Stargate : The New Enemy

Hi all!

I am a member of the team Mach Cration. I write a post here because we are looking for Mappeurs, Progammers (principally for a multiplayer mod), Texture makers and 3D Animators (for the characters). We are creating a game on the universe of Stargate. I would like to underline that our job is very SERIOUS and we are working for free ! This the link to our website : http://sgtne.mach-creation.com/ . Our game will be a FPS with a multiplayer mod and some patch will be regularly done. In this game you will be able to control a member of the team SG-1 and some vehicules such as a : MALP. What ever your nationality is : WE WANT YOU. For more informations let's visit our website.


A little picture to present our job :

OK?! I think you should post this in the JOBS OFFERED FORUM....Could a moderator move this tread??

No, let's it here, that's a way to also present the game. However you are right i am going to create a new topic in the subject jobs offered . Thank you

Looks nice.

Does that mean you already have the rights for using the stargate trademark and the logo? If not this could get expensive for you.

@ChrisB: look at their page... they have a good disclaimer (i m not familiar with the community conditions to this sign and the trademark - but it seems better then with "warhammer", for ex.

http://sgtne.mach-creation.com/p1d_358_en.html
I thought dennis (helghast) and lennart (lennart_hillen) made that level for a contest in 2007?

Anyhow, pretty nice concept already, but the disclaimer doesn't look very convincing of you ask me...

ChrisB warning is dead on: with SGW in production, I'm sure they don't want anyone to confuse their game with yours and since you are using 100% of their copyright, that can be the case.

Re: the disclaimer:

1) You state "Stargate SG-1" is the only trademark. Weeeellll, the stylized "A" and the movie "Stargate" are very likely trademarked so this point is wrong.

2) You state that you are students and working for free with no commercial intent. This is irrelevant for purposes of copyright. If you make a CRAPPY game and put it out there under the Sci-Fi Egyptian moniker of "Stargate", then you tarnish the rep of the real SG people even if you don't charge a dime. And then they can come after you for "damages" related to the loss of sales due to poor public opinion of their copyright due to your game. Not pretty, eh?

3) You use the "Fair Use" clause of copyright law to justify your use of copyrighted sounds and material. Unfortunately, your work is not a pastiche since you are using 100% Stargate copyrighted material. A pastiche would be if you wanted to mash up Star Trek with Star Gate and Star Wars... neither is it a parody or a caricature. You could argue that it is for educational purposes, but then you would have to show that a school is behind your efforts. Hence your game does not fall under the "Fair Use" clause.

4) Finally, I find it a bit hypocritical that you would feel free to use SG's copyrighted material but then in the last two lines forbid others from using YOUR trademarks and copyrights. Doesn't feel good when others use your hard work for their own without your permission does it? Then why do the same to the SG copyright people?

You seem like a motivated, talented set of individuals. Don't waste your time on a project that infringes on someone elses copyright for that is just disrespectful to other artists like yourselves and could get you shut down at any time and all that effort is wasted.

wise words Fastlane

just call it "gate to the stars" then? like "mikel shoemaker" in F1 games that don't have an official license?

I doubt they'd win a court, seeing the objects they use are exact the same designs as those in SG1, I bet all SG's content fall under an artist copyright license.

Joozey, you are right concerning the map and we are going to ask the creator concerning the copyright. However to give an answer to your questions about the SG copyright : We are NOT going to SELL our game, it is only a free game for fans made by fans. Moreover concerning the copyright : if we take into account what fastlane69 said any modification for games such as : Half-Life (1 or 2) or Doom 3 .... would be prohibitten , isn't it ?? So, in this situation it appears that we have the right to do it. What it is very important, is what are we going to do with our game. The fact is , if we want to take benefit from our game we MUST buy the copyright ,but we are not in this case.

About the "for fans-by-fans" thing, there were other projects with the same idea around,
and as far as i remeber, at least two failed because of legal treatment.

If you do a search with the term stargate here, you should find some feedback on this topic.

to be exact here, Lennart did all this on his own, but used his style which can be found in our RPG project as well (TRoF - the Realms of Fantasy). But this was something he did on his own... however looking at these screens, they dont even look like they were changed, just badly photoshopped... whatever floats your boat man, but please ask lenn if you are allowed to showcase it as your stuff without giving credits (i know i wouldnt like that).

-dennis

The screen shots for P9L-958 are from the old GameStudio level building tutorial (which I had developed myself). While the level and textures are free for all GameStudio users to use, it seems to be poor judgment to blatantly use the level, unchanged, as a level for your game.

There was just an article in a magazine called "Gamestar" about abandonware and another one about fan projects.

They wrote that fan projects can be closed at all time (and they do especially if a brand still is in use). Sometimes they close their eyes but can stop such a project at every time. They mentioned a lot of examples where this happened. But sometimes a fan project survives (if the brand is almost dead).

A HL2 or other game modification is another story but still similar. Did you ever read the license of such games? Here is an example: If you make a modification for Enemy Territory - Quake Wars then every material that you put into this project automatically becomes a property of the original owners of this game. So all your textures and models become property of Atari as an example. They can stop your project, they can even sell it as their own and dont have to share the profit with you. All that would be possible.

This is the reason why I dont dare to render my models and textures in such game engines. The risk is simply too high.

But if you dont care and you do it only for the fame - then just continue.

That is an incorrect and potentially dangerous view of copyright. What your intentions are is irrelevant. Commercial or Free is irrelevant. The fact that you are using someone else's copyright without their permission is the only relevant fact.

The solution is quite simply really:

This is the email address to MGM's copyright department --
DMCA@MGM.com

or their snail mail --
MGM
10250 Constellation Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90067
Attn: Legal Department/DMCA Notices

If you plan on having a future in the games industry, you'll want to do right by your fellow colleagues, right? So why don't you settle this question once and for all and ask for permission directly?

not true, since in the license it says its allowed, plus like frank said, it also makes all your content useless because It gives them freedom take it all.

as far as using other peoples levels, it says in the progress bar that your level design is 75% done, lets hope the 75% is all your own maps, and that these are just test levels, if not then that is incredibly rude. especially that every map is marked as created by daniel74, thats straight up wrong and potential for legal trouble, because even if they were free, i have never saw free software were the license say, go ahead, take credit for making it as well.

Looks like they pulled the link on P9L-958. At least it is no longer working when I attempt to click it.

It appears they took off all the ones Im familiar with, maybe they were using them for prototyping, again, I just dont think they should have claimed on the pics taht they were made by someone else, the levels they do show are fairly nice, and I've never seen them before so good job on thme if your team made them. again tho you are on dangerous grounds to lose all your hard work with a quick cease and desist.

Even though it might be copyright breaching, it does look good and will be popular, as the original stargate game was cancelled.

Hello everybody ! =)

I'm the community manager of Mach Creation and we will remove maps that we have downloaded before in the website of 3D Game Studio, no problems It's quite understandable. Moreover, these are not the most important maps.

For the MGM, I can contact them and I'm going to do it

Thank you very much all ! =)

Best regards, X-303.

Hey X303(prometheus) , i have applied on your site did you recieve it. If not here's my email , deanwhitehouse6@hotmail.com

Please let us know what happens with them. I hope they let you go ahead with the project but even if not, it will still be very instructive for us to see how they deal with these issues.



But SGW is in Beta and thus I'm pretty sure they won't want "competition", especially unlicensed competition.

Hi Blade ! =)
I have many exams this month but you can see this with my colleague Maverick

Thanks !



Hi Fastlane69,
Yes, I know yet SGW is really a different game, this is a MMORPG and we make a FPS Besides, I know personally the senior community manager of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainement =)



No problems ! =)

Thank you very much,
Best regards, X-303.

But SGW is in Beta and thus I'm pretty sure they won't want "competition", especially unlicensed competition.

The orginal stargate game (the fps) that was cancelled due to funding, the mmorpg is as X303 said totally different , his game is closer to the original game, which is the main reason i am interested.

So it appears that we are not in such an impossible situation .

Concerning you Blade28081991, I will consider your demand tomorrow.

demand??

thanks, anyway

@X303 great to hear that your taking it all into consideration. You know your the first person making a fan based game that has instead of defending against the rules, but decided to actually make the contact, which is impressive. Seems to be a great job so far as well.

I don't know how things will turn out, but it just seems that these big companies simply don't want anyone else to work on projects with their ideas.

Hating to sound negative, but likely the response from MGM will be "we thank you for your enquiry, but we are not prepared at this time to license the SG franchise trademarks blah bla blah..."

This also comes from comapnies who arent doing anything with the properties :P

Sadly, it just seems that unless you make a full game first, then show it to the people involved, it's the only way theyll see what a good idea it is.

But who wants to spend some years on a project when they still can say 'no thanks' ? It sucks being the little guy, I tell ya

- Jason

I wonder if you were to ask them if you designed the full game, without releasing info , then got there approval (after it was finished) if they would allow it.

In terms of copyright and public perception, the game genre is irrelevant. What is relevant is that both titles will have the "stargate" moniker and thus both games will be considered, by the public, as coming from the same franchise (which is true).

And since the original copyright owners have no control over what un-licensed people do with that copyright, even if they made a side-scroller to avoid confusion with the MMOG, it would still carry the "Stargate" name and thus still be a problem.

Copyrights: easy to learn; a lifetime to master!

I agree. The usual mark of failure is continuing to defend your infringement. Regardless of the final outcome, you have impressed us (and others I'm sure) with your willingness to do things by the book.

And here is the bright side: if they do tell you to cease and desist, all you have to do is "tweak" the copyrighted material and you keep your game!

It's not a stargate, it's a "worldportal"; it's not carter, oneil and teal'c... it's smith, jones, and razmuse'n! Hell, you could even KEEP the names if you attempt to make the game into a parody of the series (you can use the "200" episode as a guide for how you could go about it). Teal'c would only be allowed to say "Indeed"... Carter can only speak in meaningless technobabble... O'neil, well, O'neil doesn't say much. If youc can pull the parady angle off, you can use all the copyrights and make your game (though commercialization is still out of the question)

You get my drift? You can keep 90% of the work you have done by simply coming up with an original background of your own. This is why making fan games NEVER made sense to me since it is much cooler to have your own ideas there. I guess the idea is that people will pay more attention to my with the SG label and that is true... but the SG people EARNED that attention and as future game designers, you don't want to be "leeches" and live off the hard work people have put into building the franchise up.

I'm sure you don't want us working on projects from your ideas, right? No different just because it's a big company.



Makes perfect sense. If you are an unknown, then how else are you going to show that you CAN do the job unless you've done it? Furthermore, as my previous post shows, you don't have to use others copyright to impress people. If the Mach team creates the game by tweaking what they have to avoid infringement, it is quite possible that the MGM people will take notice and take action and possibly allow the copyright in.



It's not about little or big. Quite simply, this issue boils down to respect for other peoples hard work. I'm positive that ABC, EA, or Trump would get the same treatment if they tried the same approach as Mach.

But you are right, why spend years on a project if it can be taken away at any time? This is why I discourage fan work and encourage original work!

I absolutely agree here. If you really want to make a fan game at the end but you dont want to lose your project then you should really start to make a similar game with different weapons, different persons and your own but similar designs. Then make it a fun game, at least an impressive working prototype! If that has been done then you can contact them and ask if they like your idea to change it into a fan game.

It is still more work if you really convert it but the risk to lose everything is smaller.

So catch the feeling of Startgate, make all that happen what you love when you watch it, make it just as enternaining as the original. Create a good sci-fi base, some interesting fantasy locations for remote planets and a very big range of different designs, exotic locations and an interesting story... Do you smell what a huge task that is even without any Stargate brand?

I thought you did the programming?
Well in the movie I saw butterflies flying around exactly as in lennart's demo. They don't fly without code .

I don't think just rendering your models in their engine for showcase gives them all the rights over your work, that's not possible... It's probably only when you would make an actual MOD (and it's not true for every engine out there, Unreal 3 engine does not have such a license afaik).

Also, if MOD teams use 3rd party model packs like yours, it won't be automatically be property of the engine creators either for sure.

A lot of guessing. The risk is still too high for me.

beside the obvious multiple copyright violation (maps/models by other users, making a fan game based on a tv series without a license, music on their website and possibly in the game), lack of ideas (why else would they take other user's maps), self-overestimation ("we are in beta" while thy obviously can still add/remove maps at will, and the map shots still look highly unfinished, esp. the egyptian things), a cheap logo ("the new enemy"), bad lighting in the vaccum-cleaned levels (check the website shots), no gameplay in the video, just mostly badly textured scenes, may i add my personal opinion: stargate sucks? but well. crappy series, crappy game. it matches.

hahaha, true, there's some code in there that's mine, but i didnt explicitly made that for his level, it just fitted in there and it was about art/level design, rather then programming now wasnt it hehehehee. either way, it's fine by me, that's what friends are for

regards,

Ok, thats not true stargate is awesome and you should give the game a chance and don't judge on what they have until it is finished.

Yeah, Stargate rocks. At least the concept of traveling through ancient mysterious dial-up gates and exploring unknown worlds. I only like the story, but this game does not yet have a story . Therefore, I can not like it yet either :P.

This is your opinion Broozar, I respect this yet you must respect also our game
Thanks.

1) The maps/models by other users are removed, they are help to make many tests in the beginning of the game
We make now ourselves the maps like the SGC, Abydos, Alpha Site, Hatak, etc. and the models.

2) We have never said that "we are in beta", I think that "we are in alpha"
That's why the game aren't gameplay for the moment. Our programmer codes the AI.



There is a story, this is even the asset of the game because we have taken the universe of Stargate but we have maked a new script with a veritable intrigue.

To conclude, I would like to show you the official presentation of the game : http://sgtne.mach-creation.com/about__en.html

I must say, you guys have a good amount of models and levels already. Keep up the good work

One quick comment, the SGC is a bit too clean.

But other than that good work, and thanks for replying to my application.

Yes, I understand, but this is not a whole storyline, rather a very short summary. Ofcourse you don't want to tell the whole story yet, and I don't know if there even is a storyline more than what you described here so it's hard to judge, but this is my impression of the game right now. It's not appealing to me to eagerly wait for the game to be finished, not the story nor the screenshots. It actually tells me that you haven't finished alot, and not even near to what you display on the website.

My apology if this all sound very negative, I do like the project and see potential in it (disregarding the copyright issues you will encounter :P), just telling you what I think is the down side of the project.

Thank you very much bstudio



I understand totally your position Joozey, no problems =)
Even if I hope that we will like the story when the game will be released

Thanks Joozey



Yes but the textures of the SGC are changing. We could see soon a new screen of the final SGC

Any news from MGM about it?

No for the moment Old_bill

I'm trying to keep you posted about the case =)