"I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

JustDisappointed · 2019-03-18 05:04:50

I'm an aspiring game designer and long-time fan of Jason's work. I was incredibly excited about OHOL and played it at launch. I wanted to get back into it eventually so I kept up with the update emails, which is how I learned about the mobile game drama. I haven't seen any of the articles and didn't know there was a mobile version. The only way I learned about this was reading Jason's own account, and later the developer's response. I just add that for context to make it clear I have no stake in this argument beyond my reaction to reading about it today. That, combined with a desire to make it clear that I'm not looking for a debate, and Jason's apparent fondness for transparency is why I'm posting this here instead of emailing him.

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As I said, I'm an aspiring game designer and Jason has been the most consistently inspiring designer I've seen. OHOL was the first time I actually looked at a game's code to try and learn how it works, I saw the public domain dedication and was even more impressed. I'm also the type of person who sees someone playing 2048 and tells them that it's a ripoff of a better game, because I care about attribution and crediting good work. In other words, I'm the type of person who cares about designer's "legacies" even if I don't play their games.

That's where I was when I started reading these threads. Now, I'm heartbroken and feeling like I lost someone important to me.

Again, this is a temporary account because I'm sure someone will reply with some little detail that I intentionally omitted and ignore the point. This isn't about what email was sent on what date, or what font size was used for which disclaimer. It's about seeing someone I respected for their principles fall apart when those principles were actually tested.

I read these threads and saw a casual agreement gone wrong after an unexpected success. Hardly surprising, which is why lawyers exist. I saw the mobile developer make efforts to fix their mistakes. I saw Jason repeatedly assert that he waived his rights to things while making quasi-legal threats based on rights he doesn't have, due to a change of heart he had after agreeing to certain terms. They asked his permission to make the game, and he gave it. They offered a cut of the revenue, and he turned it down. Admirable. They did something he didn't like based on the terms of that agreement and then he started making demands as if he had legal rights. They tried to make it right where they could, and gave very reasonable explanations why they couldn't make other specific changes. He accused them of fraud even as they continued to try and remedy the situation.

There are hundreds of companies out there that make shameless clones, unofficial ports, and outright pirated games every day. Some of them make millions of dollars a month and have (actual) lawyers on staff. And all this is ripping off games that have retained their copyright. There are plenty of cases of actual patents being duplicated by multi-national corporations. Just recently the Supreme Court weakened copyright protection by ruling that you can't sue for copyright infringement until your application has been approved, where you could previously sue just after making the application (based on the de facto copyright assumed by publication or whatever). I've also been involved in filing for a trademark and it is not an easy, cheap, and certainly not automatic process. So Jason's constant accusations of legal infringement based on a work that he explicitly waived copyright on has done nothing but make this entire conversation sound hostile and made the mobile developers look level-headed.

Before this, I had thought about adapting or building on one of Jason's works. Now, I'm sure I legally could, but I have no desire to be associated with him or risk some kind of unforseen disagreement.

As far as this is concerned, looking at mobile stores these days, the mobile dev's point about having "unofficial" in the title opening up room for malicious cloners to pose as the official mobile game is really underappreciated. While I'm not hoping for it, I think it would fascinating to see this saga revive if another clone/port comes out with the same or a similar-enough name that it takes the place of the current mobile version. How would everyone react if after doing all this work to negotiate with the well-meaning mobile developer, they're suddenly faced with a company that won't come to Jason's forums to hash it out and won't reply to anything short of a court order?

My big takeaway from all this: If you're going to treat the law as an abstract thought experiment, don't base your business or your legacy on everyone agreeing with your hypothesis. If you're going to make a legal threat, then actually file with a court and take the chance of being wrong. Don't try and have it both ways.

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Again, I absolutely don't care about armchair lawyers talking about the outcome of their fantasy lawsuits that they win on a technicality. I care about the reputation of someone I really admired and how they handled something very publicly. Jason says he cares about his legacy. As one of the people who will be around to remember that legacy, I wanted to let him know what it looks like right now.

Remember kids, never meet your heroes. Save yourself time and don't have any.

Sanshuba · 2019-03-18 05:54:03

I don’t know if I understood it well, but I would like to give my opinion.
If he created something and someone want to copy it, Jason has the right to accept or not or put any condition he wants, since he created that.
The game doesn’t have an official version, but probably it was in his plans, just doesn’t have time enough to make it now, so if someone want to do that using his intelectual
product, that person should agree with conditions (try to negotiate as well) or doesn’t do that.

If someone doesn’t want to agree, that person could make an inspired game, a brand new, but the same idea, it would be great to see a similar game.

But the unnoficial game is cheaper than the official one, but it’s usinng all hard work that Jason had for years. And if he will do a official version, he will get much less downloads, so I think the person who made the unnoficial one should accept any terms, tries to negotiate, but in my humble opinion, they don’t any rights.

For instance, I love to play Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu on my Nintendo Switch, if I decided to make a port for Android/iOS, have to accept Nintendo Terms, even if they want 99,99% of the revenue or don’t make the port. Even if I worked hard or not, I do not have rights, and if my port is cheaper than the original one, people might buy me version instead of the original one and it will drecrease the revenue of who really worked hard to make the game.

I’m sorry for my English and if I understood it wrong, it’s just my opinion.

Dodge · 2019-03-18 06:29:18

So you are an aspiring game designer and you didn't learn a lesson from all this?

Jason originally put his whole work in public domain without giving too much precisions (at least publicly) about giving credit to the original work and avoiding misunderstadings because he tought it went without saying.

He was WRONG and realised it after what you call a "success" which is actually a "fuck up" that got successful, chinese mobile version gave no credit to the original game and worse maked it seem like the chinese game was the original game, now theorically there is more people that think that one hour one life is a chinese mobile game made by some company rather than the original PC game made by him.

Point is, he did something a certain way then events happenned and he adjusted to it, learning from experience.

So, what would YOU have done in the same situation?

Also as long as they make it clear that it's not the original game they can keep the assets since they had an agrement in the past

It would literally take 2-3 weeks to change all the sprites and sounds in game the whole code that took 4 years to make is still publicly available.

"Remember kids, never meet your heroes. Save yourself time and don't have any."

So dramatic... If your definition of a hero is someone that doesn't learn and adapt from his mistakes and life experiences then i dont want to meet your heroes...

lionon · 2019-03-18 06:36:37

JustDisappointed wrote:

I'm also the type of person who sees someone playing 2048 and tells them that it's a ripoff of a better game, because I care about attribution and crediting good work.

It's your fair view to disregard "shameless clones" but even if the original author reserves all rights, no public domain or OpenSource License or anything, legally the is nothing wrong with copying a "game idea". Ideas is not copyright, it would be patents. And as far I know you cannot patent a "game idea" and I heavily oppose anybody suggesting so.

So many games have been the mother of a whole generation, putting this idea forward would heavily impede the game industry and harm public as a whole. If Doom wouldn't have """shameless copied""" the idea of Wolfenstein 3D and nobody would have copied the idea of Doom, we wouldn't have *any* FPS, hundreds of thousands of games nowadays.

And as Jason rightly said, nothing is ever truly original. We always base our ideas on ideas before us. And always somebody comes and complains this might be too similar to that and a "shameless ripp-off".

This notion is not helpful, neither for humanity at large nor of the discussion that had been going on here.

Sanshuba · 2019-03-18 07:00:22

lionon wrote:

JustDisappointed wrote:
I'm also the type of person who sees someone playing 2048 and tells them that it's a ripoff of a better game, because I care about attribution and crediting good work.
It's your fair view to disregard "shameless clones" but even if the original author reserves all rights, no public domain or OpenSource License or anything, legally the is nothing wrong with copying a "game idea". Ideas is not copyright, it would be patents. And as far I know you cannot patent a "game idea" and I heavily oppose anybody suggesting so.
So many games have been the mother of a whole generation, putting this idea forward would heavily impede the game industry and harm public as a whole. If Doom wouldn't have """shameless copied""" the idea of Wolfenstein 3D and nobody would have copied the idea of Doom, we wouldn't have *any* FPS, hundreds of thousands of games nowadays.
And as Jason rightly said, nothing is ever truly original. We always base our ideas on ideas before us. And always somebody comes and complains this might be too similar to that and a "shameless ripp-off".
This notion is not helpful, neither for humanity at large nor of the discussion that had been going on here.

Copying the idea is not shameful.
Shameful is copying the whole game and sell it for the half of the price.

lionon · 2019-03-18 07:03:34

Sanshuba wrote:

Copying the idea is not shameful.
Shameful is copying the whole game and sell it for the half of the price.

I agree. The post of @JustDisappointed suggested otherwise tough, hence the argument.

Toxic · 2019-03-18 08:25:50

Stop open letters lol!

lionon · 2019-03-18 08:57:53

Toxic wrote:

Stop open letters lol!

Only if you stop writing JASON in capital letters every topic of yours, attention seeker.

Starknight_One · 2019-03-18 12:45:34

lionon wrote:

JustDisappointed wrote:
I'm also the type of person who sees someone playing 2048 and tells them that it's a ripoff of a better game, because I care about attribution and crediting good work.
It's your fair view to disregard "shameless clones" but even if the original author reserves all rights, no public domain or OpenSource License or anything, legally the is nothing wrong with copying a "game idea". Ideas is not copyright, it would be patents. And as far I know you cannot patent a "game idea" and I heavily oppose anybody suggesting so.

You are correct. You can copyright a specific arrangement of rules (i.e., a 'game system' if you will), but you can't copyright the systems themselves. The whole kerfluffle back in the day of WOTC trademarking 'tapping' cards is an example; you can have a card game that uses the mechanic of 'turn this card sideways to indicate it is inactive', you just can't call it 'tapping' in your game rules.

To make it clear: I can create a Tetris clone. If I change the graphics and music, and write the engine myself (or use a commercially licensed one, like Unity), and call it something like Geometry Fill... I'm well within my legal rights. NOW... depending upon how *closely* my designs and music follow that of Tetris, they might have a case to stop me, and in any case, they'll probably issue a C&D just to be on the safe side. If I actually reverse-engineer Tetris and use their code, or steal a printout of it and copy it that way, *then* I would be guilty of violating copyright.

lionon · 2019-03-18 13:08:05

Starknight_One wrote:

You are correct. You can copyright a specific arrangement of rules (i.e., a 'game system' if you will), but you can't copyright the systems themselves. The whole kerfluffle back in the day of WOTC trademarking 'tapping' cards is an example; you can have a card game that uses the mechanic of 'turn this card sideways to indicate it is inactive', you just can't call it 'tapping' in your game rules.

You're confusingly mingling things. First you talk of copyright then suddenly you switch over to trademarks. Yes you're right, you can't "copyright" an idea, but you can "trademark" naming it in a a certain way.

To make it clear: I can create a Tetris clone. If I change the graphics and music, and write the engine myself (or use a commercially licensed one, like Unity), and call it something like Geometry Fill... I'm well within my legal rights. NOW... depending upon how *closely* my designs and music follow that of Tetris, they might have a case to stop me

If you infringe the copyright of the music (by having it too similar) yeah, but it's just that.

Last edited by lionon (2019-03-18 13:08:41)

CrazyEddie · 2019-03-18 14:41:53

JustDisappointed: I agree with pretty much everything you've said.

I think Jason has learned from this experience. His new "no_copyright.txt" disclaimer is much more specific about his intentions and more correctly lines up with the way that intellectual property laws actually work.

I believe the problems with Dual Decade stem from Jason having had a very poor understanding of his rights while simultaneously wanting to be completely hands-off with anyone and anything that wasn't his own project. His approach was "it's public domain, so just do what you want, follow the law and leave me out of it" ... but he thought that "follow the law" implied much more than it actually did. Or perhaps it wasn't even "follow the law", but rather "do the right thing" ... which of course is even worse, because completely reasonable people can completely disagree as to what the right thing is.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-03-18 05:04:50

"I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#2 2019-03-18 05:54:03

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#3 2019-03-18 06:29:18

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#4 2019-03-18 06:36:37

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#5 2019-03-18 07:00:22

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#6 2019-03-18 07:03:34

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#7 2019-03-18 08:25:50

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#8 2019-03-18 08:57:53

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#9 2019-03-18 12:45:34

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#10 2019-03-18 13:08:05

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

#11 2019-03-18 14:41:53

Re: "I'm just concerned about my legacy" - an open letter to Jason

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