Limbo of the Lost caught with stolen assets

[ildu]

Does anyone remember Limbo of the Lost, the game created with Wintermute and recently released commercially around the world? Well, you will now !

The team of behind LOTL is now accused of stealing assets (mainly art) from various AAA game titles, including WoW, Crysis, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Morrowind, Painkiller, Diablo II, Silent Hill 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and even some movies, currently at least Spawn the Movie and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Most notable however, is the blatant plagiarism from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. They actually copied basically everything they needed for the game scenes by simply taking screenshots from Oblivion.

Although clearly it was a very crappy game, it happened to get publishers and distribution around the world, though in light of this 'incident', distribution has been halted. Legal action from at least Bethesda Software is pending, as they said their legal team was currently looking into the matter.

I can't get my head around how they thought they'd get away with this. Even so, it's very sad since these guys seemed to be so passionate building a game for more than 10 years, that they were blinded by their own ambitions. Nevertheless, I have no sympathy for this kind of idiocy, and I hope they are sued.

One of the comparison shots (Thief: Deadly Shadows):
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Limbo of the Lost

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost#Controversy - Wikipedia
http://www.gameplasma.com/limbo_of_the_lost_or_oblivion - GamePlasma article, the guys who initially noticed the theft
http://kotaku.com/5015674/cheeky-pc-adventure-game-accused-of-grand-theft-assets - Kotaku article
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=2746 - Wintermute forum thread for the game (currently ravaged by angry peers)
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53090 - Shacknews article
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/default.asp?article_id=9644 - Article in the Kent Messenger just a month ago
http://www.quandaryland.com/jsp/dispArticle.jsp?index=795 - Interview from 2006
http://www.trisynergy.com - The main publisher
http://www.geocities.com/limboofthelost - The game homepage, now of course offline.

[Tuomas]

What can I say. It's awesomely funny. Could it be that these guys just didn't know better, or were too naive to realise? It's not civilized behavious to laugh at someone's misfortune, but... No wonder it took them 10 years and more, after all, they had to wait for big games like these to be finished.

Steve: The project is more influenced by film and literature rather than other games, we want the experience to be as original as possible and as such we have made a calculated effort to keep away from other games in the genre. Limbo of the Lost is an experience first and foremost, secondly wrapped up in a game media and genre.

this one's my favourite fromt he interview

[Buckethead]

Wow some of the evidence is so obvious. It's really sad that they would do such a thing. it would be more ok if it wasn't a commercial project.

[Ishmael]

I do remember the trailer now that I watched it again. And I think I spotted a part of the Hexen title screen in there ¬¬

[Buckethead]

I've just watched the trailers, I couldn't find them before. I did recognize some games I've played. It's funny how the trailers say " proud to present". Surely most of the people most of known what was going on.

[bicilotti]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jrr4rV4AaOU

go to 00:46

this will be the most asked question to an indie developer from now on.

[evenwolf]

Are you a legal Mexican Jalepeno on a stick?  wtf.

[Radiant]

Heh. No, I had never heard of that. I do note it's still on the publisher's site, listed as for sale...

[space boy]

[CaptainBinky]

I actually feel rather sorry for these guys.

If you read this local newspaper article, you rather get the impression that these are just three regular blokes who really, really, love games and are simply horribly naive. I really hope that the game gets quietly dropped and none of them get into any serious trouble over this.

[Nikolas]

Now, I'm quite curious what will the companies that got 'hurt' will do? A lawsuite is a certainty to me, but somehow, these guys, even if they sell their houses in the UK, wouldn't make enough money to cover the expenses. Pulling out the game, simply, is not acceptable either. In all I'm really curious to what's next.

As for the morons who made the game... well... I can understand that a freeware game (such as so many here in AGS), can steal various aspects, but trying to sell it? Come on!

EDIT:

Binky:

"Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home."

...

Are we sure they did all that?

As I said, I do feel for any freeware developer, but selling it it's a completely other thing, and one must be.... what I said above, I'm sorry to say!

[Cino]

Actually I don't get it. Is this some sort of a publicity stunt or are they just plain stupid? And here I was thinking programming requires brains...

[CaptainBinky]

Binky:

"Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home."

...

Are we sure they did all that?

As I said, I do feel for any freeware developer, but selling it it's a completely other thing, and one must be.... what I said above, I'm sorry to say!

yes to the researching, writing, design (at least of the story), possibly the animation, the scripting, and the fact that they developed it from home.

Like I said, I don't think that they sat there rubbing their hands together and thought, "hey we can steal this art... no-one will know" - I imagine that the thought that it was out of order never crossed their minds at all. Hopelessly naive, yes, malicious, no.

So obviously they'd have to repay any earnings, the game would have to be revoked... but geez what harm has been done to the brands in question? None. So I hope that the lawyers stay out of it, the three guys are given a slap on the wrist and a wake up call, and then that's it.

[Nikolas]

malicious no, not by a long shot! I agree to that. But... naive at best...

Still it's not only returning any earnings, which would make sense, but also the idea of "examplify" in this case. Otherwise, if there's no real harm to them, apart from taking back 'the candy', it's only a matter of time if any 15 year old will start doing it and publishers accepting it.

And even, if the developers have nothing wrong in their mind, which I do believe is true actually, the publishers is a different story! And the publishers should've known better. Oblivion is not some obscure little game, downloadable from... Zimbaboue, it's one of the most mainstream games, that sold millions probably...

[Oliwerko]

This is indeed one of the fastest ways to complicate your life in very little time.
What did they think?

"Come on, no one will realize that we ripped half of the game's content from the most famous commercial games sold today!"

[Emerald]

Maybe it's all a big coincidence...

"Come on, no one will realize that we ripped half of the game's content from the most famous commercial games sold today!"

I'd say it's more along the lines of
"Would our limited consumer base really care?" -- I imagine they figured a little game like theirs would be barely noticed anyway. In regards to the law, it's bad, but as a gamer, it wouldn't really make a difference to me how much of the art is stolen. Oblivion's backdrops aren't all that distinctive... it's really just a typical medieval-fantasy world which could be found in any game. Wouldn't ruin the immersion or anything.

[ManicMatt]

It would ruin the immersion for me.. I'd stop thinking about the task at hand in the game and start thinking about the ripped backgrounds. I'm then thinking about how the game was made and not how my character will get out of Limbo.

I think I read a preview on Limbo of the Lost in an AMIGA magazine. Jesus.

*ManicMatt's "Limbo" has nothing to do with "Limbo of the Lost"*

[jetxl]

Odd that so many people here frown upon using non-original resources.
Or is it that AND selling the product too.

I do feel a bit bad for those guys. They use an engine which they didn't make for coding (its freeware). And they use other games as a tool for making backgrounds (they don't hack it or pirate it, they just make screenshots).

I don't feel bad that their crappy commercial game is now a total flop. Think twice and then again before going on a commecial venture.

[evenwolf]

....they use other games as a tool for making backgrounds (they don't hack it or pirate it, they just make screenshots).

I don't know what hacking/pirating refers to in this situation.   This is quite obviously an instance of plagiarizing.   In 4th grade I was told again and again that there were severe punishments for plagiarizing.    I remember an assignment to copy definitions from the back of the book and I went so far as to change the wording.   ( They knocked my grade down to a B for doing so, lol )

Video games:   While there are artists who plagiarize and credit the original author ( remakes for example ), this Limbo of the Lost seems quite shameless and tries to earn a profit.   So damn straight they should be punished.   I didn't get that B in 4th grade for nothing.

Likewise, to let these guys off the hook would be to discredit everything Mods and team are doing with Fountain of Youth.  Original artwork etc.

[Pumaman]

I actually feel rather sorry for these guys.

If you read this local newspaper article, you rather get the impression that these are just three regular blokes who really, really, love games and are simply horribly naive.

Heh yeah, I can't decide about this. On the one hand, they're three middle-aged men who may simply have not understood that using screenshots from other games as their backgrounds was illegal; but on the other hand, being middle-aged, they should have had enough common sense to realise that it was likely to get them into trouble.

I wonder how they managed to generate such interest from publishers, though? They must have done one hell of a good marketing job to get so many publishers interested in releasing a point-and-click adventure.