Square Shuts Down Fan-Made Chrono Game

Keane Ng

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Square Shuts Down Fan-Made Chrono Game



The release of Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, a full-length RPG in development by fans since 2004, has been halted in response to a cease and desist letter sent by Square-Enix.

Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes [http://crimsonechoes.com/], a fan-made Chrono game based on the Chrono Trigger ROM, had been in development since late 2004 and was scheduled for an online release on May 31 this year. According to its creators, Crimson Echoes boasted 35 hours of gameplay, 10 endings, and 23 chapters. It was, they said, an "unprecedently exhaustive work in the ROM modification community."

Why all the "was" talk? All work on Crimson Echoes has been halted and the release canceled in response to a cease and desist [http://crimsonechoes.com/letter.pdf] letter sent by Chrono copyright holders Square-Enix. What may have seemed like a labor of love to Chrono fans was "an act of copyright infringement" that was "deliberate and willful," a "ROM hack game" that can command up to $150,000 in salutary damages.

The Crimson Echoes team immediately complied with Square-Enix's request, canceling and destroying all work on the title, something they had promised to do from the beginning. "Should Square Enix perceive the project as a threat...Kajar Laboratories will immediately cease operation on the project and comply with Square Enix's orders," the readme file to the demo of the game declared.

"We thank those fans who followed the game's development, and also those who poured countless hours into the vision of a fun, new Chrono game, made by fans for fans without copyright claim or intent to make profit," developer ZeaLitY wrote.

ZeaLitY hopes that Square-Enix's action could be a sign that the company "cares about the franchise and intends to produce future titles, and not merely a shortsighted legal exercise that will further alienate a tired, neglected fan-base." Let's hope so, too.

[Via Ripten [http://www.ripten.com/2009/05/11/chrono-trigger-fan-mod-receives-cease-and-desist-letter-from-square-enix/]]

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Aardvark Soup

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Now let's hope somebody secretly made a copy of the code and releases it anonymously a few years later...
 

grinklehi

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It has been in production since 2004, and it is cancelled just weeks before its scheduled release? What a waste of effort. Oh well, maybe this means that Square-Enix is looking at this old franchise again. Or, it could mean that they are just being a bunch of money-grubbing Griefers by telling them to throw it all away just "For the Lulz". Not quite sure which to believe just yet.
 

Lvl 64 Klutz

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grinklehi said:
It has been in production since 2004, and it is cancelled just weeks before its scheduled release? What a waste of effort. Oh well, maybe this means that Square-Enix is looking at this old franchise again. Or, it could mean that they are just being a bunch of money-grubbing Griefers by telling them to throw it all away just "For the Lulz". Not quite sure which to believe just yet.
Square Enix, for all their success, are complete dicks about their trademarks and copyrights. Of course, in this case they simply felt that with the recent "remake" for the DS, they might lose sales due to people confusing the titles or some rubbish.
 

iJosh

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I know why. Because the game would of been really good. Then square-enix being the genius's that they are found copyright bullshit or whatever and stopped the release ONLY to release it themselves later on this year and making a good chunk of money.

That's what I think.
 

Keane Ng

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Teiraa said:
Square Enix is being a bunch of cockbites latly
they removed my cloud vs sephiroth vid form youtube! D=
What a loss to our culture...how will we ever recover from this?
 

Sir Ollie

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Keane Ng said:
Teiraa said:
Square Enix is being a bunch of cockbites latly
they removed my cloud vs sephiroth vid form youtube! D=
What a loss to our culture...how will we ever recover from this?
Play FF7 i suppose?
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Ollie596 said:
Well they do have the right.

Edit - But its annoying
Same, I won't deny them excercising their copyrights...

But yeah, it doesn't change the fact that they're being giant sacks of dicks about the whole thing. It'd be like Obsidian suing Team Gizka, something I'm damn sure they won't do.
 

Volucer

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I thought it was only copyright infringement if they intended to make money from the product.
 

Earthbound

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That is rather disappointing. I would be thrilled if I made a game a decade or so ago and someone spent five years making a game off of that. Look at a company like Valve. Someone's remaking Half Life 1 under the name "Black Mesa," with redone graphics and gameplay, and Valve is looking forward to it. Why can't Square hold that same philosophy?
 

Doug

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PedroSteckecilo said:
Ollie596 said:
Well they do have the right.

Edit - But its annoying
Same, I won't deny them excercising their copyrights...

But yeah, it doesn't change the fact that they're being giant sacks of dicks about the whole thing. It'd be like Obsidian suing Team Gizka, something I'm damn sure they won't do.
Sadly true, but they are momumental dickheads for doing this. If they'd say early on "Stop it now", I'd say, 'Ok, not particularly nice, but tis there right'. But waiting right up to the last moments to yak the project? Fucking dickheads. At least Microsoft/Bungie actually support Rooster Teeth's RvB, something even Valve won't do, I'll say that much.
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Earthbound said:
That is rather disappointing. I would be thrilled if I made a game a decade or so ago and someone spent five years making a game off of that. Look at a company like Valve. Someone's remaking Half Life 1 under the name "Black Mesa," with redone graphics and gameplay, and Valve is looking forward to it. Why can't Square hold that same philosophy?
Because unlike Valve, square likes to milk their successes to DEATH! Just look at all these FFVII fans clamoring for an remake that would be better in Fan Hands, Square isn't going to let that go, that's a whole lot of money... assuming they ever decide they want to make one.

Square likes to keep their Remake Options open basically.
 

Lvl 64 Klutz

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PedroSteckecilo said:
Earthbound said:
That is rather disappointing. I would be thrilled if I made a game a decade or so ago and someone spent five years making a game off of that. Look at a company like Valve. Someone's remaking Half Life 1 under the name "Black Mesa," with redone graphics and gameplay, and Valve is looking forward to it. Why can't Square hold that same philosophy?
Because unlike Valve, square likes to milk their successes to DEATH! Just look at all these FFVII fans clamoring for an remake that would be better in Fan Hands, Square isn't going to let that go, that's a whole lot of money... assuming they ever decide they want to make one.

Square likes to keep their Remake Options open basically.
Valve hasn't milked the Source engine at ALL.
 

PeterDawson

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Damn, this is a serious blow. While Square does hold the copyright, as near as I can tell the project was an labor of fan-love and aspiring game designers who, like a good chunk of the game writers out there, chose to adapt something they liked rather than do something more original (I blame this mentality for all the character and game similarities we see). That's fine, it game them a chance to focus more heavily on learning the craft without having to focus too heavily on game mechanics and plot. If anything it was probably a great learning experience and might even impress some companies if shown as a demo of their work. Plus as far as I know it wasn't a for profit project. So pretty much SE was just alienated the mod community (I'm lumping modders and rom hackers together for simplicity) and ruined a 5 year magnum opus that might of gotten some of these 'kids' (I have no idea how old they are) a nice bit for their resumes.