Hey evrybody, I'd like some gaming legal advice if I could. Over the summer I am planning to spend some time getting some game development experience. So I have decided to do a little project remaking a game from quite a few years ago into real 3D graphics. Its a massive game so I know I won't get it all finished by the end of the summer but hopefully it will get to a decent playable state (probably some kind of limited story demo version). I was just wondering if I am liable to get sued or soemthing along those lines if I end up putting it online for people to critique. cheers malachantrio

Google for projects that got 'foxed'.
Basically it comes to this: they won't sue you, but they can make you stop working on and distributing your game.

Go to download.com and search the arcade section. Just about every game is a knockoff of Asteroids, Breakout, Defender, Tetris, etc. There are very few games anymore that are new.

you can do remakes, just not straight copies. for instance, if you want a Super Mario Bros remake you can use any character but not Mario, no goombas, and definitely no Koopas. you can copy the gameplay, mechanics, scoring system, but not the characters. follow those rules and you'll be fine.

If you were to, say, remake Archon and you had the bad judgement of naming it Archon (or something that blatanly links your game to FreeFall's Archon), then yes, you would be asking for trouble.

If instead you reimplement the game, add something new, give it a new unrelated name and just say it's game similar to Archon when asked, then you're safe.

The key here is avoiding using the original trademark as a means to promote your own game.

but then again, I am not a lawyer.

Well, like most people here I'm not a lawyer either, but my understanding is that if you avoid any copyright, trademarks and patents you should be fine.

The core elements of the gameplay can't really be protected by copyright or trademarks, and are very rarely protected by a patent. Of course, if it is protected by a patent, you'll have to wait until it expires, but as I said it's pretty rare (only example that comes to mind is Magic the Gathering, U.S patent 5,662,332).

Avoiding copyright means don't use any of the original artwork, sound, music etc. To avoid trademark issues don't give the game a similar name to the original, avoid giving the characters the same names, and avoid giving the characters anyting 'iconic' to the original (i.e. don't just call your Mario-remake Super Marcus Brothers and only make the plumbers 'Marcus' and 'Ludwig' German or something!). Trademarks are a pain because if the original company hears about your project they HAVE to send a threatening letter just to keep the trademark (not because you are a threat).

Of course, if you fly under the radar of the company, particularly if the game you are remaking is very old, then there probably won't be any problems. Or you could ask for permission to be safe, but that might attract their attention. I don't think you need to worry about being sued if you aren't charging any money, but in the worst case they might force you to pull your game off the 'net.

What about games that are officially in abandonware state (ie being distributed as freeware by the company), and the company has dissolved itself? I am working on a remake of abuse by crack.com, is there any legal implication there since crack.com no longer exists?

Quote: I'd like some gaming legal advice if I could.

If you want legal advice, you HAVE to get it from a licensed legal professional in your state, after you pay him/her a retainer. Anything else could NOT be legal advice, and I wouldn't base legal decisions on it.

When it comes to copyright, the way I interpret it is that once you've created a unique expression, that unique expression is yours (unless you assign it). Doesn't matter if my company dissolves; it's still copyrighted works. Thus, I would expect images, sounds, large swaths of story, specific character traits, and other copyrightable parts ("works") to be held as protected in a court of law.

The other question I'd ask myself is how widespread my distribution would really be, how likely the copyright holder would be to go after me if they found out, and what I had to lose (which includes time, money and liberty).

A copyright gives its creator the SOLE right to create derivative work. A remake could eaily be considered derivative work and would be illegal. Just don't ever release it.