Doujin Games Get Smacked Down Left and Right
Canned Dogs has reported on two doujin games– which are, of course, fan-made/amateur games, often based on copyrighted works (but sometimes original, like the Touhou series) –that have been cracked down upon by copyright owners lately. The first is Tatakae! Ore no Hatsune Miku ver 1.2, a game based on the heavily-marketed (and uber-viral) character of the Vocaloid voice-generation software. The second was a Haruhi game called Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekitou (”The Fierce Fighting of Haruhi Suzumiya”).
The interesting thing is, it looks like neither of these games were ero (and therefore not “damaging” to the characters’ reputations), and apparently Vocaloid owner Crypton won’t allow doujin games even if they’re distributed for free, and Kadokawa has never been fond of doujin games.
…But before you get mad at the Japanese companies for keeping down the fans, keep in mind that in the USA these games would probably never even get made to begin with @_@ Though I somehow feel so tempted to grab a copy of RPG Maker and get started on some Haruhi sprites. As if I don’t have enough to keep me busy already.
Tags: doujin games, Suzumiya-Haruhi-no-Yuuutsu, vocaloid
February 20th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Actually, I think I have to disagree with you about those games not getting made here in the States. There is a decent sized community out there involved in creating fan-made games for licensed media, especially for Star Wars and Star Trek. In fact the latest I’ve read up on was Star Trek: Excalibur which is a “spiritual sequel” to the old Bridge Commander game. IMO, in the hierarchy of accepted fan media creation, games are below fan films yet above fan fiction.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
@Kidan: There are certainly some fan-made games of licensed materials in the US, but I’d say that there aren’t anywhere near as many of them, nor are they as prominent in fandom– but then, fan creation in general tends to be less prominent in the US, with the exception of fanfiction, and even that gets into legal trouble on occasion. There are plenty of western authors who ban all fanfiction of their works.
Japan, on the other hand, has an illegal but widely tolerated fan creation world that is practically an industry in and of itself– see, for example, Comiket. The world’s biggest comics convention revolves entirely around fan created comics, many of which “parody” copyrighted materials.
So, I stand by my statement– PROBABLY games like these wouldn’t get made in the states, because our system is less tolerant of fan-created works. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any, of course, but they are considerably less common and less well-known. I’d also wager that in the US they’re more likely to be subject to a C&D, if not a lawsuit, than your average fan game in Japan– remember, these smackdowns are news because most fan game makers are left alone.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@Kidan: Yeah, fan-created content is usually strictly non-copyrighted works because companies often serve cease and desist letters near immediately (Blizzard and the Starcraft DS, Square-Enix and the Chrono Trigger Resurrection or whatever that was called).