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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 original creators of that stuff didn't lose anything, its all bits man.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
It's all screenshots from Oblivion, Thief 3, Unreal Tournament series, Diablo, and other games. Limbo Of The Lost doesn't render those things in 3D but uses it as background image for the adventure game. Really lame that the developers of that game thought they were going to get away with it. I wonder what was going on there, they couldn't find a graphics artist to draw the backgrounds so they just photoshopped screenshots from other games together. Still a bit of a shame for the (if there were any) good points of the game, that are now gone down together with the whole game due to this plagiarism.
I'm guessing the company that made this game will be sued into oblivion
I have nothing compelling to say
Except much shittier... Oh... and YES, I quoted myself!
Three or more, it's research.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
...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.
... The scene where the protagonist is leaping over barrels thrown by a large orangutan. It's a dead giveaway.
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
Bah, there's no way the devs didn't know this was going on... they had to test their own stuff some time, so unless the assets got changed right at ship time, I suspect they were fully aware.
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...
What they need to do now is spend all the money they saved on the artwork on a really good lawyer. One that can stand up in court and say "A layman might think he sees a superficial resemblance" while keeping a straight face.
Er... even a screenshot of copyrighted material is still copyright. Copyright does not mean "bit for bit copies of the original data". It covers the whole work in all forms and interpretations. Hence why the museums and art galleries can charge you for prints of artwork - it's still under copyright, even if you're only buying a photo of a work of art.
And some places HAVE claimed copyright of landmarks - the Eiffel Tower is one. That's a bit more dubious, though. However, pressing PrintScreen and adding some skulls does not make for an original piece, in the same way as me photocopying your book and changing the main character from Harry Potter to Terry Petter doesn't.
It's either original art, created by YOU, or it's taken from somewhere else. If it's taken from somewhere else, it's a potential copyright violation if you don't have permission.
The main point is that they used the material and lied, saying they'd created it themselves, that's a whole different issue from fair use.
It may be illegal anyway, since they used the images to make a product for resale without permission. If you plan to use an image from a game for commercial product you must, at the very least, cite your sources.
I have a number of game development books that rely heavily in in game shots from many current titles, and they are *all* cited correctly.
Even when you aren't selling the end product it's impolite not to do so.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
It's about an adventurer who wanders from game to game to solve the mystery of the plagiarised graphics.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Insult to injury to parody, which is flattery. Or isn't ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
"Our hope, if everything goes well with the sales, is that within a year we will all be stopping the day jobs and doing this full time."
Epic
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
"everything was re-written from the ground up, everything apart from the initial concept and some character design ...and the rest is history."
"The project is more influenced by film and literature rather than other games, we want the experience to be as original as possible and as such we have made a calculated effort to keep away from other games in the genre."
"All of the game (apart from initial background story and some character designs) had to be re-written, all the characters had to be created in 3D and animated, all the background scenes re-created, all the sounds, coding and music?..basically everything had to be redone or newly created for the PC version. This is not an old game that has been dressed up. This is the original concept, dusted off and re-created."
Also, the game has been in production for 10 years and rewritten few times. I think these guys deserve a "Hard core audacity" award...
Full Article
There are no 'Devs'. This was done by 3 con-men who apparently met a pub. If you dig though some of the links and other forums about this mess you can get more of the pathetic details.
They used an out-of-the-box-create-your-own-2.5D-adventure software and just imported in screenshots from other games. I don't think any of them know a lick about coding whatsoever.
It's amazing that these guys got published when some real independent shops with real talent can't get anything going.
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.
(P.S. -- I'm adding some skulls to this comment)
Powell: "So, what are we doing?" Cheney: "Oh, crime." Powell: "Crime? Good, OK... crime..."
...it's OK to pirate this one then??
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Oblivion? D-Eye-Ah-Blo? Man, how the hell did anyone remember these incredibly obscure games?
The Eiffel Tower is not covered by copyright. For a start, it's too old. However, night-time shots of the Eiffel Tower which include the modern lighting display are covered by copyright - the lighting display is the work covered.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
FWIW, "Limbo of the Lost" is a 1990s-era point-and-click adventure game with static backdrops, and those backdrops just happen to be screenshots of other games.
Even if they hadn't plagiarized other games, I can't see anyone buying the piece of crap. Everything about it - plot, graphics, audio, game engine - reeks of amateurism.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Shakespeare did not invent the plots of his plays. Sometimes he used old stories (Hamlet, Pericles).
So, in which older tellings of something like Hamlet can you point to prose such as Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be..." passage? It's one thing to write a game with a magic ring quest plot, and it's quite another to say you're doing something original, and it's just a coincidence that you have characters named Frodo and Gandalf.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
But it's already got Oblivion in it... that's going to be a nasty feedback loop.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Antiques Road Show - 2085 AD
Expert: I say, that's a jolly good thing, a shrink-wrapped copy of the infamous "Limbo of the Lost" game!
Owner: Why? Is it famous?
Expert: Well, you see, the creators of the game (and I use the term "creator" generously here) basically stolen static screen shots from a number of other games, and using a crappy adventure game generator, produced this wonder, which they actually managed to get published and distributed.
Owner: So how much is it worth?
Expert: A top-notch undamaged shrink wrapped copy like this would go at auction for at least three million dollars!
Owner: Wow! I mean wow wow wow!
Expert: Indeed...
Owner: So what about this shrink-wrapped copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?
Expert: I'll give you twelve bucks.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Shakespeare merely looked at history (which, arguably, has some of the best stories) and at other popular works and mimicked those works and plots.
Plagiarism, on the other hand, in my opinion, is an exact replica of someone's work without giving that person or people any credit for that work. So, just to illustrate my point...
Me writing a novel about a guy who has special, and even superhuman abilities, and who uses those abilities to take down an evil regime after being trained by his master is not necessarily plagiarism. That's just a simple "good vs. evil"-type story.
Me writing,
"Do, or do not, there is no try."
or
"Luke raced through the trench towards the exhaust pipe with Vadar close on his tail."
As an example, I am a Game Programmer that doesn't play video games, I just don't have time. I just bought a PlayStation 3 last week for the blu-ray, and it is the first gaming machine I've owned since the SNES.
I'm not saying the developers weren't in on it, I'm just saying the artists at my company could rip off the most famous games ever made and I probably wouldn't know about it.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
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.
Contest to create "screenshots" from Limbo of the Lost: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?page_id=1909
Contest is over, but the entries are hilarious.
They have a genuine 3d version of Myst
Realmyst
Technoli
Ideas and stories are not copyrightable. It's the execution of the ideas and stories that are protected.
You can take the basic story of "King Lear" and create "Ran". You can take the basic story of "Seven Samurai" and create "The Magnificent Seven". Those pairs of movies share plots and stories but each executes its own vision.
In this case, the problem with the game is that they stole the execution - i.e. the art - used in other games, not the story.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
The thing I like the most about the article is that the it specifically states the NAMES of the morons that thought they could get away with this.
All to often, articles simply list the name of the company in question, and the people actually behind the theft(I consider it theft) hide behind that, thus circumventing any real lasting public derision.
The article destroyed any credibility these idiots may have had in the gaming marketplace, and rightfully so. A simple Google search by potential employers/investors will be all it takes to bring up that article.
Back to McDonald's with you, fryboy!
These are static screenshots? Pathetic. I say lobotomize 'em all and hand them over to the creators of the original images as body slaves.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Amazing? The publishers just looked and said "Oohh, pretty!". They don't know the games. Independent developers who do it the right way have a harder time because it actually does take a lot of work and time to get good artwork in a game, even a simple 2.5D adventure software based game.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Think of this more like someone took a picture of the screen when you were playing Space Invaders, then used that image as a background for their RTS space domination game.
I think this case could really present itself to be a very interesting legal president. It sure looks like it could fall under fair use and derivative work. The game is vastly different than all of the games that the artwork was taken from. Which would move it into the derivative work direction. Then the question would seem to be, does Bethesda's copyrights extend beyond the actual content of the game and into images taken of the game? If it does, it would imply that distributing screen shots and FRAPS videos with out the game copyright holder's permission would be a violation as well.
And even if that is the finding, they could still argue fair use. If 2 Live Crew can sell a single of Pretty Woman, if Vanila Ice can go platinum while taking a note for note copy of Queen, well, why can't this company use modified screen shots of existing work to develop an entirely new game?
Not sure I entirely like the thought, but I'm not entirely sure I like the alternative either.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
man, all those games got prime product placement in a new game, and haven't paid for it? Damn right the studios need to pull this game until those old games pay Tri Synergy for the right to have that product placement in their new game.
seriously, I wonder how much they would have had to pay for the rights to these scenes? Obviously it made at least 2 reporters dust off their old games, and put a few games back in the highlight for another 5 minutes (this time for free.)
This was too well handled for a budget marketing dept to have pulled off, otherwise I'd be reaching for the tinfoil hat.
Museums and art galleries can charge you for a print because they created a new work when they photographed or scanned the original. I have several photographs of paintings taken in the Hermitage, I took the photographs, so the copyright is mine. The Hermitage don't in any sense, and never did, own the copyright on my photos. I didn't need their permission to take photographs of the works (I may need their permission ot have a camera with me in the museum if I don't want to be thrown out when they see me holding one). But once the works enter the public domain, you can't legally stop people making copies (you can use other legal means to attempt to prevent them from making copies, but they wouldn't be infringing any right of yours if they somehow made the copies anyway).
(ok, I'm surmising about the state of copyight law in the Russian Federation, but if the Hermitage were in the UK, that would be the situation)
Just to recap.
(assume that the painting is old enough to be in the public domain)
A photograph or scan of it would constitute a new work with it's own copyright term, assigned to whoever made the photograph or scan.
I hold the copyright if I take a photograph
The gallery would have no specific right to stop me photographing the painting (that is, they could ban cameras, and require me to leave if they saw me with one, but would have no recourse to have me destroy an image that I did make) nor would such an image be infringing their copyright (because their copyright is on the prints that they sell, not the original).
Or, at least, that's what i understood the situation to be when I read about it several years ago.
FGD 135
You seem to be implying that those who justify their music and software piracy but condemn this company are hypocrites. But even your straw-hat parody of that viewpoint would not be hypocritical in condemning the folks behind Limbo of the Lost. The reason: it was made by a corporation, and the piracy was used to make that corporation money. Thence the puppet considers vilification for anything (including copyright violation) to be quite justifiable! That said, nobody I know holds the bizarre grab-bag of views you present here anyway, not the two-recompensed-profits-make-a-recompensed-profit argument in paragraph 2, not the conflation of copyright and EULA in paragraph 3, and certainly not the increasingly incoherent and self-contradictory rant at the end. Your attempt to hoist the Slashdot groupthink zeitgeist on its own petard have failed. Go home and eat a sandwich.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
Bonus points for referencing a plot that Kurosawa borrowed and a plot that was borrowed from Kurosawa.
Some decent parody screenshots in the vein of Phriday can be found at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?page_id=1909
My favorite is the Zork one.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/june08/limbocompo/JohnLeonard.jpg
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I mean, it's not as if any gamers would know such obscure titles as Diablo II or Oblivion or Unreal Tournament or anything...
I can just hear the designers now...
"We'd have gotten away with it, too... if it weren't for those darn kids!"
...is call it a parody and its all legal! Brilliant!
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I get it now. The characters can't decide which game they're supposed to be in.
The trick was that they completed the game before seeking a publisher. If you seek out a publisher with a completed product, chances are you will find a deal there. The reason more developers don't do this is because the operating costs of funding the development of a game are so high. Not many people can fund a number of full-time employees out of their own pocket for the duration of a games construction.
These guys didn't have to worry about operating costs because they stole all their art assets and used a free-ware engine.