Them's Fightin' Herds (f.k.a. Fighting is Magic)

Umm... guys?!

edited 9th Feb '13 7:22:02 PM by IWasJustPassingBy

Don't ask what's wrong with me, because I don't know either.

And what were they going to do when the money ran out for developing it, hmm? There were a LOT of blank spots on that roster, and they had only finished four characters.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

How does that even qualify for "flagrant" way of making profit? The devs had stated since the beginning the whole thing would be free, including DLC characters. The closest they get to profit are donations.

I think that still qualifies as making money off of someone else's intellectual property that you don't have the rights to.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Regardless, accusing it of being a scheme to bring profit hardly makes sense. There's a difference between accepting money as a way of helping to fund a project and pouring nearly two years of your life into something that doesn't even have gurantees of profit.

...What. No.

I don't even like that pony show, and you know what? That's bullshit. Donations do not fall under using intellectual property for profit when the donations are purely optional. When companies are that predatory with copyright, it only hurts fan communities; fans are dissuaded from making content because they know that big bad corporations like Hasbro can say "no" and can it at any time, and there is nothing that can be done because no fan content creator has enough money to actually bring the matter to court.

So yeah, fuck Hasbro and their copyright terror tactics, because that's what this is, a terror tactic; instead of just saying "no" right off the bat, they waited until late into the game's development cycle so that the developers' wasted effort is clearly visible. Even if it wasn't already scummy as hell, the way they made the developers an "example" is horrible and should be held as evidence that they are actively hostile to fans of their ips.

edited 9th Feb '13 9:33:26 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

They didn't even accept donations. They repeatedly declined offers from people who wanted to donate for the sole purpose of keeping the game non-profit. I question where you guys are getting your info from, because what you're saying just isn't true. And yeah, DLC characters would be free too. Is that hard to understand?

The fact that they declined donations was on their FAQ. I know because I wanted to give them money.

Bleye knows Sabers.

An idea I came up with, and informed Mane6 of on Twitter, was to make a griffon fighting game. Since griffons exist in MLPFIM but predate it as a concept, and their nation and culture haven't yet been described in MLPFIM, it'd be a good way to have plausible deniability by setting the game in a griffon land, not saying anything else about the world it takes place in, and just leaving fans to imagine that it specifically takes place in the griffon land that's across the ocean from Equestria. You just have to keep it possible that the game could take place in the MLP universe, without actually using anything from it.

They should use cows and call it Far Side is Magic.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

To folks asking "Why did they shut it down? Mane6 wasn't going to sell the game!", Hasbro has actually much deeper reasons than that to shut down the game:

• Brand confusion: I'm not an MLP fan or Fan Hater, but the one thing I will say is that Fighting is Magic has some high-quality production values, almost indistinguishable from an official product - and that can and will cause a huge headache for Hasbro. Imagine what happens if a pre-teen girl (the intended target of of the show) searches for MLP on You Tube, stumbles on a vid of the game in action and gets upset that her favorite cartoon characters are beating each other up? The girls' parents will see this and odds are pretty good instead of doing research and finding out it's fan-made, they will blame Hasbro for allowing the game to happen at all despite not being licensed. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that scenario already played out for a Hasbro a few times already and they're cutting it off before a wider release of the game causes more confusion among MLP's intended audience. Not to mention this is a project that probably already has a video game license and the holder of that license will not appreciate Hasbro allowing a fan game to undercut them, even if the officially licensed game is already targeted for the pre-teen audience.
• Covering themselves legally for future cease and desists: Did you know a copyright infringement case can be won by the infringer if they can prove they were unfairly targeted by pointing our other infringing products were left alone? If Hasbro lets Fighting is Magic do it's thing, then they have a rather shaky case if they C&D the next MLP fan-project they want to shut down - especially with a high-profile project like Fi M that got coverage on major gaming websites.

It's unfortunate, but Hasbro has some logical (if not fair to the Periphery Demographic of the show) reasons for putting down the project.

edited 10th Feb '13 11:53:22 AM by NeoChaos

Of course, those aren't the only options- rather than immediately shut down the project they could negotiate a license deal. Hasbro could pretty much ask for whatever they wanted out of them since they'd be shut down anyway if they said no... I've heard that they might actually be trying that at the moment.

Someone on the comments section said that the Mane6 did not confirm if the letter was actually fake or not, and that Mane6 should take another look at the letter for any official signatures from Hasbro to make sure it's actually from them and not someone pretending to be them.

edited 10th Feb '13 2:39:18 PM by Nettacki

I partially hope it's the true thing, if only because that's some uber-dickery right there. Hating a fan-project so much that you fake being Hasbro to stop it.

That said, if they gotta stop it, Hasbro kinda has the final say, and they have their reasons.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.

The DMCA, aside from generally being a really shitty law, is a useful weapon for both trolling and censorship alike, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former.

@Neo Chaos: I don't personally believe either of those reasons really hold water:

• Anyone who thinks the comic violence in the game is misrepresents the show has clearly not watched the show. Fluttershy beat the shit of a bear, once. Granted, it was therapeutic, but still. The cast members have suffered a variety of injuries for a variety of reasons. Mostly for comedy. Now, if it was less lighthearted, you might have a point, but the game fits with the show's tone fine.
• The second point is actually entirely wrong, but to humor you, that can also be easily covered by Hasbro acknowledging the game's existence of the game and working something out with the game's creators, or simply acknowledging as a fan-made derivative content of high quality that they approve of, which makes it clear that they'll only let some things slide on a case-by-case basis. This is far from unheard of when it comes to fan games. Lucasfilms, right up until their acquisition by Disney, for example, was known to be very supportive of fan films.

Oh, and by the way? Hasbro can police their own copyrights as selectively as they want. Hell, this site's own article on copyright outright states this.

I personally don't believe copyright holders should be so trigger-happy when it comes to taking down derivative works. The internet is a place where communications are "many to many", rather than "one to many". The traditional ecosystem is breaking down completely as time goes on, and copyright is unable to keep up with the advances of technology. More and more people are becoming 'creators' instead of simply 'consumers', many of whom are more than willing to give back to the entertainment they enjoy, in a variety of ways. It baffles me why IP holders don't embrace it. As long as they make the effort to clearly make fan-works distinct from 'official' content, they could easily promote large amounts of awareness for their I Ps and perhaps even make some money in the process. I mean, good grief, as previously mentioned, Valve and Capcom of America are already doing this, with Black Mesa being prepared for official Steam release and Megaman X Street Fighter being officially promoted as an excellent gesture of goodwill when Capcom of Japan seem to be intent on killing off their mascot franchise.

I hope Mane 6 manages to sort something out with Hasbro, otherwise...

edited 11th Feb '13 3:34:15 AM by Cronosonic

To be fair, he has a point. You can lose copyright... rights if you don't actively defend them. Recognizing a work isn't necessarily enough. And just because it isn't represntative at all doesn't mean Hasbro can't and won't get bad press if people whine about it.

edited 11th Feb '13 5:32:04 AM by MetaSkipper

Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.

This isn't about copyright, it's about trademark. A trademark follows different rules; for example, one of the reasons that trademarks are enforced so vigorously is that they become meaningless when they are generic. Copyright is much more defined.

I just don't think Hasbro particularly needed to protect its trademark here (Mountains of disgusting pony pictures by disgusting pony fans have already undermined the brand far more than a fighting game ever could), and if they did, why the hell did they not respond to the initial email a year ago and say "no"?

edited 11th Feb '13 5:43:04 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

No, no, that's trademarks you're thinking of, not copyright. Trademarks are an entirely different kettle of fish. You don't lose your copyright if you don't actively police it (and trying to do so in today's digital culture is nigh-impossible anyway).

There's a big difference between the two.

And you're mistaking copyright for trademarks. This is purely a copyright issue, not a trademark one, especially since we're talking about a non-profit work.

I think we need to lay out a list of differences between copyright and trademark, because people keep confusing the two.

edited 11th Feb '13 5:48:31 AM by Cronosonic

I hope either Hasbro relents, some kind of deal is struck, or they accept Lauren Faust's deal to make an original game with character designs by her.

And to this

I say: Do your research before badmouthing hard-working people trying to entertain millions of people through work they do on their free time with no salary.

edited 11th Feb '13 5:51:37 AM by Kerrah

No, no, that's too confrontational. Rescinded.

edited 11th Feb '13 7:16:07 AM by maxwellelvis

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Lauren Faust joins Mane 6 to finish the game through original IP.

I really hope they make the characters into alpacas. Alpacas are awesome.

edited 2nd Mar '13 5:18:20 AM by Kerrah

oh that's cool

my drawing blog ya'll UPDATES 10 TIMES A MONTH WOW, THIS IS STRAIGHT UP MUH SOGGY KNEE

I just realized something: If Hasbro hadn't shut these guys down, then Capcom probably would. One of the playable stages was Guile's stage from Street Figther II.

EDIT: False alarm, people. That was a custom stage.

edited 2nd Mar '13 5:52:34 AM by maxwellelvis

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

what...?

my drawing blog ya'll UPDATES 10 TIMES A MONTH WOW, THIS IS STRAIGHT UP MUH SOGGY KNEE

Never mind, it's a custom stage.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great