Slashdot Mirror
RTS Halo Mod Stopped by Microsoft
Headcase88 writes "Microsoft has officially asked the creators of Halogen to stop development at once. Halogen was an RTS mod being developed by Halo fans for the past three years. From the website: ' I was going to write a big sappy letter here, but what's the point. So..that's it then, I guess. The forums, site, and Moddb profile will all be shut down within the week. I can't say it hasn't been fun. It's a shame it has to end like this, but I suppose that's how it goes. Thanks, guys, for all the time you've spent supporting us. It's been a pleasure. We hate this as much as you do.' "
Too bad Valve didn't do this with Counter Strike, if they did maybe they would still be in business now...
I'm confused...is this a C&C mod taking place in the Halo universe? Yeah, I guess I can't blame MS for shutting them down. But what's stopping them from removing Halo references, changing the graphics/story a bit and reopening?
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
Or maybe they just hadn't heard of it until now. I certainly hadn't.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The forums, site, and Moddb profile will all be shut down within the week.
If only I knew this before they closed it all down (I wish that said by the end of the week!), is someone going to host this on a torrent site somewhere? Thanks.
This reminds me of when EA put a stop to Peroxide's Ultima I remake. Peroxide never intended to make any money off of their work, and I doubt these guys did either... Yet these companies squash the project. If I were in their positions, I would be flattered that people enjoyed their product so much they decided to make a tribute to it.
probably not, but Microsoft doesn't want the Halo name to be tainted by some halfassed game that people will think is the real thing from bungie.
Yes that was ment to be taken sarcastically...well the halfassed part.
Or maybe they ignored it since it will probably drive up and hang on to the user base of Halo... then when the net effects of it arent creating such a result or is conflicting with their attempts to market similar (planned?, existing?) features through their gaming/online services / new releases, they put their foot down.
Sound kinda like doing nothing about "leaked" versions of Vista - until after the release when they have used up its marketing and exposure worth and want people to buy the "finished" version?
Just my opinion - right or wrong.
-Robert
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Yeah, can't have competition for the "official" half-assed games.
The Farewell Tour II
Why invest three years in a mod when you know the environment is hostile?
Isn't modding a game simply legal? While selling it without permission would be iffy at best, making a mod should not be. Distributing it can be tricky, if you need to distribute copyrighted files along with your modded files.
Maybe get some legal advice? Stopping development on a pet project just 'cause someone says you can't do it seems overkill.
Halo was originally going to be an RTS, back when its working title was Armor, I think. Then it became a third person shooter, then MS bought Bungie and fucked everything up.
Let Microsoft know we're here! Drop them a line and protest it. Think it through, add all arguments against closing it down, order them and send them through. If you're short on time, at least send a mail saying you disagree. It takes 20 seconds and may help, you never know. Microsoft has billions, more products and lawyers than the Senate, a five foot effigy of Kaiser Sosa and some far too intelligent buggers running sales, but we are the Slashdot Effect.
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
The mod community has aware of the risks of this type of mod since the infamous 'Foxing' of the Aliens vs. Predator mod in 94. If you use someones elses IP and they get wind of it, you have a 90% chance of getting shut down. Best case scenario, you get to finish the product but they own it/have massive say in what happens.
To be fair, these mods do undercut the future marketability of franchise products. Lets say they did pull off an extremely popular, successful Halo RTS game - now Bungie just has more competition. Going the other route, if make a notorious bomb of a mod, Halo could end up with a black mark in the RTS arena.
The ironic thing is, chances are decent that the people who actually work on the game day to day probably don't care, as devs aren't typically focused on the long term/5-10 year value of the IP.
Hey... what's that Jake?
These guys are making an RTS Halo Mod, sir.
Gosh... isn't that..?
Yes sir, it's what we call 'a good idea'.
Jake, call the lawyers. This must be stopped at all costs.
They're already on their way, sir.
I haven't heard a single complaint from Microsoft about Red vs Blue, and that was arguably a commercial venture for at least awhile. In fact, Bungie included features in Halo 2 specifically to help RVB -- the ability to lower your weapon, for one.
Ok, fine, it wasn't a game, it's a TV series, but isn't that reasonable competition for, say, the Halo movie?
Not to mention that this actually hurts MS more than it helps them, though it probably won't have much of an effect.
Can anyone give me a moral and/or legal downside to leaving the mod team alone? Or maybe signing some rights over to them, if you need to make it legal?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Except they weren't modding Halo, they were modifying a completely different game using Halo assets.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I don't know anything about Halogen, but there is another fan-coded RTS/FPS called Tremulous. It's pretty fun, and very well balanced. It's based on the GPL Quake 3 code. Nobody is going to be sending a cease-and-desist letter any time soon... or ever.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Great. And then when you want to put the project on your C.V. for employment in the game industry, you can't because it was pursued while known to be unauthorized. Also in addition to putting in lots of work during your free time, now you are putting yourself at risk of being sued, all for no personal benefit. Put yourself in their shoes a little.
Haven't you people learned? As long as some company owns the rights / copyrights / whateverrights to something that could conceivably make them a friggen' ***DIME*** - maybe not now, maybe not in 10 years, but at some distant point in the future, most companies CAN and WILL "protect" their intellectual property.
If you're going to make a mod based on other people's junk, you better be prepared to go underground, or release it from some country that doesn't give a frack about WIPO - and then hope you never visit a country that participates in WIPO, because you will be blackbagged and locked up just because you dared pay homage to something you really took an interest in.
*Subject is in reference to the Aliens: Total Conversion Doom mod that was shutdown by Fox Studios, as one of the first corporate shutdowns of a fan's work that I remember in the game scene.
This is just Microsoft being arrogant about the fact that a small, "unprofessional" team of people can create something that millions of people want and they, with all their billions and teams of "professionals" can't
That's right, because Halo and Halo 2 were both complete flops, weren't they? Hardly shifted a dozen units between them, right?
I say they reprogram the whole thing on a Quake 3 engine or something
I'm now fairly sure you never read the article, but, to give you the benifit of the doubt for a second and assume you did, could you explain what you mean by this comment? Because, as you are no doubt aware, this was a mod for Command and Conquer using Halo IP, not a mod for Halo. Could you explain (A) why microsoft would give a flying fuck which non-MS game these guys wrote a mod for and (B) exactly why you think it would be good idea for these guys to start over again with their RTS mod by dumping the RTS game they were trying to modify and attempting make an RTS using an FPS game engine? Just curious.
minus any actual mention of the word Halo of course.
And of course they're free to do that. As I have said eleswhere in this discussion, if these devs had just, I don't know, maybe come up with an original idea, instead of ripping off MS's IP, then maybe they wouldn't have just had to watch three years work disapear down the drain.
Oh I know, it's MS and they're evil and yes, they suck. But I just can't see what they've done wrong here. The Halo IP is a huge asset for MS, and the law of the land as currently written alows them to defend it. I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would expect them to do anything different. If you are making a game using someone elses IP then you are relying entirely on their good will. These devs never even asked permission. If I was about to embark on three years of hard work, I think I might ask the copyright holders permission first.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks