.
On the topic of asking permission ;
About a year ago, I have started porting a semi-2d port of a classis arcade game (Elevator Action) to the HL2 engine. ... and to this day, have not received -any- replies from Namco :
Knowing that 'getting foxed' is something quite possible these days, I thought beforehand to ask Namco for some sort of permission
I am not saying that Namco and their lawyers should be replying to me within a week ; but at least (after sending about 7 e-mails to different adresses) they should let me hear -something- : I almost am sure I -would- hear something (maybe within that one week timespan) if I would go along in making it, and calling it 'Elevator Action'
For now, I am continuing on the development of it ; and am considering to just name it something completely different (no 'elevator' or 'action' in the title) : just in case ; but keeping the exact same gameplay... I might even call the dude Otto ;)
This was a Fan project ; they loved the game, think it would even rock more in 3D : And went along and (almost) did it.
Maybe this project has shown them that they -do- have the capabilities to create alot of assets, and they might want to go on ; in the direction you say.
Respect, on my side, is not lost ; Just because they used a world/story/game , and ported it to their vision :
In that mindset ; -every- sequel of -every- game, would not get as much respect as the 'first' ; and that is not the case (taking Super Mario Bros. as an example)
The parent makes a very good point.
Yeah, corporations should defend their trademarks, but what about when you politely ask if you can do a non comercial spinoff based on their property and they think: "Bah, kids" not even telling you "Yes, go ahead" or "No, that would piss us off", only later to send you a cease and desist letter.
I agree, just change the characters and story and that should be okay. Granted, this is a lot of work, but to have come so far, they've probably learned enough that building something truly original should be within reach. Indeed, now they can just let their imaginations run wild!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Yea, I am sure that the developers could easily do their own thing with this now using their own story/characters... but, I think the point of the whole project was that they really loved the Chrono Trigger game/world/characters/story and wanted to work with that material. The video really shows how awesome this project could be if it were to ever be completed. This looks MUCH more appealing to me than anything Square has come up with since FFX and it actually looks better than FFX as well. It seems to do a good job of capturing what made the game magic on the SNES in 3D. Something that hasn't been done yet by Square as much as I like FF 7,9 and X.
~Necromutant
This project is looking way too awesome to let the whole thing just roll over and die. Leak all the source code, let someone set up an anonymous CVS in Russia, and let the development continue as a kind of black market thing. I'd totally contribute code to it. Square trying to prevent us from continuing development in the most legitimate way is absolutely no excuse for not driving the whole project underground.
Stage a hack or something, and get that code out there!
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Right here.
Read my post. I said open source the engine. I said remove copyrights/trademarks.
Except for the first line (my beautiful words) the rest was pretty redundant.
And, because it's open source, nobody will be able to stop us!
Hey you can't spell Open Source with out SCO dontchaknow.
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that they really loved the Chrono Trigger game/world/characters/story and wanted to work with that material.,
I saw that - which is why I suggested the renaming trick to avoid copyright, keep the ethos, but not the trademarks.
Of course, they should make entirely new material, and use thier nice engine and skills to make it a great collaborative RPG which they sell for 15 EUR or 25 EUR for a MMORPG version with 6 months of server thrown in.
Never played a square game, except 42.1 seconds of FF7.
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Not trying to be an asshole here or anything, but I really have to wonder why anyone associated with this project ever thought it would end in any way other than this.
Chrono Cross, while not a direct sequal to Trigger, is still based on the same game universe (sort of, lots of time travel and dimensional weirdness going on in both games stories), and is just now coming up on it's 5th anniversary. This isn't like someone trying revive dead franchises like Star Control or whatever. Square still owns the rights to the "Chrono Universe", and it would not be suprising in the least to see another Chrono-based game from them in the very near future.
Added into this is that Square already has a history themselves of reviving their older Final Fantasy games with updated graphics, new CGI movies, and other stuff. In fact Chrono Trigger itself was part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package along with Final Fantasy IV.
In other words, there's just no way Square could allow this project to continue, seeing as how the Chrono Universe is still an active viable property. I'm sure people associated with Chrono Ressurrection were only motivated by their love for the original Chrono Trigger game, but come on: what did you expect would happen?
That's very dumb of Square-Enix....
... let them finish and buy the product, and release it yourself ....
... every single RPGer I've met loves CT. Square outta know that, as a company, they should try to take advantage of that, now they're killing it.
... after posting this, I'll start working on a petition and I'll post the URL after, I really think this is not a strategic move for square and for us, the buyers/gamers.
in days where they keep rehashing their own games themselves, why do this to a team that does it for free ??
Heck
I don't know really, but just not THAT. I mean
Actually
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
You've got to wonder what these people were thinking from the get-go. Square (even pre-acquisition) has a history of, errrm, aggressive litigation. I remember that Final Fantasy Online had some fun exchanges with their lawyers a few years back.
Not to mention the fact that they're Japanese. In addition to the Japanese corporate culture, where non-traditional ways of doing business don't make it very far, it would also be very difficult to buy up infringing assets (that are probably completely incompatible with whatever development tools they use in-house) from a few foreigners who literally don't even speak the same language as the rest of their development staff.
The real surprise to me in all of this is that there are people talented enough to produce work of this quality (it looks excellent), and yet stupid or naive enough to think that they'd be able to distribute it legally or sell it to a major multinational corporation headquartered on the other side of the world.
I mean, I like seeing projects like this, but it seems like a little bit of forethought would have prevented thousands of hours of wasted effort. It truly is a shame.
There's a critical difference; it's perfectly legal for Nintendo or a third-party who has obtained permission from Nintendo to make a sequel or other game using the Mario Bros. and the attendant characters and other properties associated with it. And, even then, it would, unless they'd been specifically remaking one of the earlier games, be a new game.
Speaking for myself, while I'm impressed with the technical work done, and with their dedication to the massive job involved, their choice to work over a pre-existing game for release rather than attempt to create a new one is a mark against them on their conceptual strengths, and, I think, somewhat against their character. I'd be less bothered with them using this project as a learning framework, which would remain unreleased, as a prelude to a real project.
Perhaps they'll go that direction now.
Canthros
Why wouldn't Square Enix want to tap these people to develop the game for them? Didn't Valve do something similar with the team developing the Team Fortress mod for Half Life?
It seems like this way they could still protect their IP and cash in on sales of the game. While I can't speak for every fan of the original game, I know my mouth was watering when I watched the trailer.
--
This is a prime example of what is wrong with the current copyright/patent/trademark regime. As long as this project or any other such fan creation is not for profit then it should be legal and protected as fair use. I wish the EFF would get involved to try and get a precedent to allow this.
He would not have problems if he had his own story, characters and world and only used Chrono Trigger as the inspiration for the gameplay mechanic.
True.
Then we would have even more respect for what he was trying to achieve.
False.
If there hadn't been the Chrono Trigger connection, who would have cared? It'd just have been Yet Another Unfinished Game Concept; a handful of people would have glanced at it and said "oh, nice lighting", the rest of the world would have ignored it, and they'd have given up on the whole thing when they discovered how much harder it is to produce an entire game than some neat concept shots.
There's plenty of reasons why people would like to re-use characters.
... until those shysters from Hades come knocking.
Humans are social animals, and they do like to repeat memes, stories, characters, and other things that they take in. Copyrights are a very artificial barrier and go against this natural tendancy.
Personally, it took me years of cognitive dissonance to even accept that copyright exists and that it's not just a bad dream. It just feels natural to me to extend upon prior material, particularly when I feel particularly attached to it, which is another common trend in humans, seeing how most people are fans of some TV show, movie, or book.
I generally would much better like to embrace and extend existing material than come up with my own pseudo-original material (truly new ideas are extremely rare, perhaps even non-existant). Other people can relate to it, and it just seems downright silly to change the Three Little Pigs to the Four Small Cows.
This is pretty much what the law forces game developers (and any artist) to do. If the people who made the Chrono Trigger remake called it "Legends of Time" and made up new character names and artwork, then it would likely have been legal, but in the gut, it sure seems like using extra resources (having to come up with new characters) to make a less likable game (since it has to stand along instead of being based on an existing and popular story).
To me, it seems pretty easy to just stick your head in the sand and imagine copyright is just a bad dream
As far a 'Foxing' goes, there's plenty of reasons why corporations would NOT like to see a successful (measured in times played, not dollars) independant production, in the same way Microsoft does NOT want to see Linux succeed, and uses all means possible to try to stop it (like SCO).
Now if square would only shut down crap like 8-bit theater, which is actually profiting from ripping them off...
There is absolutely no way that Square-Enix would let a couple of no-name dudes re-make one of their games for the hell of it. Square-Enix is a multi-million dollar entertainment corporation, not some cool guy who makes cool games. These guys knew this and did it anyway hoping to either fly under the radar or get some attention before being shut down (which they have.)
Or, possibly, they though they'd knock Square-Enix's socks off with their amazing rendition and either get bought out or hired. Lots of people try this kind of thing-- sending unsolicited Simpsons scripts to Fox, etc. Unfortunately it never works-- legal dept.'s never even let decision makers see home-brewed efforts for fear of a later lawsuit if they have a similar idea. If Square didn't squash this and decided to make a 3-D version of Chrono Trigger in the future (which is a possibility, didn't they update early Final Fantasies?) these guys could potentially sue if it seems that Square-Enix appropriated any of their ideas and designs. In any event if they let this get distributed it could conceivably harm potential sales of a 3-D Chrono Trigger.
Whatever the motivation, this thing didn't have a shot and it's all their fault. It was a foolish endeavor to waste their time on. They seem talented, though, so I hope this effort at least works as a portfolio piece to get them jobs... And I'm betting it will, if they choose to follow up on it.
Chrono isn't a trademark. A trademark is just what the name implies, a mark for your trade. The word 'squaresoft' is a trademark. It identifies the game publisher called squaresoft. Trademarks, like businesses, can exist pretty much forever. This is reasonable since you're likely to pass your business on to your kids and you don't want another business pretending to be them. But we still need some way to expire trademarks, and that's why they have to be defended.
Copyright doesn't have to be defended. You can cheerfully ignore abuse right up to the end and then sue all you want.
At least this is how it works in the USA, I assume Japan is simular (what with all the presure we here in the US put on countries to do what we say).
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That was one of the best trailers that i have ever seen. Just about the best game that i have seen an individual make. I really wish that SE gave it their blessing. Or at least offered him a job. THat was some good work.
Dojinshi and what not. They probably didn't expect a cease and desist, since Japan is traditionally pretty lax about this sort of thing. Heck, it's encouraged. I guess it's another sign of corporate America cramming our ideals down everyone's throats. Oh well, square's been becomming more and more about money making lately anyway. And yes, I know making money is important, but there are some things you just don't do to your fan base (FFX-2 anybody?).
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...if some people are working on trying to remake ChronoTrigger, how about re-releasing the game onto a different platform. If I remember right, it was a Super NES game, and had not been ported elsewhere.
"Well, I am mad, and I'm a crazy fucka when it comes to tea"
People like them respond without any back action to C&D because they respect and admire the company that made the game they are basing their remake of the 10 best scenes off from.
Please try to form cogent sentences in the future.
Look, at the moment, the only way a nostalgic fanboy can play chrono cross is to buy an old copy of the game. That money goes to squarenix. Who would buy an old snes cartridge though, if an awesome updated version was available for free?? What the group should do is send a letter to squenix saying, if we turn over all commercial rights and ownership of the game to you, and only ask for creative credit, can we keep working on this game? You can sell it for 39.99 and it will make a crapload of money, and you will have 0 cost.
Yvan Eht Nioj!
Don't tell ANYONE about your remake project until release cos the companies that own the IP are F*CKERS! Oh yeah, and remain anonymous to avoid being sued.
(damn, I was looking forward to playing Chrono-remake. Now I'm just gonna have to boycott Square Enix *forever* cos they are a bunch of money hungry sh*ts who aren't in it for the love of games).
For the record, I'm all in favor of this. Of course it's harder to create your own work than to update something else, as you'll have a large amount of story writing to do, new assets to create, a game system to invent, etc., but if they've got this level of engine done already, and have people capable of creating these kinds of character models, then they've already got a good first step.
If the game is as good as the screenshots i saw, then it has legs to stand on it's own
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but it looks like what they were aiming to make was a ten scene demo. They never intended to remake the entire game.
If this is the case... I can see why Square-Enix disapprove of the project, but I don't see why they necessarily had to shut it down.
I think most of you are mis-understanding what they where doing.
:P.
The CT:R project was a project to remake the 10 best scenes from chrono trigger into a playable game. It won't have the whole game, and thats why you saw many things from different places *so far the begining and 600AD stuff, as thats what they finished.*
For those who think it's illegal to do this *i read some craptastic posts about how this is different than translating a book or re-implimenting a game*, Yes it was technically, because it was S-E's property and such. But all this is, is a project to remake scenes from the game into a 10 scene "demo", basically not that much
There are some reasons S-E would do this. One of them would be that they saw how they where progressing *greatly i might add* as independants and saw the crowd gathering. Thought it was a threat to the Chrono Trigger line they had, which last i knew they registed Chrono Break a long time ago, but they let the name go past the expiration date without a game. Or they though that they saw a good idea, and maybe using their own awesome engines make a remake of Chrono Trigger themselves.
Sadly we might not know until later if at all
Don't blame S-E for anything about this project because, although it's their fault, something good might come out of this, as them seeing that there is still a market for the Chrono series... although Chrono Cross sucked in comparison to Chrono Trigger, but Chrono Cross is a remake of Radical Dreamers. RD is a side story in the Chrono Trigger universe that never happends. *Basically it's fiction in fiction, book in a book, ect.*
~--~
Do not mind the one with the crazy, for he is sane