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."

Comments

Why not just change the name, and the characters

[tod_miller]

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

That was predictable.

[Dark Lord Seth]

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?

Just saw the trailer.

[tod_miller]

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.

Have a look at the trailer

[xDCDx]

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.

Really, is anyone surprised by this?

[Canthros]

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?

Re:Really, is anyone surprised by this?

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, but did they even ask?

Here's two scenarios:

1) You have a few buddies and you want to make a rename of Chrono Trigger for PC. You send a politely-worded request to the legal department at Square-Enix asking about the legal status of the game and for permission to re-use some of its assets in a way that is harmless to future Square-Enix games. The lawyer at the company reads this politely-worded email.

2) You have a few buddies and you go ahead and start making a clone of Chrono Trigger without asking permission from anyone. You steal all the art, music, and sound effects assets. You create trailers for your clone and promote it all over the Internet. The lawyer at the company, tipped off by someone, sees this all happening.

Which situation do you think would make Square-Enix happier? If these guys didn't ask permission, then it's GOOD they were shut down because they're idiots anyway. On the other hand, if they did ask permission, were granted it, and now Square-Enix is pulling a 180, then the company certainly has its head way up its ass.

So, in summary, I need more information to judge for sure. I'd wager these guys never asked permission in the first place.

Re:Really, is anyone surprised by this?

[oed]

I wholeheartedly agree. I think the game looks great, though I was skeptical before I saw the screen shots. These guys have talent and drive, they should try to make their own game.

Likely, though, these are talented artists and craftsmen... but not game-makers and storytellers. If they were the latter, it seems they would settle for nothing else than their own world and game.

Square Enix has a right (and a duty to fans of their work) to defend not only their copyright, but their standards of quality. However you may describe SE's formula and approach, it works. I have no desire to see even well-meaning plagiarists take whacks at "Chrono Trigger", "Final Fantasy", etcetera.

Re:Really, is anyone surprised by this?

[Doodlepants]

I am a close friend to some of the artists in the project. Here are some facts : 1) None of the original assets were used. Its all Fan-Art. 2) Square was contacted to ask permission to do this. 3) Square never answered that letter. 4) Square was contacted again asking about the first letter. 5) Square never answered that letter either.

Re:Really, is anyone surprised by this?

[Bloomy]

In America a company or individual is required to defend their copyrights or they risk losing their rights to them.

Nope, trademarks need to be defended by the holder or risk dilution. Copyrights don't need to be defended.

However if you just quietly work on the project, don't publicize it very much, and don't attempt to make money off it, some authors/companies are willing to look the other way since they have plausible deniablity about its existance.

There is nothing stopping them from continuing to work on the project. They should be able to post updates on their progress, but not post pictures or movies that would violate Square / Enix's copyrights. Just say, "we're 20% through the game." As long as they don't distribute what they've done, much to the chagrin of people who would like to see it, and take precautions that it doesn't slip out, they wouldn't need permission. That's fair use.

Implications for "unofficial sequels"

[Gangis]

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.

Re:Why not just change the name, and the character

[bear pimp]

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.

Asking permission.. but do they answer ?

[88NoSoup4U88]

I wonder if the team asked for permission beforehand ; Most likely not.

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.
Knowing that 'getting foxed' is something quite possible these days, I thought beforehand to ask Namco for some sort of permission ... and to this day, have not received -any- replies from Namco :

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 ;)

Re:Asking permission.. but do they answer ?

[Blakey Rat]

Did you just send email, or did you write an actual letter?

I'd get a lawyer to write an actual letter (on paper!) to their legal department about it and see what kind of results that gets you. Email is disposable; assuming your message wasn't blacklisted as spam, it's really really easy to hit "delete" and get rid of it for good. To get results, you need paper.

Re:Why not just change the name, and the character

[88NoSoup4U88]

Mwoah ; i don't agree on those points ;

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)

Re:Why not just change the name, and the character

[Necromutant]

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.

LEAK IT!

[IshanCaspian]

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!

Heres an idea

[tod_miller]

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.

Re:A C&D letter was enough?

[ThndrShk2k]

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.

With this and Chrono Trigger being, well as it seems, the best RPG of all time(pun intended) then why would you want to piss off SquareEnix for doing a project devoted to the game you and so many love? You wouldn't. You'd just hope they shut you down because they saw the crowd forming and think they might put their expert hands to work on a full remake.
This tactic saves them money AND assures sales. Plus with better graphics, although CT:R's graphics where great for independants, and development they can make a better remake and hopefully fulfill the wet dreams of some of us CT fans.

But i can only hope for that and such. And if it is a possibility maybe a full remake of FF6, or even all the Final Fantasys until 7

You know

[jayhawk88]

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?

Why'd they start in the first place?

[devnull17]

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.

Re:Why not just change the name, and the character

[Canthros]

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.

Re:Why not just change the name, and the character

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

No-win situation.

[huchida]

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.

Because this kind of stuff is common in japan

[rsilvergun]

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?).

What true fans would do

[Josiwe]

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.