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Register, Others Call Plagiarism in "Limbo of the Lost" Game

Posted by timothy on from the hey-man-poetic-license dept.

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."

6 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I don't see what the big deal is by NiceGeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know you were going for humor, but even people who download music, etc. aren't taking credit for creating said music.

  2. Re:I don't see what the big deal is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But, based on my understanding of several recent different but similar situations involving movies and music, we can all safely assume that those people would not have bought the game to begin with.

    We can also take comfort in knowing that the companies from whom the graphics were lifted probably keep the lion's share of the profit from game sales and the graphic artists make almost nothing, by comparison.

    Also, if the guy at 'Limbo of the Lost' bought the game it is his to do with what he wishes because he didn't agree to any stupid 'don't lift graphics' clause and shrinkwrap licenses have never been proven in court anyway so no one has any legal standing to complain about anything. This includes if he wants to make a mashup of the game's graphics and his own cool gaming idea and call it 'Limbo of the Lost'.

    And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control. Do I want DRM on my hard drive so I can play a game but keep me from taking screenshots? No! I'll never install Vista. If this was available in WINE I would play it but it isn't. I don't even run NDISWRAPPER!

    So, in conclusion, no. I don't think anyone has stolen anything. Information wants to be free.

    As in I don't pay anything for it.

  3. It isn't "borrowing"... by chill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...it is sampling, just like in the music industry.

    For example, listen to the opening sequence of Queen's Under Pressure featuring David Bowie. Then, after having your stomach pumped as a precaution, the opening bits of Vanilla Ice's Ice, Ice Baby.

    For the Google impaired, here is a YouTube link doing a comparison.

    Just equate Limbo of the Lost with Ice, Ice Baby and you will understand. Of course, that would mean Majestic Studios is really Vanilla Ice...

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  4. Re:I don't see what the big deal is by inviolet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control.

    Guess what? The CORPORATIONS that own this stuff are composed of people and owned by people. You can become one of those people for about $50 a share. A corporation is the modern expression of the Right of Free Assembly, and is used to administer cooperative division-of-labor and ownership of property.

    Would you prefer that property can only be owned whole, by single individuals? Do you realize that it would be impossible to undertake any large, capital-intensive project in that environment?

    --
    FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
  5. What about the engine? by lantastik · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I started to wonder how they got rips of all of those games in to their engine. Then I started to wonder if they just stole the engine. I did a search and came up with this page:
    http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:GTYHJgCqVCYJ:www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl%3Faction%3Dviewthread%26threadid%3D88482+%22Limbo+of+the+Lost%22+engine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

    I'm still wondering how they were able to import all those assets and levels so flawlessly into their own engine?

    That must have been a tremendous job just to write the different converters but then again I don't understand why Steve Bovis, was not able to code a simple CD check into the main menu??? ...this was the follow-up to that question:

    They didn't.

    "Wintermute Engine Development Kit is a set of tools for creating and running graphical âoepoint&clickâ adventure games, both traditional 2D ones and modern 2.5D games (3D characters on 2D backgrounds). The kit includes the runtime interpreter (Wintermute Engine, or WME) and GUI editors for managing and creating the game content (WME tools) as well as the documentation, demonstrational data and prefabricated templates." - http://dead-code.org/home/

    All the backgrounds they stole are screenshots from other games. They made a 3D character to move (with scaling) on 2D backgrounds.
  6. Re:Shakespeare was a Plagarist by edraven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Bonus points for referencing a plot that Kurosawa borrowed and a plot that was borrowed from Kurosawa.