Are you aware of this and is this legal?

[jetxl]

I walked into my local bookstore for the latest x-men comic and also wandered to the so called "games section" when I found this.
(A adventure demo cd) (sorry for the size!!!)

As you can see it contains some AGS games (and some rpg's as well).
Rob blanc, Tulle world, kings quest and some others.

I was just wandering if the members who made these games gave permision or got money for this.
If not...it's illegal (I think) because the games have non-profit intentions. Therefor can not be sold.

[Vel]

Does hero 6 work?

[Andail]

I remember once signing and faxing some sort of contract, but I can't recall for what magazine or company or whatever.
Not that I care, and not that I think Tulle's World is worth such a fuzz....
it's fun anyway

[Eggie]

I think it's kind of cool that our games are getting reached by a non-internetty bunch.

I mean.. so what if evil, ruthless companies are getting money for other peoples hard work...That's just their nature. It's like prosecuting cats for eating rodents.

So I say; w00t to all who got their games featured on a CD!

[TheDude]

Not sure how legal it is, but at least they're people trying to get adventure games noticed a little more.

[Anym]

It depends on the individual license terms. For example, the documentation for all three Rob Blanc games state

This game is FREEWARE so you can distribute it as much as you like among your
friends without nagging twinges of guilt.

So those are definitely legal (depsite the misspelling).

Or the Readme for King's Quest VGA says

This game may be distrbuted as long as long as it remains in it's original executable (.exe) form, with all files intact.

And as KQ1VGA technically violates other people's copyright, it might have a hard time defending its copyright.

Larry Vales doesn't state anything, so it is theoretically protected by copyright, meaning that Phil Reed would have the exclusive rights for reproduction, however, as he put it up for free download, this is debatable at least.

To sum it up. It would have been common courtesy to ask for permission, but they aren't obliged to. I doubt that any of the featured authors would object tough. So, congrats on your 650 MB of game.  

[m0ds]

LOL! Rob Blank !

Yey, Rode Quest's got on there too

m0ds

[InCreator]

Heh - If I'd see any of my games in store like that, I'd be *very* pissed for sure.
But here -- even if some games ARE illegaly sold - It's just an opportunity for fellow AGSers to sue the magazine and gain a fat sum. (Which they undoubtly deserve)  ...

[SSH]

various thoughtful things

Hey, n00b, why are you making sensible posts at a reasonable rate. Are you some kind of freak? You should be posting 20 times a day in the wrong forums and starting threads about r0x0Rs sites that you have found.

j/k, btw

[Kweepa]

What I'm surprised to see on there are Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and the two Zelda games.

Those can't be legal, surely - particularly since there are no copyright messages...

And a web search for "Trendy Games"+"Adventure" doesn't show up much.

Steve

[MrColossal]

no need to worry fellas...

they'll put the cd in and try and play Rode Quest 1 and immediatly start crying and take it back....

THE FOOLS!

eric

[muah rodekill]

[Domino]

why would somebody pay for these games when you can download them for free. I am sure you could find all these games on the net somewhere. (The other games not made with AGS.)

shawn  

[Gregjazz]

Well they left out Apprentice. Dang. So much for the publicity.

[rodekill]

Man, this annoys me.
I make a point to give these games away for free, at my own expense, and some jerkstores come along, put together some compilation, not even bothering to do some nice package design, and start making money off me.
My games are free. If you want to put them on a cd with a magazine, then fine, at least you actually produced the damn magazine. At least it's not a shallow attempt at scamming people out of money. More or less.
They didn't even ask me, for f's sake.
I have a feeling my text files will be much less forgiving in the future.
I also have a feeling Nintendo will be getting an interesting email soon.

eric ->  

The other potential problem I see here is that if say, Sierra gets wind that KQVGA and KQ2VGA are being sold anywhere, they may not be so relaxed about shutting down fan projects.  

edit: Hmm, on second thought, would bringing this to light perhaps cause the shutdown of more independent projects? I wrote up a nice email to Nintendo, but I think I'll avoid sending it until I get feedback from you guys. What do you think?

[Chrille]

Hehe I know what you mean Rode,  my games have been included on a couple of magazines/compilation cds by now and I've only be informed of it directly by the publishers once or twice,  the rest of the times I hear it from someone who's bought or seen the magazine/cd.

[big brother]

That's too bad about games being sold without your permission.

Good thing Herculean Effort Productions has such a remarkable legal department, otherwise those fools would undoubtly have their greasy mitts all over Apprentice.

Heh.

[InCreator]

Hmm... but isn't selling Rob Blanc under false name illegal by itself?

[Anym]

Huh? Why do you want to tell Nintendo about Open Zelda http://openzelda.sourceforge.net/ and Zelda Classic http://zeldaclassic.armageddongames.net/ ??

Both are freeware fan-projects and I can't see how they are different from the KQ remakes. Also, what do you have to gain from reporting them. The developers of those two have probably as little to do with the makers of that CD as you do. Similarly, Warrior Dragon is an unofficial remake of Enix' Dragon Warrior.

I mean most people here would be pretty pissed off I someone sent a letter to Sierra telling them to shut down Tierra. And while they're at it shut down AGS as well. After all, the Roger and the Fonts are also by Sierra, are't they?

Also, the commercial titles such as Avernum, Harry Potter, Freedom Force or Crusaders of M&M are most likely just demos, otherwise I doubt they'd even fit onto a single CD, and the publishers and just threw in some freeware titles so that they could brag with 58 titles for only 15 â,¬ (even if most/all of them can be downloaded for no cost at all over the internet).

SSH: U SuXx0r!!!!!!!!!! j/k Better?

Shawn Well, I can understand that you're pissed off that someone is selling your work without asking you, BUT:

You can distribute this game in any way, but the contents of the zip file must not be altered.

This note is included with all three Rode * games, so unless they modified the archives (which I doubt, since that would require actually DOING something), "any way" seems to include "pressing it onto a CD with lots of other stuff and selling it for a ridiculous price".

InCreator might have a point with the "false labelling" tough. If the demos are just demos, there's no mention of that and several titles (Rob Blank, Rodekill, Kings Quest,...) were misspelled, which isn't a legal offence against the creator of the game, I think, but might be one against the customer, as there is no game on the CD called "Rob Blank with a k"...

[rodekill]

I would report the company that produced the cd to Nintendo so that these asswipes who are ripping people off would be stopped.
Notice how I also pointed out that it may raise other problems.
What I have to gain is satisfaction in knowing that my games, which I intended for people to get for free, are actually getting to them that way.
Unfortunately, all these fan projects are now in my way of doing that.
I like fan games. Sometimes. I'm even helping out with one now. I don't want them to get shut down.
So what do I do? I guess ignore it, right? Yahoo. Another victory for lazy assfucks who want to make a quick buck off of other peoples work and take some cash from those silly people we call our fanbase.
Yes, my distribution terms thing was shortsighted. I blew it on that one, I'll admit it. I guess it was naive to think that my giving things away for free wouldn't turn into a business opportunity for some cockroach poofter fucks.
I've learned my lesson.

[Igor]

I'd say ignore them. It's not worth the trouble. I don't think they asked me for permission either (could be wrong though) and to be honest, i don't really care.

But... "Trendy" games...? This cracked me up