Why You Can't Monetise Fan Games! | Sonic Omens

there's been a lot of talk in the sonic community regarding a fan game called sonic omens the sonic community creates a lot of fan games so much so we have two annual events per year dedicated to celebrating them so what's got everyone talking about this one in particular in short controversy there's reason to believe the developers aura boris studios have been monetizing the game with accusations they'd locked previous demo builds behind a patreon paywall in this video i'm going to be addressing a few questions one is sonic omens being monetized two is there a problem with monetizing fan games three is monetizing a fan game any different from monetizing fan art or youtube videos and four is it anyone else's business or concern i will not be discussing the quality of the fan game i'm not here to review sonic omens i'm not even sure how well my pc would run it i'm also generally in support of fan games i submitted a demo of a sonic the hedgehog rpg to sonic amateur games expo last year i got my start in high school by making dragon ball z fan games in rpg maker 2003 using ripped and edited sprites from the legacy of goku on game boy advance i learned a lot from making fan games and encouraged me to get my bachelor's with honours degree in games art and design my career now as a senior instructional designer the thing that pays my bills and feeds my kids is heavily reliant upon that skill set with that said point one is sonic omens being monetized at first glance the answer might appear to be no anyone can go ahead and download the latest demo for free on the surface that seemed to contradict claims of demos being locked behind a patreon paywall my next step was to find this patreon page i didn't want to rely on twitter claims and secondhand screenshots because i think the internet has been shown how easy it is to doctor those more than enough times now on their patreon page oroboros studios advertise themselves as a startup focusing on two original properties the adventures of teldebard and the race of nine worlds with seemingly no mention of sonic fortunately the wayback machine has an instance of this page dated 1st november 2020 and if we take a look at that we suddenly get a very different picture all of their posts and updates are about sonic omens or as it was then titled sonic 2020 and we can see what appears to be a demo release for one of the game's episodes shadow of water that's locked off for patreon backers only there's definitely been an attempt to clean up this page and distance the developers patreon from their work on sonic omens perhaps as a reaction to the recent backlash and controversy this is enough for me to conclude that the game had been monetized there's sufficient evidence to agree that at the time access to development blogs and demos had been gated behind a paywall here and now i reasonably believe at least some of the team's patreon funding is still going towards the development of sonic omens you might object you might say the focus is now clearly on the developers original properties if we take a look at their instagram page we can see that half of the posts are about sonic omens and they're about us so lists it as an active project alongside hang on that dragon's logo is familiar huh guess i'm fans of that franchise too at any rate they're clearly pushing sonic harder than anything else would people know or care about this developer without their fan game is sonic the thing that's drawing everyone's eyes and attention even sega themselves know sonic is the only thing many sega fans are here for that's why it's sonic's ultimate genesis collection sonic and sega all stars racing and why he's front and center of the tennis and itoy games sure those games have representation from space channel 5 house of the dead shenmue bonanza bros golden axe skies of arcadia knights into dreams rice are burning rangers shinobi super monkey ball samba the amigo jet set radio alex kidd and a ton of other ips sega's sleeping on but they know it's a case of no sonic no sails so much so they dropped all non-sonic characters from the latest racing title the other common objection is that a patreon pledge isn't the same as purchasing a product it's making a donation to a creator so technically they were never selling access to the demo patreon's own wording contradicts this they say a creator is someone who creates a membership page on patreon to engage with patrons who have purchased memberships from patreon to support the creator's creations there are two very important distinctions here patrons are purchasing a membership not making a donation they are supporting the creators creations not the creator themselves so yes these demos were being sold the campaign is very clearly in violation of patrons terms of service under restrictions we see we don't allow creations or benefits that use others intellectual property unless you have written permission to use it or your use is protected by fair use we'll come back to that fair use point in just a bit don't worry this is reinforced under your creations which reads you may not post creations that infringe others intellectual property or proprietary rights but hey we've kind of jumped ahead into the second question is there a problem with monetizing fan games it might seem like i shouldn't have a problem with this by my own admission i've made fan games i would still love to remake sonic r someday i advocate that artists should be paid i enjoy playing fan games so who is this hurting are auroboris not deserving of compensation for their time skill and effort and why should sega care in short any fan game is a violation of various laws especially copyright and trademark war but because there's no money involved and the reputational damage to the brand has never been severe enough to quantify significant wasps sega chose to encourage fan content famously sega even hired christian whitehead resulting in the mobile ports and sonic mania monetizing sonic omens potentially changes that and puts all of us at risk let's expand on those points i've based my research on u.s copyright law because patrons terms state any disputes must be resolved in san francisco under california law and the monetization took place on patreon before i continue i am not a lawyer this is not legal advice and i'm british so this is my interpretation of a 458-page document detailing a foreign country's law as it's written video games are protected under section 102 which lists motion pictures and other audio visual works audio visual works having been described in section 101 definitions as works that consists of a series of related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines or devices such as projectors viewers or electronic equipment together with accompanying sounds if any regardless of the nature of the material objects such as films or tapes in which the works are embodied section 106 exclusive rights in copyrighted works states things are only the copyright holder can do with their creation including the right to reproduce it and make derivative works from it bullets one and two note that we'll be coming back for bullet four later on a lot of people focus on page 19 section 107 limitations on exclusive rights fair use this contains various exceptions to copyright law essentially you can use a copyrighted work for the purposes of criticism commentary news reporting teaching scholarship or research when considering if something falls under fair use we need to look at four criteria and i'll comment on these as we go 1. the purpose and character of the use including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes the commercial nature is a bit that stands out for me when discussing sonic omens money is involved the demo was sold i feel confident in making that argument on a legal basis given my earlier points around patreon's terms and the payward access to the demo 2. the nature of the copyrighted work sonic the hedgehog is a multimedia franchise it's a commercial product it exists to make money it's not educational while it has environmental themes it's not intended as activism it's purely entertainment the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole looking at sonic omens while some original 3d models audio and other assets do exist it appears that many of them are directly taken from or edited from sega's official assets even if they were all original they are based on character designs which sega own 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work this is where things get murky and probably why sega leaves most fan game developers alone it costs sega money to send you a cease and desist it costs them even more to take you to court for it to be worth their time there have to be substantial damages typically either monetary or reputational if you're making a sonic video game that franchises bread and butter and it's either so bad or so good that it's getting a lot of attention you're potentially causing reputational damage to the sonic brand by either making sonic look bad with a terrible game or making sega look bad with a great game by seemingly doing it better than they can if you're monetizing it it gets even worse as you're directly competing with sega as an unlicensed bootleg in the eyes of the war it also leads us directly into my third point is monetizing a fan game any different from monetizing fan art or youtube videos whether a youtube video is protected by fair use or not depends on the nature of that video a review is usually fine because the purpose is to provide critique and the amount of the copyrighted work shown is typically just enough to evidence the reviewer's points and is only a fraction of the full game of course it could fall foul of 0.4 impact on the value of or market for the product but that opens a whole can of worms regarding free press censorship and other complex topics which would divert us from the core discussion a let's play on the other hand shows the full game you could argue you're adding commentary or critique in real time but i don't think that's enough to combat the other considerations in fact remember how i said would come back to section 106 bullet four that states a copyright holder has the exclusive rights to publicly perform an audio visual work what is a let's play if not a performance of a video game it raises a lot of questions for the modern age are all video game streamers breaking the law probably we're coming away from the main point again though so fanart is probably the closest to fan games in this regard drawing fan art to show your love for a property or practice your skills in most cases no harm no foul unless it's something that could cause reputational damage to the brand such as nsfw content slapping that fan out on a print or t-shirt and selling it is a different story you know those licensing magazines we keep inferring leaks from that's sega going out to people saying hey let's make a deal where you'll produce toys t-shirts whatever based on our property you'll pay us a license fee we'll review and approve it before it goes to market and we'll agree a revenue share by not doing that and putting yourself on t public or red bubble you're an unlicensed bootleg you can catch the attention of not only sega's lawyers but also of the companies that are going through the proper channels and are paying the licensing fees and splitting their revenue so how come a lot of stuff is still up there well there are a lot of reasons one is sheer volume it's like a hydra cut off one head to replace it you might just be flying under sega's radar they might not know about you the other is return on investment let's say you've made a hundred dollars selling fan art a cease and desist can cost between seven hundred and fifty and one thousand two hundred dollars sega would be losing at least six hundred and fifty dollars taking you to court would cost several times more so a lot of the time companies just don't bother with small fry i appreciate there's also a morality versus legality argument here too your design might be offering something sega's products don't fans are still happy to receive it it can still be high quality it's how a lot of artists make desks start i'm not going to get into that debate today i'll merely acknowledge there's a difference between right and wrong versus legal and illegal okay so a fan artist or in this case fan game developer decides they're willing to run that risk it's on them if they get sued right question four of four is it anyone else's business or concern i brought it round to a segway baby yes it's the entire community's business and concern we have an incredibly good thing going with sega i think i've made it clear that sega aren't ignorant of their fan community they allow us to do our thing entirely at their mercy heck they even encourage us that's incredibly rare they're the polar opposite of nintendo in that regard but that can change in an instant monetizing sonic omens is very much a case of poking the bear it's disrespectfully pushing boundaries if sega respond they might not stop at just taking sonic omens down no they could change their entire policy over this no more sonic fan games hq no more sage no more sonic hacking contest at least not above ground and it could happen overnight because one developer got greedy the auroboris is a serpent that eats its own tail that's scarily fitting for describing the precarious situation sonic omen's patreon places our entire fan community in i get that games aren't free to make but fan projects need to be treated as a hobby you do in your spare time not a source of income and hey if you do want to make this the way you pay your bills pitch to sega apply for jobs with them they're receptive to fans becoming part of the official teams again as evidenced by sonic mania's very existence

Channel: Webster

Views: 21,639

Keywords: Afr0Blu3, Afr0, Blu3, AfroBlue, Afro, Blue, Webster, SJ

Id: ow4ZOpuielM

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/darksaiyan1234]

Yeah

[u/SnooCheesecakes5318]

they should tho