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Comment by dasKrokodil | Hacker News Reader

Man, regardless of who is in the right legally, I wish these big corporations had a better sense of humor and would understand and appreciate that the people who go to these lengths to understand and recreate the original code aren't their enemies, but their biggest fans.

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It's something I really appreciate about Sega's handling of Sonic IP: as long as you aren't trying to make money you can pretty much get away with anything. I think Sonic's continued popularity is in no small part due to this policy.

It's also something that makes me appreciate how Capcom approached the Resident Evil 2 remake. They invited the devs up to their studio to show them the official remake and then asked them to cease developing theirs. No drama or bad blood.

Side story: these developers have created their own studio (Invader Studios) and released their first game just a couple years ago, Daymare 1998.

like this guy making a 16x16 recreation of Sonic on pico-8 https://twitter.com/troypicol

>I really appreciate about Sega's handling of Sonic IP: as long as you aren't trying to make money you can pretty much get away with anything.

I disagree. Sega can be an awful-bully when it comes to their IP. It wasn't until the SteamDB issue went viral that they backed-down [1] and the Streets of Rage remake. [2]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/03/sega-forces-mistaken-...

[2] https://www.destructoid.com/sega-has-streets-of-rage-remake-...

Well I did specifically say the Sonic IP. Maybe things are changing at Sega though. That would be a shame.

That you did; it's been a long day. My bad.

Isnt part of the issue here copyright law? If they don't shut down things like this then eventually one of them grows large enough that it does start making money, ends up in court with Take-Two, and the judge could say that GTA copyright doesnt hold up since they failed to protect their copyright when they knew there were many people infringing on it.

I don't support this action by Take-Two but I think this is more of a legal situation rather than a, "How dare they try to rip off our game?" situation.

Why don’t they approach the creators and license the franchise while still preserving their rights? Seems like this is the best of both worlds?

Is it very likely that a project, I'm assuming no one works on this full time or at least gets paid to work on it full time, could afford to license a major franchise from a larger company?

My understanding is that this applies to trademark — the necessity to defend it — but not to copyright.

I‘d simple offer employment if i where in the position to do so. Let them improve the games from within, they surely showed talent and knowledge. Legal action can have the opposite effect here.

> I‘d simple offer employment if i where in the position to do so.

That doesn't provide the same buzz as ruinous legal action

Often folks who make these mods are young or based somewhere outside of the US. Not that there couldnt be a job for them but its not all that likely that there would be a role that would actually be a good fit skill wise and location wise if there were even eligible to work in that country.

They make money from having lots of customers, not from having a few obsessed fans. I’ve heard this argument before but the kind of people who are obsessed enough to reverse-engineer old games don’t necessarily even play new games. They’re often fans of the old games and don’t play new games, or they’re people who are interested in reverse engineering.

You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engineered version would be competing with it.

That said, using any of these mods requires a valid GTA V license, so OP is right, by killing this project, they are killing their own sales.

Not if they intend to release remastered versions of their own content, which is likely.

It's funny because I bet a GTA V license costs more than whatever they are going to charge for remastered. So they are competing with themselves by offering a cheaper option (if we ignore the fact that a lot of people already own GTA V). I'd be willing to bet a lot of people who want to play the remastered older games haven't played GTA V because they normally wouldn't. So still lost revenue imo.

> You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engineered version would be competing with it.

The Console HD (Well 720p) remasters of the 3D GTAs don't even compete with the original versions with mods imo :-P.

They are the ported from the mobile ports of the games, have tons of bugs (Edit: some of the bugs on the 360 stem from RROD issues on consoles that have just not yet RROD'ed), break many of the game mechanics and redender models like trash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhVdb4K1M-M <- Sa comparisons as an example

(Note: I know you are on about how mods / RE projects compete with offical releases from a product standpoint, not a quality standpoint. Just wanted to say that RS had their chance to improve the longevity of the older 3D titles and they fucked it up)

Porting the mobile port back to PC is one of my biggest complaints with remasters. Final Fantasy on PC went that route and I would honestly rather pay Square $15 for an emulated version then the releases we got.

The new 'pixel remaster' games Square is putting out have been great so far. Standardizing on a 16-bit sprite style, new music arrangements, and widescreen support. Only issue is the English font choice, but if you're on PC that's easy enough to fix.

Here’s another data point since it’s not always as simple as “remastering”.

Nintendo released Super Mario 3D All Stars for a limited purchase window between Sept 2020 and March 2021. Super Mario 64 was included in its original 1996 glory, included a low frame rate, 4:3 aspect ratio, low res textures (iirc they were slightly improved). In fact, Nintendo’s bundle was literally a N64 emulator running on the switch.

At the same time, a group of reverse engineers had decompiled the original ROM, converted it to readable C, and added many improvements: 60FPS, widescreen support, high res textures, etc. Most notably, the project allowed them to compile the source code to native Switch architecture, which greatly improved performance and power consumption.

Most enthusiasts would agree that the “fan project” is objectively a better experience.

But this flies blatantly in the face of the above comment because it's highly unlikely that the existence of the superior freeware cost Nintendo very many sales. 'Mario 3D All Stars' almost certainly sold wonderfully for them.

In fact, I'd guess it's much more likely that the existence of such fan projects increases sales. Because it keep a conversation going about the IP. We can certainly say, an old IP that is not being talked about is essentially not selling.

What was Nintendo's reaction again? https://github.com/n64decomp is still up at least. Is Take-Two a more aggressive bully than Nintendo??

> You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engineered version would be competing with it.

Technically, that's correct of course. But realistically, how many people will build one of these projects from the source code they obtained from GitHub, download the game assets from somewhere and spend a lot of time to make it all work on their machine instead of just buying the remastered version? Some, sure, but I don't see Rockstar losing a lot of money here.

If I were in their shoes I would simply hire these developers. And leave their fan projects alone as a sign of good-will and generosity towards the community.

> But realistically, how many people will build one of these projects from the source code they obtained from GitHub

They released pre-built files. You download the stock version from steam like normal then unpack the pre-built files over the top replacing some of the original files (Just like many of the mods for these games).

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