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Early Work on Homebrew StarCraft for the DS
Via Buttonmashing, news of early work on a homebrew project to port Blizzard's StarCraft to the Nintendo DS. "Since no official plans were ever announced from Blizzard, two French homebrew developers have taken it upon themselves to create a port of the popular PC game, StarCraft, for the Nintendo DS, calling it StarLite. Because they've only been working for three weeks, the game is a bit limited right now and still needs a lot of work."
That is one of the nastiest looking websites... Why do sites insist on having such annoying backgrounds?
And yes, I fully expect these guys will be crushed like bugs by March.
The Bnetd project was snuffed by Blizzard. Plus they've snuffed other projects over the years that you most certainly won't be able to find executables for anymore.
Plus, again, these are French people violating the copyright of a product OWNED BY A FRENCH COMPANY.
The project may very well survive, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it won't be using the Starcraft name. Or the look of the units. (Of course Blizzard stole a lot of their ideas for Starcraft anyway, but that's beside the point...)
They are making a game that, within the limitations of the platform, looks like Starcraft, acts like Starcraft... It clearly IS a copy of Starcraft. They are using Blizzard's intellectual property without permission.
(For the record, I wish them the best of luck. I have no time for software companies like Blizzard who wield their power like a scimitar. I hope the software come to fruition and doesn't get spanked. I am just utterly jaded and cynical about any homebrew that infringes, even if only slightly, on a large software companies IP. Especially one so lawyer happy as Blizzard.)
Oh there probably ISN'T an actual honest to god law against it. But as I said, I am endlessly jaded and cynical these days, and fully expect the mere THREAT of a threat (if you see what I mean) to get them to fold if push comes to shove, and we know Blizz love to shove. (Used to be my favourite dev house. Notice I say USED to be.) Corporations know they don't have to have a legal leg to stand on in many cases. If Vivendi came knocking on your door and said "You've illegally used blah and we're taking you to court", you (unless you're very rich) probably can't afford legal counsel. You may be 110% in the right, you may know this, but you don't have the finances to follow through and have this legally proven in a court of law, because Vivendi will drag things out as long as possible to force you into a corner until you're left with only one option. Capitulation.
As I said, I hope I'm wrong and the project flourishes. I just don't see it happening sadly.