Square Shuts Down Fan-Made Chrono Game

[PedroSteckecilo]

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.

Valve is an FPS company that was started by modders, it's to be expected that they would encourage modding of their work.

Squeenix, thanks to their millions of mergers, is a big evil corporation with a whole building full of lawyers.

Very different companies, Valve is (excuse the pun) much closer to the source of their market. They're gamers like us, they understand.

 

[Lord Krunk]

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?

I know, eh. Square is the first dev I've seen to hate their modders, and as everyone knows that is a bad thing. Alienates their users, screws up their credibility and also creates a whole lot of hate.

Maybe they were scared that this freeware remake would be better than anything they've ever made?

 

[Yegargeburble]

I have to say that sucks...98% of the way done before shutdown, apparently. Looked kinda cool, too.

 

[tendo82]

I don't really have sympathy for these guys. They knew they were going to get shut down from the beginning if they directly asked Square, "can we make a fan work based on a hacked version of your game?" So they didn't ask, worked on the project, probably for personal enjoyment, and then figured, "Well maybe we can release this and they won't care."

To no one's surprise Square cared. But my guess is the Crimson Echo guys got what they wanted out of the whole project - fan cred for creating a super secret addition to the Chrono Trigger legend whose true significance will, like Sonic X-Treme, only come to light years later when the code is finally leaked onto the internet. Or something like that.

 

[johnman]

As mentioned before, Modders are remaking the orginal half life for free while valve are still making plenty of money from it. Are they goign to stop the release? No. All they have done is politely request that the "Source" is removed from the name.
It sounds like a massive amount of work has been done on this mod and sqaure dicks all over them. I have never played a sqaure game but i hate them for this.

 

[LeonLethality]

square isnt so bad, sure I LOVED chrono trigger but.... oh well maybe square could continue development make it the next big psp/ds title! (I doubt it though since it was destroyed)

 

[roastbeefy]

Square Shuts Down Fan-Made Chrono Game

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/]]

Permalink

Probably not. It would be nice, and I'd really like to see a new Chrono game, but the type of company who would shut down a fan-made game that they spent 5 years of their lives on just sounds evil more than anything else.

 

[Worsle]

It kind of depends on how copyright law works in various countries as to how bad move on square's part it is. However it is unlikely the rom would have come to their attention before this. Reminds me a bit of the 40k fan movie a couple of years back (witch made it to the internet anyway) but it was nixed because of the way German copyright law works.

 

[samsonguy920]

Thinking Square is staffed by narrow minded idiots, but we got the first clue with the Final Fantasy movie. Still have bad taste from that.

 

[Art Axiv]

Achievement Unlocked: You are an extreme asshole.

 

[WinterSoldier]

Square should have shut it down when they were just beginning so they wouldn't have wasted 5 years. This is just stupid.

 

[scotth266]

Geez. I don't see how this was going to cut into Squeenix profits, especially seeing as how they were gonna release it for free...

Go after the people who pirate your game, but leave the modders alone. They're only trying to make your product better, something you should be glad that they do for free.

 

[Chipperz]

Wow, even I've heard of this before, and I don't care, so it's not like Square Enix hasn't known about this for ages. I think this is the dictionary definition of a "dick move"...

 

[Skrapt]

Another example of a company doing something and it backfiring in their face. They may not have liked it, but taking down the game in this late stage simply creates a lot of interest/press around it and it will almost 100% be negative as the creators were doing it for fun and not profit. If they had ignored it development would have continued and relatively few people would know about it.

Yay for companies producing their own PR disasters out of their own short sightedness...

 

[capnjack]

This is one of the major problems with copyright and why it needs a complete overhaul - perhaps it needs to be dismantled altogether. Copyright was put in place to balance the rights of the consumer between the rights of the corporation, not to give full and unrestricted rights to the consumer. More importantly, even if this was in complete accordance with the laws of today, Square Enix would still be complete fucking morons for shutting a project like this down. Shutting it down only serves as an outright attack of fans of the original Chrono Trigger, and when you give your fanbase the shaft, you're only hurting yourself. If this game was allowed to materialize, it could pose NO THREAT to Square Enix, since it is just a ROM, and, in all likelihood, it would just increase the sales in Chrono Trigger-related products.

But I don't feel bad for the people who worked five years to create this, because their compliance was their choice. What they should have done is shut down the site, shut down everything related to it, and leak the project on to bit torrent. That way, their five years of hardwork is mostly not lost, everybody gets to appreciate it, and Square Enix can't take action against them.

 

[Meado]

But I don't feel bad for the people who worked five years to create this, because their compliance was their choice. What they should have done is shut down the site, shut down everything related to it, and leak the project on to bit torrent. That way, their five years of hardwork is mostly not lost, everybody gets to appreciate it, and Square Enix can't take action against them.

How can you not feel bad for them? This was a labor of love that was given the digital finger just before it was finished. It's like kicking over a kid's sand-castle at the beach (not that anyone does that anymore).

 

[TsunamiWombat]

*gives Squenix the finger right back* Jackasses.

Well, the reason they C&D is because they have to aggressivly protect the rights, otherwise it creates precident. Once there is precidence for them allowing people to run all over with their properties, it becomes almost impossible to protect them in court. What they SHOULD have done is contacted the group, created a special contract with stipulations limiting them soley to this one and current fanservice project, and let the project run with their blessing and the legal understanding this was a fan made non-prof that extended no rights from the Chrono Trigger liscence to them or anyone else outside Squenix.

Instead they slapped them with a C&D because that was the quickest and simplest and they're lazy. Pricks. This is what happens when corporate suits become the guiding force behind videogame artists. On the bright side it took a few decades for Squenix to get this bad, so we should have another 10 or 15 bullshit free years from Valve or Blizzard before they become corrupt.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

this doesn't shock me in the least and frankly i find it funny everyone gets all up in arms about this. i mean they knew this was going to happen or were at least expecting it because they had that message on their website.

what baffles me is why spend time on doing something illegal, why not spend the time making a totally new project instead of one that isn't legal at least

for those saying that Square is being dicks about this, they HAD to do something, if they don't try to enforce their copyright, they can lose it

 

[tendo82]

How can you not feel bad for them? This was a labor of love that was given the digital finger just before it was finished. It's like kicking over a kid's sand-castle at the beach (not that anyone does that anymore).

This really isn't Square's fault at all. The onus was on the creators to ask Square from the outset if they could use the property.

 

[Trivun]

Square Enix is being a bunch of cockbites lately
they removed my cloud vs sephiroth vid from youtube! D=
i didnt say it was mine at all i said it was fan made i don't know why they are suddenly going through the "MINE!! YOU CAN HAVE ANY OF IT" phase

Square Enix is being a bunch of cockbites lately
they removed my cloud vs sephiroth vid from youtube! D=

What a loss to our culture...how will we ever recover from this?

I suppose you have a point, Keane... that said, Coldplay decided to remove a video of mine with their song Viva La Vida and FF clips spliced together a while back. I subsequently posted it on their own Facebook page in protest and they put it back on Youtube for me Evanescence did the whole copyright thing in the same way with another of my FF music videos, but they decided to just leave it and stick ads next to the video, which was fine by me.

Anyway, don't want to derail this since it's the News Room (I'll leave that to Max), so back on topic:

Square have basically been really annoying recently. The whole series of delays for the Xbox 360 FF XIII release was bad enough, but now they're picking on the small developer too. What harm could this do provided the creators released it for free, which was intended anyway and all they could do by copyright? This isn't fair on the people who spent so long and worked so hard for something they believed in, as a tribute to Square Enix's product no less. Besides, haven't Square Enix ever heard of Fair Use?