Would I be in danger of copyright violations if I continued the game series of a terminated developer?

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#1

For privacy reasons, I am not going to directly mention the developer, his studio, or the game by name.

A few years ago I had the honor of being a developer for an extremely prestigious development studio. This team was assembled to build a single game, and never designed another thing after that.

The game we made ended up getting to the front page, amassed millions of visits, and even got featured on the blog.

However, the developer who owned the studio that made the game, and who owned the game itself. (It was uploaded to his account rather than the group place) got banned from the site and will never return I’m certain.

The game series is something I thoroughly enjoyed and I’d love to make another installment of it. I’m worried that if I make another game based off the original that I could be subject to copyright and de-monetization if it truly does as well as I think it would. I wondered if this scenario had been encountered before and what would happen if I chose to proceed.

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#2

Know that the developer forums will always be the wrong place for legal advice. Nobody here is a lawyer.

That being said, while the original game developer owns their own IP and fan games do not qualify under fair use¹, it’s unlikely the developer will DMCA you or take your game down.

¹ While this link is a Tweet, the author is a lawyer who has also done podcasts on the topic if you’re interested.

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#3

@Unresolved If their game was taken down due to copyright, you may copy the mechenic in their game, but you will have to change a couple things, like for example, Blox Surfer was a copy of Subway Surfers, but they changed the title of the game and some characters in the game.Remember, basic game mechanics can’t be copyright, but original assets are. As stated in the UN national declaration of human rights, "You are entitled to copyright and protection of your work."

#4

Just to clarify, the developer was terminated for character issues. The game is still up on Roblox.

And this game in particular is solely on roblox it isn’t an offsite game.

It would be the same as if hypothetically the Badimo devs got terminated and I made a Prison Break 2

#5

It will still be the same, you can copy basic mechanics but not specific ideas. That is how we end up with alot of simulator games.

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#6

What what what? You’re totally allowed to take ideas.

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#7

Example, specific ideas such as “Meeps” , you can’t take that.

#8

That’s not an idea, that’s a copyright.

#9

A post was merged into an existing topic: Off-topic and bump posts

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#10

The solution you marked is the best advise you’re going to get. Do some of your own research, maybe talk to a professional :man_shrugging:

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#11

To wrap it up: The concept itself isn’t copyrighted. But the assets of the game is. You may use the same concept, however, I recommend you to use some ideas of your own but it’s not copyrighted. But any use of assets from the game you are referring to are copyrighted and will most likely cause issues. An example would be soccer with vehicles (one of my current projects). You’ll probably think of Rocket League, but if I use my own assets I have all right to make a game with such concept. I hope this makes it easier to understand.

(I’m not a lawyer but I have done some research on the matter)

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