Your opinions about fangames?

[goodspirits]

Hello everyone!

I'm really new to visual novels, and I've seen some fangames being posted around here, although I haven't played them (yet?). I bet this is probably a repetitive topic, also... but I went through a few pages in the forums and didn't find anything.

So. What do you think it's okay for a fangame to have? Or are you completely against them?

Could it be a commercial game, or would it be only accepted if you were to sell it in Japan? What about copyrights?

Using backgrounds, character art, music, voice, etc that belong to said series? And that would most likely infringe some copyrights, but for the sake of keeping the game free. (So you'd only have to work on the "fanfiction" side of the thing. I mean, fansubbers do something kind of similar... but for translating... I'm sorry if this sounds offensive! It really isn't my intention.)

Are there people interested in playing something based off a series? Be it anime, manga, books, movies, series, etc?

What about the kind of relationships you'd like to see in fangames, are you more interested in G/B, B/G, or B/B and G/G?

Would it be more interesting for you to play an original story, completely unrelated to any series already existing, but still keeping the dating sim aspect? (Like an "otome" game?)

Anything else, feel free to address it here! You don't have to answer all of those, just any kind of comment is appreciated. I'm sorry again if this sounded silly.

[papillon]

Could it be a commercial game, or would it be only accepted if you were to sell it in Japan? What about copyrights?

Using backgrounds, character art, music, voice, etc that belong to said series? And that would most likely infringe some copyrights, but for the sake of keeping the game free. (So you'd only have to work on the "fanfiction" side of the thing. I mean, fansubbers do something kind of similar... but for translating... I'm sorry if this sounds offensive! It really isn't my intention.)

It is illegal to use anything from an existing property without permission. That includes just the characters, names, and settings. Those are copyrighted too! It doesn't matter whether you're selling it or not, it's still illegal.

Certain hosts will not host your game if it uses content that it doesn't have rights to.

Beyond that, you are more likely to get into trouble if:

a) you are selling the game. don't even think about it. seriously.
b) you are using any ripped assets. Taking sounds/art/whatever directly from the game or anime or whatever will get you a lot more hassle from fans than making your own art.

When it comes to sellling things, Japan is more tolerant about limited doujin software. That doesn't fly in most of the rest of the world. However, many other places turn a blind eye to limited sales of fanart at conventions, as long as no one makes a big deal out of it and there are no stolen assets.

[Gambit74]

In general, I tend to stay away from fan games, mainly because I'm one of those people who get turned off easily by them when the characters or whatever are acting out of place or not themselves (I've seen too many fan works do that, and they really annoyed me). If you ask me though, I'd rather the person put their time and effort into making their own creation.

[fleet]

I have no problem with people making fan games, provided the author of said game has permission of the copyright holder, and specifically states that permission has been granted.
If you intend to release it to ANYONE (yes, this includes your closest buddies and family), get permission first.
Be advised that some folks will ignore a fan made game if they are unfamiliar with the base material (and some folks will ignore it because they dislike any and all fan made games).
If you do get permission from the copyright holder, you should strongly consider releasing your fan made game at web sites devoted to the source material you've selected. That way you can be assured hat at least someone will play your game.

I wish you success with your project.

[SundownKid]

I'm generally against fangames, despite having tried to make them myself when I was a lot younger... I feel that not only do they not honor the original creator's wishes but the same talent could be creating original projects instead. Unless it's one of the limited few cases where the makers have permission, like Wing Commander, in which case, I don't care. They were a good motivator for me to make my own games, though, and can provide extra popularity and guidance for a novice. Now that I have skill, though, I can't see any reason why I would make a fangame over one of my 100's of other, original ideas.

Fansubbing I don't really have a problem with, since it doesn't really change much about the original. Localization has been a common practice in games for decades and I am not pissed if a certain cultural reference is changed or whatever.

[nyaatrap]

In Japan,

1: Character designs, Story plots, e.t.c.
Most PC game companies officially permit them to use in fan games. Some novel, anime companies unofficailly allowed them. Some companies ban them (desny, nintendo, e.t.c.)

2: Drawings, Music, Writings, e.t.c.
Anytime illegal.

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

I would not recommend making fangames until you've made it absolutely clear about what is and is not allowed under the relevant copyright laws. In most cases, as people have mentioned, it is not worth all the hassle.

That being said, my favorite games are technically fangames. I have no idea how they got the green light - all I know was they did, and it was awesome.

[nyaatrap]

If you give me what copyright you want to use, then I can tell what is legal or illegal if it's a Japanese company.

[Showsni]

Could it be a commercial game, or would it be only accepted if you were to sell it in Japan? What about copyrights?

Using backgrounds, character art, music, voice, etc that belong to said series? And that would most likely infringe some copyrights, but for the sake of keeping the game free. (So you'd only have to work on the "fanfiction" side of the thing. I mean, fansubbers do something kind of similar... but for translating... I'm sorry if this sounds offensive! It really isn't my intention.)

It is illegal to use anything from an existing property without permission. That includes just the characters, names, and settings. Those are copyrighted too! It doesn't matter whether you're selling it or not, it's still illegal.

That's not technically true - you can't copyright a character, name, idea, and so on. It is possible that a name is protected by a trademark, in which case you'd need to worry about a trademark infringement suit if your work looked like it might be the company's...

For instance, if I wanted to make a game based on Pokémon. Nintendo own the trademarks on Pokémon itself and the names of the individual Pokémon, I believe, so if my work "uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party (in this case, the names of the Pokémon), in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration cover (in this case, computer games)" I could get into trouble for trademark infringement. If I'd also copied the sprites or pictures of the Pokémon that Nintendo holds the copyright for (say, ripping the sprites from the official games) I'd get into trouble for breaking copyright.

In short, copyright stops you copying and distributing stuff (music, pictures, large chunks of text), but it can't stop you just using a name. Trademarks are meant to stop the consumer confusing your product with the real thing; if a court found my using the Pokémon names was enough to potentially trick consumers into believing my game was an official Nintendo product, I'd be infringing trademark. (Likelihood of confusion is not necessarily measured by actual consumer confusion, though normally one of the elements, but by a series of criteria the courts have established). If I was instead using the names of the Pokémon in a piece of fanfiction uploaded to a website, I believe that would be okay trademark wise, as there's no chance of someone confusing it for an official Nintendo product. (I'm not a lawyer, so take all this with a pinch of salt...)

Of course, some companies give permission to use their copyrighted materials anyway; and sometimes you can apply to the company or person for permission.

[Blane Doyle]

Personally, I think a fangame is fine IF! IF the creator does not make it commercial and puts the time and effort into making it a quality game that keeps the characters in the original work in character, and make it clear it is not official. For example, one game here, Touhou Mecha battle. I LOVE Touhou. I think the game is great. It works well with the characters. It is free. Good all around I say!

Using assets, if they are royalty free and open source from the get go (IE, the ost to the game Forest) is perfectly fine. They aren't copyrighted to a specific game. Using the direct backgrounds or sprites for a commercial product is a no from the start. (and names can't be copyrighted, I think? Unless you mean trademarked ones like Pikachu?)

Needless to say, do NOT sell a fangame for profit, not only is that illegal but it will make quite a few people very angry.

Word to the wise: Don't make fangames for things from companies like... Disney. They are notorious for going after people, to the point where one game creator was hit with a false claim and honestly believed it was them. Some people are just fine with fan material though. JK Rowling, for example, LOVES it! Heck, she's read fanfiction people send to her.

I'm no expert though and I know we've had a long discussion about this before (the above fiasco). I know my opinion differs quite a bit from many others.

[Funnyguts]

If you have good ideas for something that uses someone else's IP, go ahead and make it. Just don't sell it or take assets or that stuff. If you think you can separate your idea from that IP and make it into your own thing, that's even better, but fanfic in general isn't inherently bad.

And remember, one of the greatest plays of all time, Hamlet, can be considered fanfiction. The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are Bible fanfiction, and they're absolutely astounding. If fanfiction is good enough for academia, it's good enough for you. Just try to be more interesting than killing off someone's love intrest so your self-insert character can romance them.

[PyTom]

you can't copyright a character, name, idea, and so on.

Copyright can apply to characters, at least here in the US - at least for "fully realized" characters. Using Harry Potter - the boy wizard with the lightning-bolt scar - is copyright infringement, as well as trademark infringement. Tom Clancy assigned the copyright to Jack Ryan to the Naval Institute Press, and now has to pay them a portion of what he makes when he writes new Jack Ryan novels.

Basically, if you're taking specific characters, organizations, locations, etc. from an existing work, you have the potential for getting into trouble. So you can't use Spock, or the Federation, or the Enterprise in your game. Of course, you can use _similar_ things - you could call your logical science officer Q’eeng, your galactic government the Universal Union, and your ship the Intrepid.*

* Actually, you can't use any of these - since I took them from the excerpt of Redshirts. But you get the idea of how you can take existing ideas and make them your own.

[Dollywitch]

The problem with fangames is that "fans" tend to be pretty crappy. But if you have actual proper authors etc. doing fnagames it's not much different from when the actual property gets a different writer/team.