Register, Others Call Plagiarism in "Limbo of the Lost" Game

Fallen Andy writes "'The Register' has an article describing 'Limbo of the Lost' (developed by Majestic and sold in the U.S by Tri Synergy) which seems to have 'borrowed' copiously graphics assets from other games. Over at the GamesRadar forum there is a thread with some screenshots. Finally, this game has its own Wikipedia entry. Warning to all — move the soft drink away from the keyboard and monitor before you look at those screenshots. Blatant this is, very blatant indeed."

I don't see what the big deal is

[k_187 (61692)]

The original creators of that stuff didn't lose anything, its all bits man.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[NiceGeek (126629)]

I know you were going for humor, but even people who download music, etc. aren't taking credit for creating said music.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[GroeFaZ (850443)]

Most important they don't try to make any money off of it.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[GaryPatterson (852699)]

Have a look at the Pirate Bay's site. Lots of ads there... almost as if the traffic were bring used to sell advertising space.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[Ferzerp (83619)]

The problem with your analogy is that they are making a profit on it (well, they won't now). The people who use the argument you are talking about for copying music/games/etc don't turn around and make mixed CDs, package them, and sell them as their own work (except puff daddy).

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[PitaBred (632671)]

This should be modded "Insightful", not "Funny". Even if he did make some clever jokes, he's right. We'd all go play the game on a lark to see what we could find if it were free. The fact that the guy is charging for it when someone else did all the heavy graphic and design lifting is what's causing the furor here.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[Tehrasha (624164)]

If they dont get sued for lifting the content, someone should at least sue them for false advertising... How can they call the game 'Limbo of the Lost' when the players are going to recognize all the rooms and know where they are? Should be called 'Limbo of the Strikingly Familiar' or maybe just 'Deja vu'

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[by Anonymous Coward]

But, based on my understanding of several recent different but similar situations involving movies and music, we can all safely assume that those people would not have bought the game to begin with.

We can also take comfort in knowing that the companies from whom the graphics were lifted probably keep the lion's share of the profit from game sales and the graphic artists make almost nothing, by comparison.

Also, if the guy at 'Limbo of the Lost' bought the game it is his to do with what he wishes because he didn't agree to any stupid 'don't lift graphics' clause and shrinkwrap licenses have never been proven in court anyway so no one has any legal standing to complain about anything. This includes if he wants to make a mashup of the game's graphics and his own cool gaming idea and call it 'Limbo of the Lost'.

And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control. Do I want DRM on my hard drive so I can play a game but keep me from taking screenshots? No! I'll never install Vista. If this was available in WINE I would play it but it isn't. I don't even run NDISWRAPPER!

So, in conclusion, no. I don't think anyone has stolen anything. Information wants to be free.

As in I don't pay anything for it.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[inviolet (797804)]

And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control.

Guess what? The CORPORATIONS that own this stuff are composed of people and owned by people. You can become one of those people for about $50 a share. A corporation is the modern expression of the Right of Free Assembly, and is used to administer cooperative division-of-labor and ownership of property.

Would you prefer that property can only be owned whole, by single individuals? Do you realize that it would be impossible to undertake any large, capital-intensive project in that environment?

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[Broken scope (973885)]

That wasn't thunder you just heard, that was something breaking the sound barrier as it went over your head.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[cliffski (65094)]

so all corporations are teh evil incarnate eh?

Am I an evil corporate scumbag because I own a limited liability company? Am I magically less evil if I make the same games as a sole proprietor? Or is all commerce evil and only working for free in a hippy commune an acceptable way to live?

These guys were scum who took other peoples hard work and tried to profit from it. They should be sued to death. If you tolerate this, then that means you would prefer all modern games to just be re-mixes of the 8 bit textures from games of twenty years ago. After all, why the hell put any effort into creating original stuff when you can just rip off people who can do better work than you.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[Grishnakh (216268)]

Am I an evil corporate scumbag because I own a limited liability company? Am I magically less evil if I make the same games as a sole proprietor? Or is all commerce evil and only working for free in a hippy commune an acceptable way to live?

I don't actually agree with the OP, but he's not advocating communism. He's railing against corporations, because they absolve people of all personal responsibility and liability. So, yes, he probably thinks you're a scumbag of sorts because you own a LLC. If you truly believe that you're not doing anything wrong, then you should have a sole proprietorship, and accept all the liability that goes along with that. If you're not doing anything wrong, why aren't you willing to risk your own personal fortune and home?

Personally, I disagree with this view partly. He makes a good point, in that people involved in corporations are too shielded from liability, so that, for instance, people like Ken Lay get to walk free after doing criminal things and just letting their corporation take the fall by collapsing, leaving all the actual people in charge without any consequences, but with plenty of money. However, if I were to start a business of my own, I would certainly form an LLC as well, because while big corporations like Enron and their executives certainly get off too easy, in today's overly-litigious society, it is simply too risky to allow your personal assets be tied up with your business, because one lawsuit gone bad (because of some stupid jury) means your home and other assets can be seized. While I personally don't believe myself to be doing any wrong, I simply don't trust the court system to render correct verdicts, and worse, it's simply too easy to be driven out of business by excessive litigation even if you're completely innocent due to our lack of "loser pays" laws, so it makes perfect sense to protect your assets by shielding yourself behind an LLC.

Re:-1 Man Terrorizing Crows

[enderjsv (1128541)]

I have no idea what 'zeitgeist' or 'petard' mean, but I'm gonna attempt to address your post anyway.

I don't know if the intention of his post was really to call "those people" hypocrites. If I had to define his point, I'd say that he is simply trying to show "those people" that the arguments they often use are, at best, questionable justifications that, in another context, seem rather ridiculous.

For example, you seem to be saying (and forgive me if I misinterpret) that in one context, we have a company making money off of another companies work, and that's wrong. But it's not so wrong for an individual to use or acquire a companies copyrighted assets without compensation because that individual won't profit from it. Never mind that said company could be losing profits because of it. Never mind that it doesn't belong to that individual, regardless of how insignificant they feel their actions are. I mean, where's the line, and what gives this individual the right to draw it? But there's no use in arguing, as the OP pointed out, there are a dozen or so ways for the individual to justify it to himself, and in the process trick himself into thinking he's some kind of freedom crusader, saving the world from the evil corporations that *gasp* want to charge us for things, even when most of us secretly know he/she just wants free stuff.

In the end, as an observer, I guess I've always just found the pirate's reasoning to be a little self-serving. It's always been so easy to call corporations evil, controlling bastards intent on ripping the public off. It's a lot more difficult to ask yourself what your personal responsibility is, what your true motivations are, and what your self-serving justifications say about you. Maybe there is something hypocritical about a thief that steals from thieves.

But I can't think about that now, I have definitions to look up.

Re:I don't see what the big deal is

[Farmer Tim (530755)]

Except one's breath.

Hey, as long as you were getting philosphical...

From Wikipedia

[kellyb9 (954229)]

On June 11, 2008 GamePlasma, a gaming news site, posted an article showing certain places in Limbo of the Lost were identical to the game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[7] After the revelation, others looking into the game discovered environments and features that appeared to be taken from the games The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 2003, Diablo II, Thief: The Dark Project, Thief: Deadly Shadows, a CryENGINE2 Tech Demo, Silent Hill 4: The Room[citation needed], Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Painkiller, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, Hexen and World of Warcraft.[8][9] Other scenes appear to be taken from live action films: one from the 1997 film Spawn, another from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and several more from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. [10][11] and level design from enclave[citation needed]. The game also contains footage from Sea Dogs[12][13]

Wow... at least they have decent taste in games.

Re:From Wikipedia

[aurasdoom (1279164)]

Actually the game images are static. They are not 3D models, they are screenshots.

Screenshots

[Lord Lode (1290856)]

It's all screenshots from Oblivion, Thief 3, Unreal Tournament series, Diablo, and other games. Limbo Of The Lost doesn't render those things in 3D but uses it as background image for the adventure game. Really lame that the developers of that game thought they were going to get away with it. I wonder what was going on there, they couldn't find a graphics artist to draw the backgrounds so they just photoshopped screenshots from other games together. Still a bit of a shame for the (if there were any) good points of the game, that are now gone down together with the whole game due to this plagiarism.

If you steal from one or two it's plagiarism

[symbolset (646467)]

Three or more, it's research.

Re:If you steal from one or two it's plagiarism

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Does anybody have this game? Maybe they have a "References" screen!

It isn't "borrowing"...

[chill (34294)]

...it is sampling, just like in the music industry.

For example, listen to the opening sequence of Queen's Under Pressure featuring David Bowie. Then, after having your stomach pumped as a precaution, the opening bits of Vanilla Ice's Ice, Ice Baby.

For the Google impaired, here is a YouTube link [youtube.com] doing a comparison.

Just equate Limbo of the Lost with Ice, Ice Baby and you will understand. Of course, that would mean Majestic Studios is really Vanilla Ice...

Re:It isn't "borrowing"...

[AioKits (1235070)]

I dunno... It would require listening to Vanilla Ice... Is it okay if I just take your word for it?

Re:It isn't "borrowing"...

[AllIGotWasThisNick (1309495)]

For example...

You are aware that Vanilla Ice reached an out-of-court settlement [wikipedia.org] with the copyright holders of "Under Pressure" for using the material?

Satirically speaking...

[Rei (128717)]

But, based on my understanding of several recent different but similar situations involving movies and music, we can all safely assume that those people would not have bought the game to begin with.

We can also take comfort in knowing that the companies from whom the graphics were lifted probably keep the lion's share of the profit from game sales and the graphic artists make almost nothing, by comparison.

Also, if the guy at 'Limbo of the Lost' bought the game it is his to do with what he wishes because he didn't agree to any stupid 'don't lift graphics' clause and shrinkwrap licenses have never been proven in court anyway so no one has any legal standing to complain about anything. This includes if he wants to make a mashup of the game's graphics and his own cool gaming idea and call it 'Limbo of the Lost'.

And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control. Do I want DRM on my hard drive so I can play a game but keep me from taking screenshots? No! I'll never install Vista. If this was available in WINE I would play it but it isn't. I don't even run NDISWRAPPER!

So, in conclusion, no. I don't think anyone has stolen anything. Information wants to be free.

As in I don't pay anything for it.

(P.S. -- I'm adding some skulls to this comment)

Re:It isn't "borrowing"...

[Altus (1034)]

I dont believe that is a sample. Samples are when you take the actual audio of one song and take a bit of it and use it in your song. In the case of Ice, Ice Baby the riff was ripped off and re recorded.

This is important because the labels own the recordings of the songs but the artists own the songs themselves. You have to pay the artist if you re-record their song, you don't have to pay the artist if you sample a recording.

Re:It isn't "borrowing"...

[Eil (82413)]

And just like that, you've gotten that insipid song stuck in the heads of thousands of slashdotters.

I hope you're happy.

The worst part is ...

[wylderide (933251)]

... The scene where the protagonist is leaping over barrels thrown by a large orangutan. It's a dead giveaway.

Hard work, though...

[Notquitecajun (1073646)]

Heh, that's some of the hardest work I've seen gone into plagiarism. That is, outside of academia and Hollywood and politicians where everyone pretty much copies everyone else...

The next step

[Kingston (1256054)]

What they need to do now is spend all the money they saved on the artwork on a really good lawyer. One that can stand up in court and say "A layman might think he sees a superficial resemblance" while keeping a straight face.

Re:The next step

[Alsee (515537)]

while keeping a straight face.

Excuse me, why does this itemized legal bill include a $600 listing for a cosmetic surgery clinic?

It's a legitimate business expense. Your case required a double dose of Botox.

-

Limbo of the Lost Graphics

[thewils (463314)]

It's about an adventurer who wanders from game to game to solve the mystery of the plagiarised graphics.

Interview with the designers

[Xelios (822510)]

"Our hope, if everything goes well with the sales, is that within a year we will all be stopping the day jobs and doing this full time." [kentmessenger.co.uk]

Epic

Bits from interview with the game creators

[by Anonymous Coward]

"everything was re-written from the ground up, everything apart from the initial concept and some character design ...and the rest is history."

"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."

"All of the game (apart from initial background story and some character designs) had to be re-written, all the characters had to be created in 3D and animated, all the background scenes re-created, all the sounds, coding and music?..basically everything had to be redone or newly created for the PC version. This is not an old game that has been dressed up. This is the original concept, dusted off and re-created."

Also, the game has been in production for 10 years and rewritten few times. I think these guys deserve a "Hard core audacity" award...

Full Article [quandaryland.com]

So I guess...

[thewils (463314)]

...it's OK to pirate this one then??

I can see how this could happen...

[WeirdJohn (1170585)]

Not that I approve. Some people can write code, design game concepts etc but be incapable of drawing pictures. When I look at the photo of the 3 main developers I don't see a picture that looks like three guys that would play typical cutting edge games. They come up with game logic that kinda works but is butt ugly. They hire someone who claims they are a shit hot CG artist, complete with examples of "their" work. This person then proceeds to rip other peoples' work.

The developers are of course stoked by the amazing art "developed" for their game, and give lots of bonuses. Then they discover that they've been sounded robbed, as their game (and their reputations) are soundly denounced.

I'm not saying this has happened in this case, but I've seen scenarios like this before (when I did work in the games industry).

I'm also not saying that this justifies it. If anything it reveals "technology blindness" where the developers are so in love with their own product that they don't bother looking at what else is on the market.

Re:I can see how this could happen...

[king-manic (409855)]

You may actually look into the story before you invent a situation where it was right. These guys are just amateurs who took a run at the shovelware market using plagiarism to fill in where they lacked talent. Much of the coding was done on the winter mute forums as these three douches don't know much about coding. The graphics where screenshots that were badly photoshopped together because this group lacked graphic talent. Apparently from people who played it, they also lacked story telling talent as well as voice acting talent. These guys really shouldn't have tried to market their dreck shovelware and should have kept it as a amateur project.

What about the engine?

[lantastik (877247)]

I started to wonder how they got rips of all of those games in to their engine. Then I started to wonder if they just stole the engine. I did a search and came up with this page:
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:GTYHJgCqVCYJ:www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl%3Faction%3Dviewthread%26threadid%3D88482+%22Limbo+of+the+Lost%22+engine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us [209.85.141.104]

I'm still wondering how they were able to import all those assets and levels so flawlessly into their own engine?

That must have been a tremendous job just to write the different converters but then again I don't understand why Steve Bovis, was not able to code a simple CD check into the main menu???

...this was the follow-up to that question:

They didn't.

"Wintermute Engine Development Kit is a set of tools for creating and running graphical âoepoint&clickâ adventure games, both traditional 2D ones and modern 2.5D games (3D characters on 2D backgrounds). The kit includes the runtime interpreter (Wintermute Engine, or WME) and GUI editors for managing and creating the game content (WME tools) as well as the documentation, demonstrational data and prefabricated templates." - http://dead-code.org/home/ [dead-code.org]

All the backgrounds they stole are screenshots from other games. They made a 3D character to move (with scaling) on 2D backgrounds.

Re:What about the engine?

[lantastik (877247)]

Sorry, I hate replying to my own stuff, but I found some backups to this information:
http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=2904.msg18305#msg18305 [dead-code.org]

http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=2746.msg17668#msg17668 [dead-code.org]

Re:What about the engine?

[Fozzyuw (950608)]

Hehe, I find it amusing that these people are hoping to "quit their day jobs" off this game but couldn't afford $3,000 for a decent computer to render the games they took screen shots of!

Limbo of the Lost Contest

[by Anonymous Coward]

Contest to create "screenshots" from Limbo of the Lost: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?page_id=1909

Contest is over, but the entries are hilarious.

All they need to do..

[brkello (642429)]

...is call it a parody and its all legal! Brilliant!

Re:Oblivion

[Cathoderoytube (1088737)]

I'm guessing the company that made this game will be sued into oblivion

Re:Oblivion

[darkhitman (939662)]

But it's already got Oblivion in it... that's going to be a nasty feedback loop.

Re:Oblivion

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

FWIW, "Limbo of the Lost" is a 1990s-era point-and-click adventure game with static backdrops, and those backdrops just happen to be screenshots of other games.

Even if they hadn't plagiarized other games, I can't see anyone buying the piece of crap. Everything about it - plot, graphics, audio, game engine - reeks of amateurism.

Re:Sad

[by Anonymous Coward]

There are no 'Devs'. This was done by 3 con-men who apparently met a pub. If you dig though some of the links and other forums about this mess you can get more of the pathetic details.

They used an out-of-the-box-create-your-own-2.5D-adventure software and just imported in screenshots from other games. I don't think any of them know a lick about coding whatsoever.

It's amazing that these guys got published when some real independent shops with real talent can't get anything going.

Re:Sad

[ludomancer (921940)]

The trick was that they completed the game before seeking a publisher. If you seek out a publisher with a completed product, chances are you will find a deal there. The reason more developers don't do this is because the operating costs of funding the development of a game are so high. Not many people can fund a number of full-time employees out of their own pocket for the duration of a games construction.
These guys didn't have to worry about operating costs because they stole all their art assets and used a free-ware engine.

Re:Sad

[TheLostSamurai (1051736)]

As an example, I am a Game Programmer that doesn't play video games, I just don't have time. I just bought a PlayStation 3 last week for the blu-ray, and it is the first gaming machine I've owned since the SNES.

I'm not saying the developers weren't in on it, I'm just saying the artists at my company could rip off the most famous games ever made and I probably wouldn't know about it.

Re:Shakespeare was a Plagarist

[ScentCone (795499)]

Shakespeare did not invent the plots of his plays. Sometimes he used old stories (Hamlet, Pericles).

So, in which older tellings of something like Hamlet can you point to prose such as Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be..." passage? It's one thing to write a game with a magic ring quest plot, and it's quite another to say you're doing something original, and it's just a coincidence that you have characters named Frodo and Gandalf.

Re:Shakespeare was a Plagarist

[Webs 101 (798265)]

Ideas and stories are not copyrightable. It's the execution of the ideas and stories that are protected.

You can take the basic story of "King Lear" and create "Ran". You can take the basic story of "Seven Samurai" and create "The Magnificent Seven". Those pairs of movies share plots and stories but each executes its own vision.

In this case, the problem with the game is that they stole the execution - i.e. the art - used in other games, not the story.

Re:Shakespeare was a Plagarist

[edraven (45764)]

Bonus points for referencing a plot that Kurosawa borrowed and a plot that was borrowed from Kurosawa.

Re:Instant legend

[MightyMartian (840721)]

Antiques Road Show - 2085 AD

Expert: I say, that's a jolly good thing, a shrink-wrapped copy of the infamous "Limbo of the Lost" game!

Owner: Why? Is it famous?

Expert: Well, you see, the creators of the game (and I use the term "creator" generously here) basically stolen static screen shots from a number of other games, and using a crappy adventure game generator, produced this wonder, which they actually managed to get published and distributed.

Owner: So how much is it worth?

Expert: A top-notch undamaged shrink wrapped copy like this would go at auction for at least three million dollars!

Owner: Wow! I mean wow wow wow!

Expert: Indeed...

Owner: So what about this shrink-wrapped copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?

Expert: I'll give you twelve bucks.