FFVII RPG Running in Second Life with Square's OK (Maybe)

wjamesau writes "A group of Second Life Residents have created an amazing-looking RPG inspired by the city of Midgar from Final Fantasy VII , with a scripted combat system and game masters who run SOLDIER versus AVALANCHE action set-pieces. An interesting twist is that Squaresoft, the owners of the Final Fantasy IP, apparently gave the non-commercial project their blessing — or maybe not. The island of Midgar has changed ownership so no one's quite sure, but several hundred players keep it going through donations. 'Operating as if Square gave approval has made them act as if they work for Square. They have rules about never sharing information about pirating Final Fantasy gear, and are the best promotion of any brand in Second Life. If Square were ever to come to Second Life, no PR manager could dream of creating a more dedicated player base than this one.'"

Comments

But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are!

[jandrese]

I've heard that a lot, and when the lawyers at whatever company it is get their panties in a bunch, well, that loyalty counts for zip. There are no shortage of stories of companies suing their most dedicated fans, the very ones that would otherwise evangelize the company's products for free and generate tremendous positive buzz. Lawyers don't care about buzz, they care that someone is breaking their EULA or infringing on their copyrights.

Re:But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are

[Xistic]

I don't know about the Final Fantasy properties, but they have brought the smack down on at least two Chrono Trigger fan projects: Chrono Trigger Resurrection and Chrono Trigger Remake

Re:But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are

[tepples]

I believe the issue is more that if they fail to enforce their copyrights, they lose the rights to them entirely.

Use it or lose it is true for trademarks, not for copyrights. Laches, which does apply to copyrights and patents, is much more narrow.

Re:Bleh

[Kufat]

I know it's unrealistic to expect perfect spelling and grammar on the Web, but that was the worst misspelling of Chrono Trigger that I've ever seen!

(Kidding, kidding...)

Re:But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are

[Enderandrew]

Most of the fan-made Final Fantasy games don't directly recreate or get in the way of Square's games.

They exist in a fan continuity, or offer up something new.

Those two projects seemed to recreate CT. The problem with that, is that Square makes money be remaking/rereleasing their old games. They technically still sell Anthologies, which has CT remade for the PS1.