| 12 JUN 2008 at 6:45pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Here's a tidbit to share with you guys. A gentle spirit over my shoulder gave this to me and while they left it up to me whether or not to reveal my source, considering all the drama that is unfolding I'll refrain from getting them dragged into this. The credit for this find goes to them.
Some links regarding this games progress is the 90's:
http://eager.back2roots.org/DATA/L/LIMLOC.html
and the original screens:
http://hol.abime.net/4305
Looks like they changed the name of their company too at one point.
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| 12 JUN 2008 at 7:05pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
Posts : 4876
Joined: 9 JUL 2003
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Wow it's the Adventure Genre's first 12" remix.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 12 JUN 2008 at 7:32pm |
pavel4444Space Cadet
Posts : 124
Joined: 2 MAY 2008
Status : Online | http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/limboofthelost/news.html?sid=6192456&om_act=convert&om_clk=newlyadded&tag=newlyadded;title;1
wow...
Anybody actually know if the game was any good despite the plagiarism?
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| 12 JUN 2008 at 8:09pm |
Lady KestrelGuild Master
Posts : 4038
Joined: 27 SEP 2004
Location: US, NJ
Status : Offline | In light of everything we've seen, I think Steve's answer to this question asked by Gordon over at Quandary is just plain deceptive:
"So have any more recent games influenced your current project?"
"The project is more influenced by film and literature rather than other games, we want the experience to be as original as possible and as such we have made a calculated effort to keep away from other games in the genre. Limbo of the Lost is an experience first and foremost, secondly wrapped up in a game media and genre."
"Where is the fountain that throws up these flowers in a ceaseless outbreak of ecstasy?"
-Rabindranath Tagore
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| 12 JUN 2008 at 9:45pm |
ShanyGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 19 JUN 2003
Status : Online | ...effort to keep away from other games in the genre
As we all know Oblivion is not in the adventure genre.
Does that mean we can't use screenshots of the game in trivias anymore? :
Seriously now, I don't know what to think. They seem to be involved in a new scandal every few months since the game's release. I wonder if they were aiming for bad publicity - every game site I read has people wanting to get the game to see for themeselves. Someone suggested everyone download it illegally - then they would get what they desereve.
I feel sorry for the publishers. Since the developers are nowhere to be found, the publishers are the ones getting bad publicity and asked for comments - not to mention the money they lost.
I'll be very interested to know how this ends.
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 6:35am |
STooGE4444, EastCoastDoom...Schattenjger
Posts : 2099
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | If you don't know already, the Wintermute Engine was used for the game.
UK Release Thread
Game Security Thread(This one is really special)
2D 3D background artist wanted Thread
Preview and Screenshots thread (reply #5)
Make sure you notice the banner for their forums!!!
Also, can we put Limbo of the Lost in the thread title so that this is easier to ID for new people?
~rbeeler SVT &&Name's STooGE$$$$ Valpurgius TNT; it's not PLURAL&&[img]http://www.riseaboverecords.com/sleep/image/sleepfront.gif[/img]&&151.Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are Angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 6:52am |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By STooGE4444, Just like Mac... (13 JUN 2008 6:35am)
Also, can we put Limbo of the Lost in the thread title so that this is easier to ID for new people?
Done!
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 7:16am |
STooGE4444, EastCoastDoom...Schattenjger
Posts : 2099
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Tri Synergy Officially pulls it...
Tri Synergy is just as shocked as everyone else is by the recent screenshot comparisons. At no point during our dealings with Majestic Studios up until the point that the comparison was first publicly made by a third party did we have any knowledge of these similarities. Additionally, Tri Synergy will discontinue distribution of Limbo of the Lost in both retail and online outlets.
We have contacted the developer, Majestic, and are anxiously awaiting their response. As soon as we know more on this matter we will issue another statement.
Couple more links:
Behind the Scenes - Youtube
Compo of the Lost
Limbo of the Misguided
~rbeeler SVT &&Name's STooGE$$$$ Valpurgius TNT; it's not PLURAL&&[img]http://www.riseaboverecords.com/sleep/image/sleepfront.gif[/img]&&151.Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are Angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 5:32pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Nice disclaimer on that review Aya! Well said. So... do you think we have a new entry to the JA Hall of Shame? There hasn't been one added to that in years.
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 6:37pm |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Ivinia (13 JUN 2008 5:31pm)
Nice disclaimer on that review Aya! Well said. So... do you think we have a new entry to the JA Hall of Shame? There hasn't been one added to that in years.
This will come right after the Milli Vanilli story right?
Ya know... it might not be a bad idea to mod the soundtrack with their greatest hits --- Now that's really spooky stuff
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 7:49pm |
KarstenSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 347
Joined: 23 SEP 2006
Location: DK
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Ivinia (13 JUN 2008 5:31pm)
Nice disclaimer on that review Aya! Well said. So... do you think we have a new entry to the JA Hall of Shame? There hasn't been one added to that in years.
I have just read Aya's revised review of this game. And I couldn't believe. what I read : Aya mentioned the amateurish look of chapter 4. This may then actually be the only chapter they have made themselves, the 3 gents from Kent. Aya also mentions that the game seems to be made by totally different people which it IS. > :'(
I don't know why they thought they could get away with it, though...
I've read the story behind the game in Aya's review, it is a perfect for Oblivion, tied to Sheogorath who wants to see if the people of Cyrodiil would follow Fate or Destiny. I don't know why they didn't made a mod for Oblivion, either for Shivering Isles or for the the main game, Oblivion, itself :-? ??
Oh, wait...
That would require coding.....and ---hard work....
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 8:59pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4941
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Ivinia and/or Alkis: Since you guys are well versed in the challenges of game development, how far does it appear that the 'developers' in LOTL appear to have gone in allegedly copying other content? More particularly, what would be the theoretical benefit of copying this sort of material from other games? I'm trying to figure out whether this possibly amounted to their having a story and the capability for basic production, but decided to cut corners by using rendered material from other games or whether it allegedly went farther than that.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 9:42pm |
AyaGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7277
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Ivinia (13 JUN 2008 5:31pm)
Nice disclaimer on that review Aya! Well said. So... do you think we have a new entry to the JA Hall of Shame? There hasn't been one added to that in years.
i have suggested to randy for it to be added to the dungeon of shame... we'll see what he says... if it does get added, it will be for a whole different reason that the others!
You have gotten the attention of the mysterious lady. She turns to face you. Her face is devoid of any flesh. You are frozen with horror as she begins ripping your body into a bloody mess.
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| 13 JUN 2008 at 10:16pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | IMO, it doesn't look like they did anything in regards to the sound, music and graphics themselves. Other than the characters in the game it would appear that every little detail from backgrounds, to interface assets, to graphics around the borders have been ripped from somewhere else. Technically they didn't even do the characters in the game as those came straight from Poser with a few modifications.
Benefit-wise, there is no benefit other than saving themselves TONS of time and development costs. But considering you can't even use those things in a commercially sold game it's kind of a mute point and getting your butt sued off is going to negate any cost savings. It boggles the mind.
Sound effects are time consuming as well, however the time that they take up is based on finding the sound clip that fits the best. There are tons of royalty free files out there that you can purchase. Some come on CDs, some are available via online channels such as AudioSparx. Many times these are going to require some work to clean them up. For example, I frequently use sound clips from Beachware (Zillions of Sounds) in the casual games. There is a bit of hiss in them so I need to clean them in Adobe Audition. While it sounds easy enough, finding the right one is surprisingly difficult. You would be amazed at just how many clips there are out there of a water drop for example and none of them are quite right.
By far the most time consuming part on my end are the graphics. You would be amazed as to how involved they can get especially in 3D - not only in the modeling, but in creating the textures for those models in Photoshop. Then there are the bump maps for each texture, specular maps, opacity maps, displacement maps...yada yada... depending on what you are modeling you might need to create a many textures that will effect the appearance of your model. In ripping those, they probably cut their dev time by 70-80%. You have freelancers in this area as well. The costs for those is equally as expensive as music for a small dev studio but you need tend to need a lot more graphics than music in your games so I'm sure you can imagine how pricey that gets.
Once you get a firm grasp of the coding, that part is pretty fast and simple. It looks as though this is the only part they actually did themselves although I don't know just how deep the level of assistance was that they got from the Wintermute forums.
The thing is, most of us indies go to great lenghts to ensure that what we are using is 'legal'. Not only have I purchased all the sound files that I use, but also talking directly to the creators of fonts used in the game to make sure I can use them for a game. In some cases they are fine with it and say I can, in others it requires a purchase. We don't have a huge budget or teams working on these things, so it's not like we can have so and so work on custom fonts or have another department handle all of the custom music/sounds. There are freelancers out there that do these things and offer their services. Generally the rule of thumb for getting custom music for a game is going to cost you $400-$800 PER MINUTE of music that you use if you want to go with them. There are others that are less expensive, but that price range seems to be the norm. Either way, we make sure what we are using that we didn't create ourselves is legal and ok'd by the original creator of those assets.
The only corners we really cut are in trying to do some things ourselves instead of hiring out because we have to. Many times the game will suffer for it because we aren't necessarily the best (or even slightly good) at doing certain things and we can only hope that in going overboard on where our strengths lie (Story?, puzzle design?) that most people will overlook our weaknesses.
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 12:14am |
alkis21Schattenjger
Posts : 2112
Joined: 23 OCT 2002
Location: GR
Status : Offline | Dave, I started typing an answer but then I realized that Ivinia summed everything up nicely. I will only add this: If I followed their "example", I could easily produce a new game every four months, considering I already have two scripts almost 100% ready. Plus I'd be much richer.
Originally Posted By Ivinia (13 JUN 2008 10:16pm)
It looks as though this is the only part they actually did themselves although I don't know just how deep the level of assistance was that they got from the Wintermute forums.
I have a friend in the Wintermute forum and he's telling me that are A LOT of people are kicking themselves for all the work they did for them.
Does anyone know whether there have been any official reactions/statements from the companies who had their material stolen?
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 1:03am |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4941
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Ivinia, thanks for the information. This should set a pretty good example for anyone else thinking of doing this. The present state of the internet allows people to compare information to find out if something is true at a speed exponentially greater than even 10 years ago- and then spreads the results like wildfire.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 7:14am |
NikolasIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 40
Joined: 20 JUL 2007
Status : Online | I think that pretty much everything has been said about this awful example of either greed or stupidity! Seeing the pics of those 3 guys, I can't really believe they were just greedy, but just moronicly stupid who didn't think that selling the game would create huge of problems. It's not even worth discussing it I think, since we're giving too much exposition to a louse situation (regarding the developers)!
Now, discussing the creation of computer games, indie or not, is another issue! Ivinia is very true to what he says in everything. Just wanted to add that in general, "you get what you pay". There, certainly are, free midis, or even mp3s floating the net, as well as sfx, and textures and everything. Bringing them up the extra notch to make it work is the tough job! And sfx can be huge work, even if it doesn't seem so!
But what is most important, in my opinion, in the Limbo case, is the bloody publishers! I won't accept for a second that a publishing company had absolutely no idea! I won't accept that a publishing company wasn't wise enough to spot at least the incoherencies in style! I won't accept that the publishing company was just 'taken for a ride', sort of speak, without their knowledge! If this is the case, I hope they close down! I expect the publishers to be knowledgable, to be 'wise', in what they do, to be aware of possible problems. And I sure hope for them that the contract between them and majestic howit'scalled has this clause that the publishers won't be held responsible in case of illegal activities, or copyright infrigment, etc. I always put in my contracts a clause like that. Last thing I want is the developers being accused for something that I did in the music I make!
So, the story seems to go like this:
10 years ago: Hey! Let's make a game
3 years ago: Hey! We can use stuff from other games. Who cares? Our game is tiny, nobody will know, we're only having fun
1 year ago: Hey! Somebody wants to sell out game! Our game MUST be good (bloody publishers)! They didn't have any problem with the graphics issue, why should we?
now: Whoops!
Alkis: Unofficial comment is that Bethesda legal team is looking into the matter. Nothing else (and good for them, btw)
http://www.nikolas-sideris.com&&http://www.cgempire.com
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 2:36pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | I would almost agree with you Nikolas, except that in most, if not all, contracts there is a section that states you are the original creator/copyright holder of the material/assets and/or have legal rights to use material that you did not create (ie, you licensed the use of them from someone else).
It's not the publishers job to do research on your game to make sure it is legal and that you didn't steal anything. They cover themselves by putting something like I mentioned in the first paragraph and putting the burden of proof on the developers shoulders. If the developers signed the contract, they are the ones this falls on. If the particular publishers that they signed with didn't have this stipulation in the contract (which I seriously doubt they would forget this), then this could get real sticky.
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 6:43pm |
Taurnil MithrandirJourneyman
Posts : 1093
Joined: 13 AUG 2006
Status : Online | I actually read about the Limbo of the Lost issue just yesterday and I didn't know if I had to laugh or consider the seriousness of this particular situation. Can't decide yet!
....set the controls for the heart of the sun....
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 7:22pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4941
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | I don't think the publishers have anything to apologize for other than having innocently published a derivative work. If publishers had to go through the type of investigation to try to prevent this from happening, the costs involved would only serve to decrease their willingness to publish the works of small-size/indie developers.
No, the responsibility for this debacle rests entirely on the shoulders of the developers. I might add that this result seems to only reinforce the lack of substance/integrity that was part of the thread that Ivinia referred to in the opening post.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 7:55pm |
NikolasIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 40
Joined: 20 JUL 2007
Status : Online | Dunno guys...
Shouldn't a publisher play the game about to be published? Shouldn't they have some control over the game? I know of published games and the control is very strict! There's not much artistic license really! (not self published). It just seems strange that nobody noticed anything.
Certainly, Inivia there should be a clause like what you say. I already mentioned that I put it and I know that most people do that same thing. It's only the way to protect our (and their) a$$es... I don't think they'll get any immediate trouble over this, but they might (if not already) get their reputation spoilt (talking about the publishers here). And while I'm naive to no end, I don't buy such huge mishappening on behalf of the publishers. Maybe I'm too much against publishing, as a general idea, dunno!
http://www.nikolas-sideris.com&&http://www.cgempire.com
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 9:33pm |
IviniaGuild Master
Posts : 4459
Joined: 7 JUN 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | Here's a question, which publisher? G2 maybe, but certainly not Tri Synergy. At the point that Tri-Synergy grabbed it for North American distribution, G2 had already been publishing it. In addition to the extreme likeliness that the developer signed a clause that says they are the creators and copyright holders, Tri Synergy also had the assurance that another large european publisher was already selling it. The odd thing is that G2 seems to still be publishing it while TriSynergy has pulled it.
When all of that stuff was going on in these forums with those little stunts I kept getting the sneakiest suspicion that it was SO fishy that I wondered if it was even their game. I wondered several times if they had stolen it from someone else and were trying to sell as many copies as they could before they got caught. The reason being was that copies seemed to get shipped from different parts of the world - mainly Singapore and I believe Hong Kong. Anyone who knows anything about that part of the world knows that piracy is rampant. (That was bad feeling #1) If you wanted to buy the game, the developers were telling people to purchase it on EBay. Huh? Even with their generic geocities website they still could have sold the game via their site using PayPal. Why throw EBay into the mix? (Bad feeling #2) No one had ever heard of this game, yet it had been in dev for over 10 years. No 'in development' period like we are used to seeing. Bang! From out of nowhere here they are with a huge game and it's ready to go. (Bad feeling #3) The fiasco with the differnet screen names on the forums. This whole thing seemed like a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Something just wasn't right - and numerous people said something was fishy about how this was being handled. While I sat here wondering if they even did the game or stole it from some other developer, never did it cross my mind that they seem to have stolen from NUMEROUS developers and pieced it all together from other AAA games.
I'm not worried about publishers being afraid to deal with indies. I do think that in the end it will be Tri-Synergy that gets hurt because what developer is going to want to sign with them? I would think that developers would have to seriously consider taking the risk that their game is goiing to be unreasonably scrutinized by the gaming public if they signed with TriSynergy. Any game they decide to publish is going to be looked at closely by the web and people are going to do extreme stretches of logic to say some game copied X from Y. There are many cases of developers using the same textures from some texture pack, the same fonts from some font pack, or being inspired by other things in their games. Who here doesn't think that the main character in Dead Reefs looked like Johnny Depp? If you look hard enough, any game you play is going to seem similar to something else. Heck, I've got the same texture pack that the guys who did Aura used. I was playing that game and saying, "Hey! I recognize those floor tiles! They are from the 3dTotal Texture CDs. " That's not stealing, just like 2 games using Arial fonts haven't stolen from each other.
In the case of Limbo though, these are obvious rips.
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| 14 JUN 2008 at 10:40pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 6693
Joined: 16 OCT 2004
Location: US, Texas
Status : Offline | .
Just like architects and building contractors can legally use a variety of existing materials for structural components, interior details, and exterior finishes, game developers can choose to employ any number of existing elements - just so long as they pay for them and get permission to use any copyrighted / trademarked / patented products like commercial 3D engines, stock texture packs, type fonts, and drop-needle music or sound effects. They can also borrow heavily from a huge array of exisiting story, design, and gameplay concepts for inspiration in virtually every area.
They can not however use specific in-game items, level designs, puzzles, characters / character models, animations, dialog or other unique copyrighted components without a license. It would appear that these guys pirated the MAJORITY of graphic content and possibly other media like sound clips. So they clearly broke the law and only a bunch of complete idiots would be unaware that they were doing so.
As far as the publishers go, they share a responsibility to screen for illegal materials used in the games they test, package, market, distribute, and sell - just like book publishers, film studios, TV networks, and record companies.
Regardless of what their individual developer contracts say, failing to do this makes them look really incompetent. It most certainly injures their reputation with the industry, investors, the media, and the public - plus it hurts their bottom line.
In this case, I doubt any criminal acts were committed by the publishers. But they sure came off looking stupid didn't they?
Cheers, Terry
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| 15 JUN 2008 at 9:04am |
KarstenSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 347
Joined: 23 SEP 2006
Location: DK
Status : Offline | I think that there's some holiday going on in the UK right now? so we might not see a response from G2 before tomorrow or during the next week...
Everyone can, as Terry & Ivinia said, legally use arial fonts in their games or 3D soundclips as long as they pay for them. (But didn't Bethesda use free middleware textures for Oblivion? as did STALKER ? I think STALKER used the same freeware textures? or did they pay for the use of these textures?)
I'm remebering that someone once said that there's only 8-10 truly original stories in the world (maybe 16-20, if you count the stories from East Asia, too). And that every other story is just an extension or a re-arranging of these stories. If you look at the story behind Limbo of The Lost it really asks this question: Do men have free will ? This story harkens back to the days of the book of Job, as the story about a man going into the depths of Hell clearly is inspired by Dante's The Divine Comedy. This is, of course, OK. What is NOT OK, is their blatant ripoff from other games' textures, level designs, or dialog + sound clips etc. etc. This is simply a big :nono:
It is very interesting, though, that it is a fan (of Oblivion and an avid gamer) that did recognize the stolent art and level designs from Oblivion used in Limbo of the Lost, not the publishers. Heck, even I did not notice it - and I have played a lot of Oblivion.
But I can see that the counter used in one the screens for Limbo of the Lost is exactly the same counter as is used in one of Oblivion's shops. I think they have been very clever when they stole these things. (I won't do this ever - of course...) They have stolen from varius & numerous games, room here, a picture here, a sound clip here, a dialogue there etc. etc. And they have just re-arranged them. If they have used assets etc. from a single game, say Oblivion, they would of course have been caught by the
publisher as it is much easier to discover this than when people steal content from other games to use in their own game as the makers of Limbo of the Lost did. [I won't call them creators, since they are clearly not > ].
As for G2, the UK publisher, I thought that the publisher only gives the devs. say ½ of the money, then the other half of the money will be paid when the devs. have reached the milestones set by the publishers say when chapter 3 is finished or when the sound is finished. If G2, the UK publisher, did not do this, but just handed the devs. (the three guys) all of the money, to me, this is simply asking for trouble.
If you search the internet using google for LImbo of the Lost+youtube you can see the first 10 minutes of the gameplay. I did. It itsn't very good. I clearly recognized at least some of the corridors from Oblivion, the character animations are done very poorly.
And I don't understand what the talking heads are saying.
The games starts as Oblivion does, with your character in jail. However, this could just as eaily be inspired by Oblivion as many games, books and movies have the character start in jail, or with the character having some sort of amnesia. Angel Devoid,
PS: Torment & many more games do this. I believe that Mask of the Betrayer also have the player waking up with amnesia;
In BG2 you're start in dungeon (jail). Just to say that this is an uncommon as people might think.
What is unheard off, though, and what is a total disgrace & shame is that they ripped off i.e. stole content (art assets etc) from as many games as they did. I'm very mad > right now... These guys are clearly criminals and should be dealt with accordingly.
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