While I really hope this comes out… I’m also half-expecting a Cease and Desist letter if this project gains enough traction.
Fighting is Magic, Pokemon Uranium, AM2R, I’ve seen many fan games get taken down by their IP holders.
Then again, I’m not sure how LEGO would exactly handle it. Most fan games I know of have been taken down by Nintendo, which is infamously aggressive when it comes to copyright. Meanwhile, Valve has fan projects like Black Mesa and Hunt Down The Freeman on their Steam store page, so I don’t know.
If you guys want to give critcisims about the game, you can join the creator’s Discord server (linked in the video’s description) and talk to him about your concerns.
I have, and I’ve even applied for a development role. Crainy’s taking a break atm and every comment made is swiftly buried under people gushing about the game.
That’s not a concern because Crainy doesn’t profit from this. This is a free game, so there’s no grounds for a copyright claim.
I won’t pretend to be a legal expert, but that’s not really how it works. Making it free lowers the risk, but you’re still using someone else’s IP. Most fan games are free yet they still get shut down.
My understanding is that an IP holder must protect their copyright or else they could potentially lose their trademark or ownership of said IP. Let’s say a video game developer tries to make an unlicensed BIONICLE game and LEGO tries to sue them in court. The defense could point to this project and say “Well, why are you blocking our unlicensed game when you allowed other violations of your copyright to be published?”
LEGO could always plead ignorance, say that they weren’t aware of its existence, but that defense becomes less and less credible the more and more spotlight the fan project gets. Fighting is Magic, a MLP fan game, was just a few days away from release… but then video game sites started making articles about it – and if large websites are making articles about your IP violations, ignorance isn’t going to hold up in court.
No offense to Masks of Power, but these visuals leave my speechless, & the combat is fluid. This thing had been worked on in secret for 6 years—before G2 even began—and then drop-announced cold-turkey on YouTube.
The only words I can think of to accurately describe my reaction is, “A sucker punch of joy!”
Haven’t there been plenty of fan games in the past that haven’t been shut down? Like, Metru Nui Online Game or Masks of Power? I do not know the status of these games right now, so I can easily be wrong.
How aggressive IP holders are tend to vary from company to company. Some are lax while others like Nintendo and Disney are completely ruthless. But you are kind of right. LEGO is company that prides itself on creativity, so it would be hypocritical to routinely shut down fan projects, and I don’t know any of any case of them doing so. However, most of those projects are only known to those deep in the BIONICLE community.
I’m not saying a C&D is 100% guaranteed to happen. It’s just a possibility to be aware of, especially if they get too much attention…
I think it’s worth to mention that Nintendo’s primary business is making and selling games. Therefore they do not really appreciate, when fans make games that provide an equal gaming experience for free.
Lego on the other hand, as I heard it, is making sure that the fan products are not to be believed to be official by public. They can be really defensive when it comes to the brick-logo-trademark. And sometimes a giant disclaimer could be not enough for them.
However I think Bionicle is safer than other themes just because there are currently no official Bionicle products known to be launched. At least no traditional ones.
Sorry for the bad grammar again.
By the way, is Legend of Mata Nui rebuilt still online?
The controls look super unintuitive without a fancy mouse with extra buttons, but the actual system looks pretty good. I just hope the different Toa have different playstyles and combos.
Copyright law be like: “You want to take down this game that’s clearly profiting off of your IP and is illegal? You can’t do that unless you’ve taken first down a bunch of innocent not-for-profit projects that are totally fine, too.”
I actually wonder about controller support. It seems like the perfect game to play on a controller, but the combat actions alone would take up all the face buttons and a shoulder button or two.
Melee Attack : Square/X
Dodge: X/A
Heavy Attack: Triangle/Y
Elemental Attack : Circle/B
Special Rush: R1/RB
Special Breaker: Hold Special Rush
Special Heavy: R1/RB + Triangle/Y
Select Mask: L1/LB
Use Mask: L2/LT
Currently one trigger and two stick buttons are left, along with the Pause/Start button.
I’ve seen a lot of people asking for control remapping too, so hopefully that gets implemented (it’s good for any game to have to be accessible).
As I said before, I like the combat system (I’m always a big fan of melee attacks and dodging). I do feel like it’s currently missing a bit of a vertical element, though, and I think that will be more apparent with the more agile Toa like Pohatu and Lewa. It also kinda disappoints me that, from what I’ve seen so far, every Toa has the same move-set, just with different animations and effects (this is kinda made worse by the fact that once you have all the masks, your choice of Toa will likely have very little effect on gameplay).
But otherwise, it’s looking cool. The press reaction is also intriguing.
######Of course, my computer probably can’t handle the game anyways, so I’ll probably never play it.
