Hello,
I’ve been developing for a while a game based on the universe of “The Mandalorian” (a Star War serie) with my partner. The concept in term of gameplay is “original” and not taken from any other game, whether roblox or outside. Although we develop everything ourselves, we obviously do not own any Disney right and hence we have three related important questions:
Could our game one day be shutdown by Disney / Roblox?
Would a simple disclaimer in the description do the trick?
Will we be allowed to DevEx?
On closer inspection, a large part of popular games are based on animes or real game concepts so we shouldn’t have issues but answers to these three questions will be of great help to see more clearly!
Thanks a lot.
Disclaimer: I’ll be using IP as reference to Intellectual Property. Also, I’m not a lawyer so please do not quote me.
Probably yes. According to the big vine, they’re quite protective of their IP.
Nope. If you don’t have physical proof of them agreeing for you to use their stuff, you’ll still be taken down.
For now yes but if you get slapped with a DMCA by Disney, you probably won’t be able to. Roblox double downs on protecting IP of other companies if there’s a threat of a potential lawsuit.
That is a huge misconception. Let’s say that you see people stealing danishes from a bakery. Is it ok for you to also do that just because others do it? IP is protected by International Copyright Laws and infringing on it may give you just as much problems as stealing danishes from a bakery. If you need more proof, just look at the trouble a YouTuber Suzy Lu’s going through with her channel’s facing because of Japanese anime companies are rightfully DMCA’ing her. If you want an example closer to home, look at Pokemon Brick Bronze.
I really don’t recommend it. Disney is going crazy over event eh smallest things. For example, they copyrighted all the sheet music on this website even though it is original work and not copies. The sad thing is, copyright is getting out of hand.
Advice: Say it’s a Star Wars based game in the description. Give it another name. It should protect you and put whatever Star Wars stuff in-game. I doubt Disney will join any Roblox game.
First of all, thanks for your answer.
So according to you it is very dangerous to do it. And if I make real money out of it, it could become a serious issue for me IRL.
I was actually expecting this kind of answer. But then, if I do not intend to make real money out of it Disney shouldn’t strike me, am I right ? It would be the same as any genre/ RP group with non lucrative purposes.
But I want to come back on what I said about anime games and what you answered. As an exemple, DBZ final stand has been on the front page for over a year now. And a lot of My hero academia/one piece games remained popular without being shut down on roblox. And all theses games are not changing anything about the anime in question. So what’s the difference between brick bronze and these anime games, why was one shutdown and not the other.
Yeah but Disney has been pretty “active” with roblox, with events as an exemple. And if the game becomes popular, roblox will see it anyways and won’t risk to go in justice with Disney.
One thing I have to note, no… ROBLOX would not have to shut down because of a Copyright issue with Disney or any other company at that matter.
What would most likely happen is the game that caused them to get involved would get shut down. Just like the Pokemon game that got too hot and Pokemon wasn’t thrilled with.
No game is truly original. Jailbreak is a good example as it’s a mock of the popular Cops VS Robbers with a lot of upgrades.
Battlefield and Call of Duty are copies of America’s Army.
ROBLOX is a creative outlet for people to express stuff.
Hell, the Tom Clancy games are all from Tom Clancy’s books.
Nothing is original in today’s society.
I don’t recommend making the game but if you really want to do it, I suggest you try to reach out to Disney and ask if they’d be ok with it. I do believe that you’ll probably going to have to pay for licensing too so I hope that you have some few thousand dollars stashed somewhere
Indeed. As the game is 80% done, Ill probably work a bit on the game so people can play, because a lot of fans are waiting for it but I won’t monetize it at all. If one day it encounters issues, It will only get shutdown and end of the story… Thanks for your answers.
Because Robux has actual USD value, even with Robux it’d still consider making money off of their IP.
You can make a game based off of their IP, but you cannot use their IP.
Volt is a game based off of Tron, but they do not use Tron’s name (besides saying it’s inspired by) and use no assets from the Tron series, or the IP. I’m not sure if the bikes are protected by copyright, which is why they’re being used. Though you can modify things slightly like the Red Hyperbike where you can tell what it is while it still not falling under their IP.
The anime games are up because the owners of the IP have not requested to take them down. & They don’t typically have major histories of requesting take downs on sites. However, Disney is known for requesting DMCA take downs and is known for being VERY protective of it. I’m not sure if it’s a risk you want to take.
I probably won’t. I was expecting it since I started the project. But as it is almost done I’ll finish it but won’t monetize it as I said before. Then I’ll work on an original project, being very careful about what I do…
Thanks for the help.
Speaking as someone who is heavily involved personally with Disney and their intellectual property pursuits, I’m going to give an almost-final answer to Disney-related copyright questions.
Disney will DMCA anything that infringes on their intellectual property because if they let some people get away with it, they lose the right to protect that property. Do not ever use Disney intellectual property in your game unless you have a signed contract giving you that privilege.
Disney practically wrote modern IP Law, as Walt was paranoid about losing his beloved mouse the same way he lost Oswald. As a result, even if you try to argue that you can legally use a certain IP, Disney knows the law better than just about anyone.
In regards to DevEx(This I cannot speak with certainty on), the above post regarding the USD equivalent of Robux is mostly right. But all of these are solved by just not using Disney IP
I hope this helps. Good luck!
EDIT: In response to not monetizing it, it really doesn’t matter. You earn ROBUX off people visiting the game, thereby subjecting it to DMCA requests. I strongly recommend not releasing the game publicly.
Indeed. I’ve seen a lot of developers wondering about the same thing so your answer is very helpful.
This is a real risk and a waste of time and money.
Yeah I wanted to just not make any gamepass and in game transaction so I don’t get any revenues from it. But with the recent “roblox premium thing” we now get robux, even if its a really low amount, if peole play… So indeed it will be an issue. But then, it will also become an issue for every single SW RP group on roblox. And yes, there are a lot of group like this, not intending to make money out of it.
Anyways, I know have my answer, even if it’s really bad for me and thanks again.
