Nintendo Warns MMO Company Over Trademark Issues

Gamasutra.com (news now registration free) has word that MMOG developer Webzen has received a friendly letter from Nintendo discussing the similarities screenshots of their upcoming game have with The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. The developer states that this is a coincidence resulting from the cell shades style of their game, and the particular hair and clothes show in published media. From the article: "a spokesperson from developer Webzen claims that the hero of the game does not have any fixed image, and is created by the player to be their avatar in the game world." Heads up courtesy your friendly neighborhood simoniker.

Comments

Cut/paste

[wynterwynd]

Come on guys, at least TRY to differentiate your product some. The screenshot I saw look almost identical to Wind Waker, aside from the lack of a jaunty green outfit. Methinks Big N has a point on this one.

Make Him Spunky

[blueZhift]

Geez! The guy in the picture looks just like Link! Why don't they just make the default hero a spunky little Black kid, then Nintendo won't have anything to complain about. Seriously though, given the stink Marvel is raising over the ability of players in City of Heroes to clone (to some extent) Marvel characters in appearance, Webzen might consider getting this settled quickly.

Re:Make Him Spunky

[blueZhift]

Congrats - you made a really dumb post.

And welcome to the Missing the Point Club! As a black person myself, I think I know a bit about standing up for what you believe in. I do that everyday. As for Webzen, the character does look too much like Link. Ever seen the Sho Yu Weenie episode of Harvey Birdman?

Wow!

[LordJezo]

I clicked on the link expecting to see a picture of a game that might have maybe looked like Zelda:WW if I squinted and the light was right. I thought it would be another case of a big company going crazy over its characters and art style, trying to shut down anything that looked like their own stuff, no matter how far from the truth it really was.

But then I loaded the page and saw the screenshot.

The Big N has a point.

That shot could easly pass as something directly out of WW.

Um.

[LordPhantom]

OK, true the pic looks similar to Zelda games, but to be fair, how many 8 bit rpg games followed in the style/art of the original gold cartridge LOZ game?
I'm not saying that this is or isn't a copyright infringement, but one small screenshot is hardly representitave of their work on the game as a whole, nor is the game complete.... I'm guessing that Nintendo's letter will simply protect their right to complain in the future while making the Wiki development team think about a some changes in the artwork. The style and technology lend a bit to the art effect, but short of seeing a "Jaunty Green Outfit(TM)" or a "Breeze Baton(not tm)", I'm betting that the company is smart enough to change the art such that there's no infringement by the time the final product comes out.

I hope this gets stamped out

[Fr05t]

A note to the many who didn't RTFA - it's a MMO so the character is going to look however the player makes it look.

It is inevitable with MMOs increasing the ways players can customize their characters people are going to make them look like a super hero, or another video game character.

I know this is a terrible analogy but Ford and GM don't get sued for what their customers do after purchasing a car. On the service side of things my phone company doesn't get sued if I use the phone to conduct illegal activities. Why is the creator of the game responsible for the actions of their customers?

Re:I hope this gets stamped out

[UWC]

The problem here seems to be that even the press images created by the developer/publisher/whatever feature a character that looks just like a slightly elongated version of the Wind Waker protagonist wearing an outfit strikingly similar to one worn by another character in Wind Waker (pirate girl) and using an art style apparently almost identical to that used in Wind Waker. The body proportions (elongated torso, shortened legs that taper to small feet, large round head with wide-set round large-pupiled eyes and thick black eyebrows above an understated nose and thin-bordered mouth) are strikingly similar to the previously unique style used in Wind Waker. To be honest, I had to look twice to realize that the picture was from the non-Nintendo game Wiki, whose logo even features Wind-Waker-esque dust-whorls.

I understand your point of the vendor not being liable for infringing after-market modifications and uses, but in this case, these shots are coming from those making and selling the game. To use your car analogy, it's like GM advertising their Corvette as easily modified to look like a Mustang and featuring such a modification in their press material.

Three points

[MilenCent]

1. The eyes on the character are the giveaway. Nintendo's artists created a unique look for the characters in Wind Waker, but the focus of it all is the eyes on the three main characters, Link, Aryll and Tetra, which are like white footballs, topped with eyebrows, with a large black circle in the middle. The eyes are what, in my mind, defines the look of these characters, and this screenshot apes them pretty much exactly. But it is not the only thing it copies, which is telling in my mind.

2. The letter, I don't think it was a cease-and-desist, just a warning. Nintendo's lawyers aren't actually *that* overzealous concerning matters not related to people making illegal copies of their games. It'd be nice if they were more enlightened in regard to some of their older, forgotten properties, but large corporations are not particularly known for their Buddha natures.

3. Dudes, the game's called Wiki! Has anyone asked Ward Cunningham about this?