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Leperflesh posted:OK, I can see that there's definitely a market of people who want a Ghibli-inspired game. The question I'm raising, though, is: is it ethical for just anyone to make that game? Or shouldn't it be up to the owners of Studio Ghibli, to decide whether or not they want their name on an RPG, and if so, which game? Are you really arguing that it's unethical to make a game that is inspired by other works and then to credit those works as inspirations? 'Like <X> but with <Y>' is not unethical. That's...that's an elevator pitch. The game's name is The Whispering Road, and the Kickstarter's very clear: they're not licensed, do not use any Ghibli art and are inspired by Miyazaki films but not associated with them. quote:How would you like to play through a Hayao Miyazaki movie with your friends? That's exactly the purpose of The Whispering Road, a tabletop role-playing game I built. It not only mimics the stories of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, it's also a simple story game that anyone 8 years old and up can play, not just traditional role-players. That's the opening to the Kickstarter. Did you know that many games list inspirations in the foreword or, occasionally, an appendix? Inspirations that are entirely unassociated with the game in question! Feng Shui, for example, gives a literal list of Hong Kong action movies that helped inspire it. E: Basically: no, it is intensely stupid to argue that it's unethical to be inspired by something.
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Jan 22, 2014 22:32
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Leperflesh posted:The question I'm raising, though, is: is it ethical for just anyone to make that game? Uh, yes. It is. Studio Ghibli don't own the rights to whimsical fairy-tale-like stories inspired by Japanese folklore.
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Jan 22, 2014 22:35
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Sure it's ethical as long as it doesn't claim to be 'The Studio Ghibli' game and says it is simulating those sorts of situations.
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Jan 22, 2014 22:45
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Popular-Thing-X-With-The-Serial-Numbers-Filed-Off has been a thing for RPGs since small times. Vampire:The Masquerade is the unofficial adaptation of Anne Rice's Vampire stories, Cyberpunk 2020 is the unofficial adaptation of William Gibson's Sprawl stories, and Conspiracy X is the unofficial X-Files adaptation, to name just three.
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Jan 22, 2014 22:49
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People also seem to be missing the Tom Lehrer rule of plagiarism. "To borrow from one source is plagiarism. To borrow from two is called research". A Studio Ghibli game is very dubious. But no one bats an eyelid at all at a game that claims to be "inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan".
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Jan 22, 2014 23:04
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Mors Rattus posted:Are you really arguing that it's unethical to make a game that is inspired by other works and then to credit those works as inspirations? 'Like <X> but with <Y>' is not unethical. That's...that's an elevator pitch. The game's name is The Whispering Road, and the Kickstarter's very clear: they're not licensed, do not use any Ghibli art and are inspired by Miyazaki films but not associated with them. Hey! That phrase does not appear in the post in the KS thread that I commented on, and that post does not link to a kickstarter. I was under the impression that the KS was still "coming up" and not posted yet. That post also makes it sound like the actual title of the game is "The Whispering Road: A Miyazaki-inspired Tabletop RPG" So please don't call me "intensely stupid" for not having whatever source you have for the game, which has different information. Lemon Curdistan posted:Uh, yes. It is. Studio Ghibli don't own the rights to whimsical fairy-tale-like stories inspired by Japanese folklore. Of course they don't. But they own the rights to the name of their studio. Also, I'm trying to have a broader discussion about copycat games in the TG industry; my only issue with the Miyazaki game is if they're trying to gain attention and customers by trading on other people's trademarks. Humbug Scoolbus posted:Sure it's ethical as long as it doesn't claim to be 'The Studio Ghibli' game and says it is simulating those sorts of situations. So, as long as you have a disclaimer somewhere, and don't literally use their mark as your game's title, you're OK (ethically)? FMguru posted:Popular-Thing-X-With-The-Serial-Numbers-Filed-Off has been a thing for RPGs since small times. Vampire:The Masquerade is the unofficial adaptation of Anne Rice's Vampire stories, Cyberpunk 2020 is the unofficial adaptation of William Gibson's Sprawl stories, and Conspiracy X is the unofficial X-Files adaptation, to name just three. It's definitely been a thing, and I've called out other examples. Do you think the fact it's been done a lot is good? neonchameleon posted:People also seem to be missing the Tom Lehrer rule of plagiarism. "To borrow from one source is plagiarism. To borrow from two is called research". A Studio Ghibli game is very dubious. But no one bats an eyelid at all at a game that claims to be "inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan". Yeah, I think I tried to touch on that a bit. Listing some influences is very different from being nothing more than "X with the numbers filed off."
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Jan 22, 2014 23:18
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Leperflesh posted:Do you think the fact it's been done a lot is good? There have been any number of very good games which were designed to replicate the feel of some particular fiction, so I'm gonna say "Yes."
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Jan 22, 2014 23:23
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This is why you should only ever be inspired by public domain works. Stay tuned for my upcoming Dickensian tactical miniature game, A Tale of Two Factions, and an exciting new fantasy RPG, The Quest of Iranon. That second one is based off the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, best known as we all know for his pre-1923 fantasies about "The Dreamlands" and also some Edgar Allan Poe stuff.
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Jan 22, 2014 23:24
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Mimir posted:This is why you should only ever be inspired by public domain works. I legit like Lovecraft's Dreamlands stuff more than his fishpeople/tentacles stuff sometimes, so this wouldn't suit me wrong at all. 
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Jan 22, 2014 23:27
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Leperflesh posted:Hey! That phrase does not appear in the post in the KS thread that I commented on, and that post does not link to a kickstarter. I was under the impression that the KS was still "coming up" and not posted yet. That'd be ten seconds on Google.
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Jan 22, 2014 23:32
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inklesspen posted:There have been any number of very good games which were designed to replicate the feel of some particular fiction, so I'm gonna say "Yes." I don't think the quality of a derivative work should really have much bearing on whether it steps over the line of ethical use of someone else's art. Example: George Lucas has enough money, so I could make an Indiana Jones RPG in all-but-name, call it Alabama Smith and the Temple of Ill Fate, and if my game turns out to be really fun and people really love it, then I've done nothing wrong? Keep in mind I'm not saying that being vaguely inspired by something, or as you put it "replicate the feel" is necessarily wrong. I'm talking about games that do more than just have a certain atmosphere that reminds you of another genre-defining work. For the Ghibli thing, my only problem with it is the use of the studio's name to advertise the product. Just having a game that has the atmosphere of japanese mythology children's adventure is very obviously OK, nobody owns that. But for games like (apparently) Rivet Wars, where you're just straight-up lifting someone else's characters and plonking them down in your game, isn't that pretty problematic... even if there's no resulting lawsuit? And I also asked, leaving aside the ethical question, isn't there kind of an awful lot of very derivative world-building going on? When are we (gamers, I mean, not SA TG) going to finally be done with elves & dwarves, Cthulhu + A Thing, Plundering Dungeons 8.0, and Game Inspired By Popular Movie Franchise? Well, like I said, I got the impression the KS hadn't started yet, so there was no reason for me to google for the KS. But now I see it: the Title of the KS is "The Whispering Road: A Miyazaki-inspired Tabletop RPG." And it appears the content is literally identical to the post over in the KS thread, except with that one-sentence disclaimer added. Legally, you usually can't escape a trademark infringement by doing nothing more than printing a disclaimer that you're not infringing the trademark, but I don't know if this KS is just treading close to the line, or stepping over it. Ethically I think the KS is trying to get hits by putting Miyazaki in the title and that strikes me as a bit shady. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 23:39
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Mors Rattus posted:Are you really arguing that it's unethical to make a game that is inspired by other works and then to credit those works as inspirations? 'Like <X> but with <Y>' is not unethical. That's...that's an elevator pitch. The game's name is The Whispering Road, and the Kickstarter's very clear: they're not licensed, do not use any Ghibli art and are inspired by Miyazaki films but not associated with them. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 23:46
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MadScientistWorking posted:I'm pretty sure that they are skirting a law here because unlike other RPGs which list their inspiration in the Appendix this one has the dam thing in the tittle in the advertisement. If you think the name of a Kickstarter is the same as the name of a product, you haven't looked at Kickstarter's front page, have you?
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Jan 22, 2014 23:48
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PresidentBeard posted:So what exactly was rivet wars ripping off? It's not that I don't believe you, I just am not up to speed on it. They had "The Vet" (Rambo), "Babygirl" (Baby Doll), "The Man in Charge" (Nick Fury), and the Jetpacker (Rocketeer). It wasn't subtle. 
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Jan 22, 2014 23:49
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Mors Rattus posted:If you think the name of a Kickstarter is the same as the name of a product, you haven't looked at Kickstarter's front page, have you? EDIT: Though I will say that technically I don't think trademark is an issue in the United States as you can't trademark a name like that. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 23:49
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It's more that those kickstarters are doing a very sensible thing: They title the projects with the elevator pitch. This is a perfectly reasonable and sane thing to do when you want people to click on your project and the title of a kickstarter imparts no legal power over the name of its eventual product or service. It's a good and intelligent tactic to use when getting people to take a closer look. I personally would not have written the elevator pitch or the kickstarter title by referencing Miyazaki or Ghibli directly as a stylistic thing, but I probably would have put it in the project's description somewhere to describe what I was going for since it seems to encapsulate it very well. It's also not misappropriation of a trademark to reference that trademark directly and say who owns it, which this kickstarter clearly does.
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Jan 22, 2014 23:57
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Leperflesh posted:I don't think the quality of a derivative work should really have much bearing on whether it steps over the line of ethical use of someone else's art. Correct. Making up stories is the common heritage of all people. If you actually call your RPG by that name, LucasDisney may have a cause of action against you for trademark infringement, but unless you have been very stupid, you haven't trespassed on Lucas's copyright or any "moral rights" he may have in the concept of whip-cracking archeologist-adventurerers. (Also, I'm not sure where "has enough money" ever entered into the discussion here before.) Leperflesh posted:And I also asked, leaving aside the ethical question, isn't there kind of an awful lot of very derivative world-building going on? When are we (gamers, I mean, not SA TG) going to finally be done with elves & dwarves, Cthulhu + A Thing, Plundering Dungeons 8.0, and Game Inspired By Popular Movie Franchise? When people stop having interesting stories to tell about elves, dwarves, dead dreaming gods, dragons, and action-adventure heroines.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:23
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quote:Cthulhu + A Thing You take that back 
Ettin fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 00:36
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And when that stops being the most accessible thing to people. You can do something off the wall and original, but more often than not you run into the problem of making your product accessible to a consumer. It helps if you have some kind of license to piggyback off of, but only Weis productions are doing that these days.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:39
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inklesspen posted:Correct. Making up stories is the common heritage of all people. If you actually call your RPG by that name, LucasDisney may have a cause of action against you for trademark infringement, but unless you have been very stupid, you haven't trespassed on Lucas's copyright or any "moral rights" he may have in the concept of whip-cracking archeologist-adventurerers. (Also, I'm not sure where "has enough money" ever entered into the discussion here before.) Rulebook Heavily posted:And when that stops being the most accessible thing to people. You can do something off the wall and original, but more often than not you run into the problem of making your product accessible to a consumer. It helps if you have some kind of license to piggyback off of, but only Weis productions are doing that these days.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:44
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Well yeah, there's a big difference between balancing accessibility with originality and just xeroxing the thing you've played since you were twelve. A difference that's all too often lost in this hobby. But the accessibility thing is a big issue that's not easy to solve.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:49
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FMguru posted:Popular-Thing-X-With-The-Serial-Numbers-Filed-Off has been a thing for RPGs since small times. Vampire:The Masquerade is the unofficial adaptation of Anne Rice's Vampire stories, Cyberpunk 2020 is the unofficial adaptation of William Gibson's Sprawl stories, and Conspiracy X is the unofficial X-Files adaptation, to name just three. Vampire is Anne Rice's Vampire, but it's also The Lost Boys, Necroscope, Nosferatu, and every other popular vampire media that they could get their hands on. If White Wolf had pitched a game as roleplaying in the world of Anne Rice's Vampire stories it would need to have been licensed. Instead, they say it shares themes with "popular vampire stories of today" the exact same way Law and Order episodes were "Ripped from today's headlines" without buying any rights. You can make a game about cyborg assassins from the future. But you can't call it "Anachronistic Austrian Assassin Android: A game inspired by James Cameron's Terminator" and talk about how it's totally based on the Terminator films. That's how you get a C&D.
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Jan 23, 2014 00:52
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So, if you haven't been keeping up on the Kickstarter drama, the makers of the Torn Armor game went with a mystery manufacturer some months back, and it was just revealed that it was Defiance. Huge surprise, they took the money and failed to deliver. The owner of Torn Armor wrote a post explaining what had happened.lilljonas posted:Aaaaand we have Kickstarter tabletop company drama fight! My favourite! On the one hand, I'm pretty pissed at the Torn Armor crew for not doing due diligence on Tony Reidy and company. On the other, man that's a terrible lie. "Oh, we only got as far as seeing the files were bad. But we can't give you your money back. Because of reasons. Checking file formats is such hard work."
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Jan 24, 2014 01:22
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More class from defiance on their fb page, under their "open letter"  What is with this scolding thing they seem to like to use. Both the open letter and "you should be more considerate" bullshit
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Jan 24, 2014 05:08
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I don't know if this is the right page for this sort of stuff, but I've just had a brilliant experience with The Troll Trader (also one of the sponsors for the Oath thread). An order I made got accidentally marked as "pre-order" rather than "processed", so shipping got delayed by a day. Also, one of the items I ordered had been mislabeled by the manufacturer (MIcro Arts), and restocking could take a couple of weeks. In basically one email Troll Trader guaranteed themselves a loyal customer by being super quick to fix the mistake, apologise, immediately get in contact with the manufacturer to find out restocking times, offered a refund, and then threw in some free promotional figures as an extra apology. This is by far the best customer service I've ever experienced. Heck, even the manufacturer apologised for the mix-up, so big up to Micro Arts Studio as well.
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Jan 24, 2014 14:44
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JackMann posted:On the one hand, I'm pretty pissed at the Torn Armor crew for not doing due diligence on Tony Reidy and company. On the other, man that's a terrible lie. "Oh, we only got as far as seeing the files were bad. But we can't give you your money back. Because of reasons. Checking file formats is such hard work." Yeah, it seems like even a cursory Google search would have turned up results indicating that Defiance Games isn't a company you want to trust with your money, but the Torn Armor people at least aren't dissembling and acting like a bag of dicks the way Defiance is, and the thin silver lining around the whole thing is the last time I checked the comments on their Kickstarter nobody was sending them threats or having private investigators hired. Reaper's offered to help them out, which is a nice gesture, but apparently the money raised by the Kickstarter is simply gone so it's up in the air what help they can be at this point. I'm not really a minis guy but the whole situation sucks all around.
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Jan 24, 2014 14:57
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, it seems like even a cursory Google search would have turned up results indicating that Defiance Games isn't a company you want to trust with your money, but the Torn Armor people at least aren't dissembling and acting like a bag of dicks the way Defiance is, and the thin silver lining around the whole thing is the last time I checked the comments on their Kickstarter nobody was sending them threats or having private investigators hired. Being fair to Torn Armour, Defiance's reputation has probably tanked in the meantime. It was known that they were a company to not trust when they went with them - but according to one of the threads at the time you had to hit page 3 of google before you encountered the first bit of message board bitching about them. So it's plausible they did do a cursory background check - just not an in depth one.
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Jan 24, 2014 15:05
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Fair enough. I'm not a minis guy so I'm going solely on information gleaned from this latest incident, and I'm certainly not out to blame the people whose money effectively got stolen.
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Jan 24, 2014 15:23
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Defiance Games has pulled some pretty nasty stuff in the past. Here's a revealing one: quote:So what's new? Well, not long after, apparently Defiance Games once more had a change of management. That's right, they 'coincidentally' changed management right before the Kickstarter and 'coincidentally' change management again once the KS was over. Who's the new man in charge? I'll give you a hint, his name starts with T and has the letters O, N and Y in it. ... This is for another kickstarter (their own, in fact), but they seem to have pulled a similar trick this time. The Tony being talked about is Tony Reidy, the number one factor here: he had another company that went under and then immediately righted itself once he'd been ousted. quote:Not everyone knows this, but the person who owns and started up Defiance Games was the previous owner of Wargames Factory, Tony Reidy. That was the time that they publically and conveniently "got new management" just in time to do a kickstarter and then immediately switched back to Tony Reidy once the money was in the house. And under part 3 of this blogger's exposé series, there is a sentiment that we as a hobby need to sear into our minds. quote:Do I think DG purposely misled and lied to Torn Armor though? Yes. Granted, this is purely my opinion but based on their past behavior, switching CEOs, not paying proxie models or rustforge etc, this really seems like something they would do. And seriously, this needs to be stopped. As a community, we really need to bring DGs antics to the publics awareness so that people know who they're dealing with. Long story short, the kickstarter money probably went the same way that all their kickstarter money has: to pay employee back pay and old debts instead of trying to finance their actual obligations. The news hadn't spread because, surprise surprise, the hobby allows toxic people to continue to exist.
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Jan 24, 2014 16:00
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Oh these guys. Now I have no idea what an RPG Brain Trust is, but this is more class.  It's amazing how much poo poo Defiance is getting on their own facebook page - where one would expect their fans to be in abundance.
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Jan 24, 2014 16:51
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If you go to the Defiance Games website forums there's, surprise surprise, absolutely no mention of anything like this whatsoever. In fact, the latest post in any subforum is from December 13th 2013 concerning one guy selling his figures to another. Beyond that it's all October and November '13, it's basically a ghost town. So I'd say it's questionable at this point that Defiance actually has fans.
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Jan 24, 2014 17:05
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dwarf74 posted:It's amazing how much poo poo Defiance is getting on their own facebook page - where one would expect their fans to be in abundance. I get the impression there's a dearth of "Defiance Games fans". I mean, they're known for what? Alien Wars, which has been well-received, but didn't make a huge splash. They certainly chose their company name well, though. Yeesh. ED: It's even difficult to find that one game line, mainly on account of their company store being down. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 17:10
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Rulebook Heavily posted:
quote:Long story short, the kickstarter money probably went the same way that all their kickstarter money has: to pay employee back pay and old debts instead of trying to finance their actual obligations. The news hadn't spread because, surprise surprise, the hobby allows toxic people to continue to exist. neonchameleon posted:Being fair to Torn Armour, Defiance's reputation has probably tanked in the meantime. It was known that they were a company to not trust when they went with them - but according to one of the threads at the time you had to hit page 3 of google before you encountered the first bit of message board bitching about them. So it's plausible they did do a cursory background check - just not an in depth one. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 18:16
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dwarf74 posted:
It's amazing how much like a child Defiance is acting. "Well, if you'd actually grow up you'd find that the adult thing to do is ignore anything bad other people are doing  "
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Jan 24, 2014 18:47
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It almost makes me wish Defiance produced anything to avoid buying.
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Jan 24, 2014 19:18
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RPGBrainTrust is a fb group for industry professionals. Anyway, loving Defiance is hilarious. ravenkult fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 21:03
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I'm surprised anyone would trust Tony Reidy and Defiance Games with anything. They're a running joke in the industry.
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Jan 24, 2014 21:24
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I just love that it was a backer that suggested Defiance. What if it was Tony himself. 
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Jan 24, 2014 21:50
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Brian Gregory is a personal friend, and Alyssa has chatted with me more than once. I am not trying to name drop, only pointing out my bias. I am having a real hard time giving DG the benefit of the doubt. Between the attitude that they were almost coerced into business, the crass throwing stones about how people get let go from jobs, and the plain indignation they have for people responding to an open letter, how were they planning on coming out ahead? I worked in call centers for a decade. I frequently had to bite back mean, snarky, and plain emotional responses. I am glad I did that, though. Learning to be cool headed and act professional is a trait I'm lucky to have, and continually shocked when others lack it. Why did they think reaching out to the public was a good idea? They should have made a quiet statement about the regrettable circumstances surrounding Torn Armor, and that they are interested in bringing their dealings to a mutually agreeable conclusion. See? You sound like a company there, not a whiny teenager with an industrial 3D printer.
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Jan 25, 2014 04:51
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Feeple posted:Brian Gregory is a personal friend, and Alyssa has chatted with me more than once. I am not trying to name drop, only pointing out my bias. Defiance games are basically shysters who like to contract work out and avoid paying for it. Tony Reidy used to run wargames factory, and after failing to pay the Chinese factory that actually made the minis for long enough (while blaming them for all the problems, and putting up pre-orders for products that didn't exist) the Chinese factory acquired wargames factory and kicked Tony out. At that point all the problems at Wargames Factory stopped. To the point where they are now a go to contractor for other mini companies and will take concept art and turn it into minis, as they have done with some of the Malifaux plastics. Defiance games are a bad joke. The 500+ page thread on Frothers goes into a lot of detail.
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Jan 25, 2014 09:33
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