Is a fan-game attemptable?

Shnitzelator

Shnitzelator

Hi,

*Forgot to mention this but this is not just a spur of the moment idea, I started planning this before the reboot was even teased*

I'm someone that always loved the Saints Row Franchise and am currently thinking about making a prequel to Saints Row 1 (it would probably be based on the original Saints Row 2 idea volition had about making a game that would follow Julius and Ben King when they founded the Vice Kings in the 70's) but I am VERY concerned about my project either getting taken down or myself getting into legal trouble for it.

This is the main reason I am asking here for you guys' take on if my fears a genuine or if I'm just extrapolating on what I'm seeing from Rockstar/TakeTwo and other companies taking down fan-games and/or mods left and right. Would a fan-game be attemptable?, Does it matter if I put Saints Row in the title (cuz I was thinking about calling it something like "We Are The Vice Kings")?, Does it matter if I use Saints Row Characters? what would be my options here?

Thanks in advance
 
Very tricky, but if you try to play around the with game name then I think you'd be fine to go ahead with a project like that as long as you aren't making money from it.
 
The best advice I can give you is probably to never speak about it again so that when you do release it, people immediately have something to play. still risky, but 100% better than being C&D'd at the trailer stages wqhen the game is 70% there
 
Julian Small and Kenneth Royal star in "Rise of the Vice Royals"... That's all I'm gonna say.

Featuring: Tina Chills, Will Warrens, Huge Tommy, and Lamar.
 
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yeah, that's always a risk with fangames. Technically, they own the intellectual property and can do with it as they please. it'd be better to do something in the -spirit- of whatever series you'd like to make a fangame of and make something original instead. who knows, maybe you will have improved gameplay designs!
 
Shnitzelator said:
Hi,

*Forgot to mention this but this is not just a spur of the moment idea, I started planning this before the reboot was even teased*

I'm someone that always loved the Saints Row Franchise and am currently thinking about making a prequel to Saints Row 1 (it would probably be based on the original Saints Row 2 idea volition had about making a game that would follow Julius and Ben King when they founded the Vice Kings in the 70's) but I am VERY concerned about my project either getting taken down or myself getting into legal trouble for it.

This is the main reason I am asking here for you guys' take on if my fears a genuine or if I'm just extrapolating on what I'm seeing from Rockstar/TakeTwo and other companies taking down fan-games and/or mods left and right. Would a fan-game be attemptable?, Does it matter if I put Saints Row in the title (cuz I was thinking about calling it something like "We Are The Vice Kings")?, Does it matter if I use Saints Row Characters? what would be my options here?

Thanks in advance
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Hello! First of all, I want to note that you have a very cool idea and I myself was thinking about creating the same content! Further, there will be no consequences from creating such a game as long as it remains free. If the game is sold, there will be consequences from the intellectual property rights holders.
 
FloydRussell said:
This is the main reason I am asking here for you guys' take on if my fears a genuine or if I'm just extrapolating on what I'm seeing from Rockstar/TakeTwo and other companies taking down fan-games and/or mods left and right
Click to expand...
In fact, the companies you listed removed modifications when they created remasters of their games. Mods for the original games, which looked a hundred times cooler than the remasters that the companies produced, were removed. Moreover, Rockstar and T2 are quite toxic companies that do not want their games to be modified in any way. Saints Row, on the other hand, has a modding toolkit, and the developers often contact modders.
 
If what you want is to avoid legal trouble just mess with the names. Parody the actual game.
"Atlas-Breaker" nah, "Olympus-Champion." "Technicaly Legal?" Nuh uh, it´s "Somehow Not Illegal." "Friendly Fire?" "Fire Fiend." "Julius and Benjamin?" More like "Caesar and Franklin." Personally I think making it ovious that It´s Saints Row but doing the littlest work to make sure you´re not sued is hilarious and you have my support in making this game however you wish to.
 
With the tools available these days, part of me wants to -- but I know it's waaaay outside my skillset regardless of legalities -- export all the assets from SR2, SRTT, SRIV, SR:GOOH, up-scale and enhance them, and use UE5 to rebuild the *entire series* as a single cohesive experience that flows seamlessly from one to the next. But not stop there. Make it bigger. Better. Build more 'places' to visit, like more stores and diversions, distractions, etc. Incorporate the better elements and systems from each of the different games into a single cohesive whole. SRII's clothing-layering system, for example, or the ability to select different animation sets. I'd even add a way to customize more of the player's body proportions (via non-uniform scaling of character rig's bones -- which I've done rough mockups of in Blender). Oh, and semi-functional airports you could use to fast travel back and forth between the various cities of Saints Row once you've progressed far enough in their respective story lines. Functional trains in Steelport. Sadly, there are still some missing pieces of the puzzle, like the animation files for the obvious character actions, but also for cutscenes and etc, and while some of them wouldn't be too hard to recreate, the others would definitely be difficult.

In the fever dream where I could do all of this, I even wanted to figure a way to work in how AOM and the SR reboot fit into the grand scheme of things that doesn't throw away everything that came before it. Like throwing in 'blink and you miss it' moments where the OG Saints are watching NuSaints do their thing (ie, they're using Zinyak's time machine to mess with time).
 
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