Slashdot Mirror
Register, Others Call Plagiarism in "Limbo of the Lost" Game
Fallen Andy writes "'The Register' has an article describing 'Limbo of the Lost' (developed by Majestic and sold in the U.S by Tri Synergy) which seems to have 'borrowed' copiously graphics assets from other games. Over at the GamesRadar forum there is a thread with some screenshots. Finally, this game has its own Wikipedia entry. Warning to all — move the soft drink away from the keyboard and monitor before you look at
those screenshots. Blatant this is, very blatant indeed."
The problem with your analogy is that they are making a profit on it (well, they won't now). The people who use the argument you are talking about for copying music/games/etc don't turn around and make mixed CDs, package them, and sell them as their own work (except puff daddy).
Heh, that's some of the hardest work I've seen gone into plagiarism. That is, outside of academia and Hollywood and politicians where everyone pretty much copies everyone else...
Not that I approve. Some people can write code, design game concepts etc but be incapable of drawing pictures. When I look at the photo of the 3 main developers I don't see a picture that looks like three guys that would play typical cutting edge games. They come up with game logic that kinda works but is butt ugly. They hire someone who claims they are a shit hot CG artist, complete with examples of "their" work. This person then proceeds to rip other peoples' work.
The developers are of course stoked by the amazing art "developed" for their game, and give lots of bonuses. Then they discover that they've been sounded robbed, as their game (and their reputations) are soundly denounced.
I'm not saying this has happened in this case, but I've seen scenarios like this before (when I did work in the games industry).
I'm also not saying that this justifies it. If anything it reveals "technology blindness" where the developers are so in love with their own product that they don't bother looking at what else is on the market.
so all corporations are teh evil incarnate eh?
Am I an evil corporate scumbag because I own a limited liability company? Am I magically less evil if I make the same games as a sole proprietor? Or is all commerce evil and only working for free in a hippy commune an acceptable way to live?
These guys were scum who took other peoples hard work and tried to profit from it. They should be sued to death. If you tolerate this, then that means you would prefer all modern games to just be re-mixes of the 8 bit textures from games of twenty years ago. After all, why the hell put any effort into creating original stuff when you can just rip off people who can do better work than you.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Most important they don't try to make any money off of it.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
This should be modded "Insightful", not "Funny". Even if he did make some clever jokes, he's right. We'd all go play the game on a lark to see what we could find if it were free. The fact that the guy is charging for it when someone else did all the heavy graphic and design lifting is what's causing the furor here.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Am I an evil corporate scumbag because I own a limited liability company? Am I magically less evil if I make the same games as a sole proprietor? Or is all commerce evil and only working for free in a hippy commune an acceptable way to live?
I don't actually agree with the OP, but he's not advocating communism. He's railing against corporations, because they absolve people of all personal responsibility and liability. So, yes, he probably thinks you're a scumbag of sorts because you own a LLC. If you truly believe that you're not doing anything wrong, then you should have a sole proprietorship, and accept all the liability that goes along with that. If you're not doing anything wrong, why aren't you willing to risk your own personal fortune and home?
Personally, I disagree with this view partly. He makes a good point, in that people involved in corporations are too shielded from liability, so that, for instance, people like Ken Lay get to walk free after doing criminal things and just letting their corporation take the fall by collapsing, leaving all the actual people in charge without any consequences, but with plenty of money. However, if I were to start a business of my own, I would certainly form an LLC as well, because while big corporations like Enron and their executives certainly get off too easy, in today's overly-litigious society, it is simply too risky to allow your personal assets be tied up with your business, because one lawsuit gone bad (because of some stupid jury) means your home and other assets can be seized. While I personally don't believe myself to be doing any wrong, I simply don't trust the court system to render correct verdicts, and worse, it's simply too easy to be driven out of business by excessive litigation even if you're completely innocent due to our lack of "loser pays" laws, so it makes perfect sense to protect your assets by shielding yourself behind an LLC.