Recently I’ve begun development of a game along with some friends called Incarnam, it’s a ffa fighting game heavily based on a different game called Critical Strike.
However when our game finally started getting attention, even if it was as little as having 30 - 40 players, the developer of Critical Strike approached us to tell us that our game is using stolen assets from his game, and that he will email roblox to take it down and ban us if we do not shut it down ourselves.
Although this sounds silly, he has already reported another game that went by the name of Cracked Strike and managed to both take it down and get the owner of that game terminated.
Of course hearing from all of this scared us and made us feel unsure of what to do, so I would like to know. Is he really able to shut down our game? And what would the best action to do in this situation be?
Here’s the links to both games, if any of you are interested on checking them out by yourselves.
The game does not uses stolen assets but merely recreated ones, we have already told the creator and showed him proof that the scripts we are using were made by us, but he refuses to believe us.
If you didn’t use stolen assets, he can’t get your game taken down. If by some chance a moderator believes you stolen assets as well, just appeal your ban and explain the situation.
From first impressions, there’s nothing 1:1 identical between the two games, but try changing the ui a bit–that doesn’t look good on your part. It makes it seem like you directly salvaged the scripts from his work.
Speaking and negotiating with him is acknowledging the crime. He’ll try to get you to confess something, then wield it against you if he tries to press his case. Don’t communicate through roblox private message at the very least, since it could be used as evidence. Ensure the take-downs and terminations you’re hearing about aren’t just rumors or were indeed justified actions toward direct clones. In the end, he’s got a slim chance of succeeding, being that the overall appearance differ enough. Don’t get the impression he’s got roblox moderators in his pocket, trust me, even big-time developers aren’t royalty or prioritized. On another note, If his actual stuff is posted on the public toolbox, then it’s all fair game. Overall, I would not worry about it.
If you are utilizing assets that are not free models then yes your game is subject to be taken down. The interesting thing to note is that if you are utilizing free models in your game then the owner cannot do anything. By making that model free the owner of it subjects it as open source, meaning that anyone can change and use it as they see fit. This is seen here:
You are not using any assets you did not directly commissioned for, made, or are available to the Roblox market.
You did not use any scripts that are from the original game.
You did not directly take the name of the original game.
You are allowed to create games on Roblox that are similar or influenced by other games. If this were not allowed then games like Mad Murder and Murder Mystery 2 would not exist.
What the owner is threatening is merely scare tactics. They don’t want competition on the market and so they are trying to get the competition taken down.
If the owner does end up getting your game taken down you can appeal to Roblox. I would suggest thoroughly going through your game and through Roblox’s terms and conditions to make sure everything is secure.
I think you should be safe as long as you aren’t directly ripping off the game, and even then if nothing is stolen you should be able to go ahead with your game.
If you aren’t using stolen assets, you aren’t using stolen assets. Stop worrying and ignore the threat. If you get wrongly punished, touch down with Roblox Support to resolve the issue. It’s absurd that you would get terminated for no clear rules violations.
The thing is that since your game is heavily inspired by Critical Strike, you need to tread very carefully. If your games look similar or you’re recreating things off their game material, that’s remixing their material and they’re within reason to take you down - it is their IP. Change up your game and its aesthetic so it is very clearly different.
I’m quite sure that Cracked Strike is literally a stolen reproduction of Critical Strike which is why that game was able to be removed from the site. I have no citation and I just watched some videos, so don’t quote me there.
I was under the impression that recreating an idea (based on someone else’s IP) was only illegal under the circumstance that the IP was copyrighted.
Although, I am sure if you mimic’d a game to the point that it looked and functioned so similarly to the IP to the extent that the assets looked stolen, that it would be hard for Roblox or a court to determine whether your game was using stolen assets, or mimic’d assets. Thus potentially resulting in the games removal, your account’s termination, and in the case of court, you getting sued.
I would agree with @colbert2677 that the OP should absolutely ensure that any similar assets should be made unique is some way so that they are not as easily compared between the two IP.
Edit: According to Copyright.gov, your work is under copyright protection (in the US), as soon as it is created. In the court of law they require it to be registered within 5 years, but otherwise you are automatically legally protected just by creating it.
Edit of edit: The other developer’s work was under copyright protection before you, which indicates that you cannot mimic his content and assets too closely. What is considered too close is highly under debate and varies from case to case, but generally;
Why are you heavily basing your game off someone else’s? This isn’t an attack, but you’re just unnecessarily trying to compete with a game that is pretty successful, and you’re just going to deteriorate relations with that creator. Having original concepts in your game will be much better, and won’t be seen by people as a rip off of his game. You can easily make changes to your game so that it isn’t seen as a “clone of critical strike”, and make a name for itself.
Keep in mind, you’ll also be at risk of gaining negative attention from critical strikes community.
Even if it is a recreation, if it is convincing enough he will probably be able to take it down, especially if the common player can’t tell the difference.
In your situation, it is just better to try and communicate with the creator of critical strike rather than gambling on the chance that it could slide.
Take these three games for example: fortnite, pub g, and Strucid. These three games are awfully similar, and the only things that are different are basically how the map looks(aesthetics wise only). If you are having the same idea as some other game, and if you slightly change the idea of the game, whilst not using the assets from that game, then they have no right to strike the game down.
Since critical strike is an arena fighting game for classes, me and my friends wanted to create a game of a similar style, but with completely different classes and changes to the combat.
We didn’t really intend to compete against critical strike as much as we just wanted to have a game of our own where we could put our ideas, it’s mainly just a passion project.
We are currently trying to make our relations with the creator of critical strike better since after all he’s the one that inspired us to make this game, he has told us to change alot of stuff in order to make our game look less like his, and we have.But he doesn’t seem up to talk with anymore
If it is a passion project, or just a thing that you and your friends made cause you like the game style then it probably wouldn’t hurt to mention it was inspired, and to be soft with monetisation. Just my opinion.
Thanks for the advice, we’ll put that it’s inspired in the game description, in all honesty we forgot to do it. And as for monetization we only have private servers enabled and mostly because players asked for them to be enabled, we don’t really intend to make any profit out of the game. At least not for now
Excuse my unprofessional tone, but that’s just silly.
Unless you’re using actual code, or you’re mimicking their game exactly, and it’s your own IP. Then you’re fine. And frankly, if they actually told you “This is too similar to our game, we’re gonna get you terminated if you don’t do what we say!” I think they should be ashamed of themselves because this is just a scare tactic.
I would go as far to say as to inform Developer Relations of this. Get their input on the situation.
Your music is different, your graphics are different, your classes are definitely similar but that’s fine. The 3-action shot really reminded me of the gunner class in Critical Strike. I definitely feel a totally different tone in this game though.
I’d say you’re fine as long as you and your friends made everything in this game.
DISCLAIMER:
From personal experience, I’ve had MANY cases of people trying to make games with their friends, and then their friend lies about making something and it was really stolen from another game, but the others didn’t know, but got punished anyways.
Note:
I tried this game out and I really love the mirror class, Illusionist. I love using my reverse uno card at the last moment.
Unless Critical Strike’s creator can create damning evidence that your game is using assets that were stolen from him, you are at no risk of being taken down. I’d still be weary and temporarily remove anything that was recreated from his game so-long as it won’t directly interfere with game play.
Thanks for the advice, i’ll be looking into doing so and changing stuff up so that we can be a completely different game, mainly changing more stuff to the combat.
We’ve been thinking about changing even more stuff so that the game can become more independant, including some mechanics that are key to critical strike such as the map becoming just a tiny platform at the end.
