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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.
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.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
...that the little puff of "wind" in the lower right hand corner doesn't help their case either.
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.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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.
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.
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?
"But here's the real question: Can any user edit the game?"
Doesn't matter. They can't advertise the game looking like WW. For the purposes of marketing/advertising, they cannot infringe.
"Derp de derp."
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=107
All hell will break loose if Tingle appears in this game.
Nintendo: "You may have stolen our main character Link, but stealing our homosexual Frenchman who flys around on a balloon has gone too far! He is our Jar Jar Binks of the Zelda series, not yours!"
--On the one hand, as the designers point out, that is merely an early screenshot. The real avatar may look like that, or may look entirely different.
--We also have to consider that if you make a cel-shaded farmland scene, it will probably look like a cel-shaded farmland scene in another game. Just like how a red-haired chibi-anime girl looks a hell of a lot like every other red-haired chibi-anime girl.
--The *NAME* of the game is Wiki. No, the puff of air will not stay right there the entire game. It's a promo shot, so they stuffed the game's title into the scene... and since they wouldn't want to override any of the aesthetics, the bottom-right corner was the best spot for it. Coincidence of design, not an attempt at deception.
--That being said, Webzen could very well have done their avatar with some other design options, and shifted the scene camera around to put their logo into another spot.
Yeah, it's a screenshot that looks similar. Deal with it. I think this is an instance of an overzealous lawyer (What, an overzealous lawyer from Nintendo? That'd be like Apple suing their fans for discussing gossip... wait... right.)
Yeah. It's kind of like that.
When I originally saw those shots last week, it occurred to me that the design looked vaguely familiar. I didn't initially even connect it to Zelda, but taking another look, I think there could be serious trouble, especially if this one design is to be used as a "spokescharacter" for the game. Check out the direct comparison. (In Korean.) Looks like the offending shots were right out of the press release. Here's another article (in Korean) with side-by-side comparisons of the images... including the little puff of wind in the title.
And, if you'd like to take a look at some of the other upcoming releases promoted during Webzen 's Feb. 15 conference, all of which seem to be MMORPGs of different themes, look at this Japanese article. (Writer Kim Dong Wook regularly covers new games from Korea.)
Trademark!
Trademark! Trademark! Trademark!
If people didn't talk in generics like "IP" all the time, maybe people would figure out the difference.
It's not the same thing as copyright, and the law *requires* that Nintendo do stuff like this to keep their trademark. Trademark law can include things like trade dress, which is what protects things like the shape of a Coke bottle, or the exterior look of McDonald's resturants.
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?
At least from my perspective, Nintendo has always been afraid of Zelda MMORPGs. While it can be understandable to send cease and desist letters at fan games, Nintendo generally lets singleplayer ones slide, while being aggressive against multiplayer ones.
Nintendo fought against Graal, who was at the time making a very Zelda-esque MMORPG (clearly derivative). And yet, Zelda classic (Single player, and also clearly derivative) is alive and thriving...
They should also sue them because of that little (dog?) thing running around that has the same color pallette as Pikachu.
I mean, Nintendo clearly owns #FFFF00.