Sunday, January 21, 2007

retro64 violates copyright - update

An indi game development company by the name Retro64 infringes copyright with at least one of their games. A member of the Magicball Network found out that Retro64's game with the name "Bugatron Worlds" violates the copyright of Adeline Software.

The planet in the background of the menu of Bugatron Worlds shows the image of a planet that very much resembles the planet Twinsun of the Little Big Adventure games.

This makes you wonder how much of the other art of their games is original. But this simple case of copyright infringement should be enough reason for not buying at least that particular game and maybe enough to think twice to buy any game from them.

Update! the art for that game was provided by an other party, retro64 has updated the game. So it's safe to to buy their games again ;). And actually, this was quite nice by retro64, they resolved this issue quickly without any fuss.

It's actually a sad thing. A developer hires a 3rd party to do some original art but in turn gets copied stuff. The developer will be held accountable because nobody knows that he has been ripped of by the third party.