Fox = Devil

[nudnick]

I got a hold of em via phone, and i had a lengthy conversation with someone and, he said there is no way i would be able to do it without them taking action of some kind of legal action. BASTARDS!

nudnick :sniper: FOX

So, back to the drawing board, gotta come up with a new mod idea, i got one cookin atm, looks like i am gonna contact my domain registrator and see if i can get em to change some stuff!

 

[armanguy]

whydont you make a original mod, if you want some help ill be willing to helpi got shot down also microsoft wouldent let me make a conker mod for some reason

 

[nudnick]

cant contact you via PM, says i need to be a member for 5 days, what a croc, but here....
contact me via AIM @ nudnick9 - or msn @ [email protected]
or email [email protected] -- i am on right now 1:30 am EST, but my connection keeps goin on and off so see if you can catch me

 

[armanguy]

do you have msn messenger?

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I assume from your avatar that this was an AVP mod. If so, you should have expected these legal repercussions, especially from a franchise so current in the public mainstream, as well as one which is already established in the medium you were attempting to use (video-game).

Even if FOX hadn't gotten angry, you probably would have experienced similar anger from the hundreds of people who are all essentially trying to make the same AVP mod as you because aliens and predators together has suddenly become the 'it' thing again. You might have even gotten mad at yourself when you realised a year later that AVP wasn't as lastingly popular as you had expected, and that you might as well have based your mod on Beanie Babies or the Gameboy Colour while you were latching on to the biggest trend.

If you had just used a tiny bit of originality in the first place, this would not have happened, regardless of the ":sniper: BASTARDS!"

Same goes for Conker, I'm afraid.

It's called Intellectual Property and it's not yours to use.

 

[Yuri]

Perhaps you should be a little less harsh, Mr. Zilla.

First off, I would like to mention that many games are still original while also holding onto a plot made by someone else. For example, Alien vs. Predator 2 was one of the most fantastic FPS's ever made, but I'm sure whoever thought up the idea of making into a game hadn't created every detail from both of those movies. GoldenEye is another example.

Yes, those are professional games, and yes I realize that 10,000 people have the AvP concept lodged in their brains, but what about the gameplay? You have no idea what nudnick was going to do around the Predator for gameplay styles and whatnot, perhaps he was just using the Predator as a crutch for all his other fantastic, original ideas?

Basically, I don't think that "using" someone else's intellectual property is a terrible thing and automatically makes you into a thieving, unoriginal moron; as long as the person has permission first. Which is what NudNick did, he went through everything and asked for permission, and on denial scrapped the idea instead of just naming it the "Predatore" and stealing it that way. I just think that perhaps you could have been a bit nicer to him, seeing as how he did everything he should have...? (Although getting mad at Fox probably wasn't the best course of action, since it is their property.)

I'm not trying to quarrell with you, Mecha, out of everyone in the forums you are definately near the top in my "This person knows their stuff" list. I just wanted to point out a few things that I think.

And I would like to add that if someone has a completely original concept automatically gets more respect from me than if they were taking someone else's work (with permission, even)

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I suppoase I was somewhat harsh. But, to the same extent, I didn't call anyone the devil and put up a smiley representing my killing of them. :O

I guess I just kind of snapped after reading the 30th "My Starcraft/Alien Versus Predator/System Shock 2/Other Mod Has Been Ruined By Lawyer Jerks!!!" thread.

I do agree that Goldeneye and the official AVP games are all all excellent use of other's IP. The difference between them and the hundreds of unofficial mods out there, however, is that they had the right to use the plots and characters given to them by the people who owned the plots and characters. Probably as a result of a large financial exchange and much negotiation.
People just don't give their franchise rights away.

Now, no matter how great this mod could be, the use of AVP characters has absolutely nothing to do with gameplay. The gameplay would be identical, even if the characters looked like demons or robots or normal people. That's where the unoriginality comes from. Unable or unwilling to invent his own plot and characters, He had decided to simply take someone else's work and use it as his own. You see, people out there are paid to invent frightening monsters and compelling plot universes. They make their livings by writing scripts and painting art.

Now nudnick's apparent plan was to, for free, take these people's work and use it to fill the void where the originality should be.
Now, he ws nice enough to ask for permission, but at the same time he was obviously certain FOX would just hand their IP to him on a silver platter. He made a website with an AVP domain name, he wrote out a plan about a game based on AVP , and then he got extremely angry when he realised later that FOX wouldn't let him.

So, back to the drawing board, gotta come up with a new mod idea, i got one cookin atm, looks like i am gonna contact my domain registrator and see if i can get em to change some stuff!

Apparently, the only notes on the drawing board said: "AVP would make an awesome game!"
Why else would the entire mod need to be scrapped? The concern here wasn't good gameplay. Like I said, he could just as easilly have a Robot VS Dinosaur mod with the exact same gameplay mechanics as before. The ONLY thing nudnick seems to have planned out was that he would put AVP characters into the source engine.

Some might call that coasting on other's success. He was relying entirely on his mod being equally fun as the movie just because it had the same aliens. He didn't say: "I have a great idea that everyone will like!" He said: "FOX had a great idea that lots of people have already liked! I will copy their success!"

But the largest problem was that he made the angry post above. The fact is, he tried to take the easy way out and make a poorly-planned out mod based on other's work, and now he's complaining about it's failure in order to gain our pity and outrage. Why else would he post this? He was obviously hoping we'd say: "Yeah! FOX are big sucky jerks!" Instead of pointing out that he was completely in the wrong.

And I would like to add that if someone has a completely original concept automatically gets more respect from me than if they were taking someone else's work (with permission, even)

Completely original concepts are fine, permitted use of IP is just as good and unpermitted use is both pathetic and sickening.

But here, the problem wasn't theft. It was that nudnick made a mistake by starting an AVP mod without FOX's permission, and then another by trying to blame FOX for having to start over, and then a third mistake by whining about it on the forum in an effort to get people like me to feel bad for him.

And my point, as before, is that if he had just used a tiny bit of originality in his concept, NONE of this would have happened in the first place.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Hey, we Lawyers aren't all jerks!

Besides, all you need to do is replace the predators and aliens in the mod with equally grotesque creatures with similar traits. As long as they don't look the same as their Fox bretherin, you won't get sued. It's called 'taking inspiration'. Back in the early days of the FPS, there were one hell of a lot of games 'taking inspiration' from Doom. They all involved aliens landing, and killing everyone. To get another random example, take the classic game 'Alien Breed' - a top down shooter, where you had to shoot creatures remarkably similar to those in the 'Alien' films.

*begins brainstorming*

The Nightcrawlers are an obscure form of xenobiological life, relying on implanting their genetic material into a host to reproduce. Being equipped with three legs, and three arms, they are capable of outstanding agility, and almost pneumatic jumping power. Atop their leathery body tops a mass of short tenticles, used to taste their prey long before their prey even sees them. In this mass of tentacles lies their gene-depositer tenticle - one topped with a bone spike, which impales their prey in the throat.

See? All in two moments of hangover, you have a rough concept of a random alien. With the number of people on this board, it's not impossible to brainstorm two opposing alien races whom both have a taste for human flesh.

-Angry Lawyer

P.S. - http://www.seventhsanctum.com has a large number of random thingy generators - great inspiration for creatures.