Monetization and Crowd-Funding of Fangames

If you say the same, I repeat the same.

It's not about owning ideas, is about owning the results of my work, if I (or anyone else) make a videogame, I did it, not you, so it's up to me to allow you to use it or not. If I did something like saying "I had that idea first", it would be something stupid, but if I made something real of that idea, and you're basing your work on the real thing I made, you shouldn't step over me. If laws about it are fair or not, or even if the price at which things sell is fair or not, would be a different topic. I'm personally on the side of trying to find the way to skip the most middle persons and dealing only with the essential people so my work can be sold at the cheapest price possible within a reasonable profit for me.

My work has a value and deserves credit, don't tell me I shouldn't have the right for it.

 

Well in this case it wouldn't be charging for stuff, would it? It's a voluntary donation. You pay if you want.

Ideas are not property, and copyright law does not apply to ideas.

Characters and worlds, however, are.

 

Good!

Maybe Sega will see this and come down hard on Omens. Better than other fangame makers seeing Omens, thinking "well they are getting away with this, i'd be a chump not to do the same", festering and spreading until Sega realises they have to stomp on 20+ fangame projects and it's just "a thing" now and it becomes a different kind of issue for them.

I see 3 realities:

• Sega see Omens as a single case and make an example.
• Sega doesnt see Omens, this kind of thing becomes more common and suddenly they take notice of an epidemic of this stuff, and well, make a different kind of example.
• Sega just don't care at all and are happy to allow this (unlikely?)

Said it before I'll say it again, you can easily make money from fangames but USING the fangame as a showcase of your skills for other people to commission or hire you, basically.

I've benefitted greatly from my endeavours so far as a portfolio, and even though I STILL make no money from it and I STILL can only do this in free time, it's beneficial to the project itself. Imagine the crap you'd get if people started using cash as their motivation for fangames instead of love and passion.

Unrelated:
I started a Ko-Fi a while back, and tried to make it clear that this did not fund studio (as if it even needed to, the idea that it would seemed so dumb to me that I had to be sure it was clear to anyone) and while I did post Studio related art like background and character renderings on there, I got people donating and saying "I love your fangame" and other things like that which made me feel a bit uncomfortable - so I kinda stepped back a bit with it all and in future want anything like that to be even further disconnected. Not to say that's even bad though, it's unavoidable if you do happen to be making one.

What is bad is directly connecting money to a fangame like implying you'll only make the fangame with this money support or "donate here so we make this level!" all of that is clearly poking and prodding and hopping over the line.

 

And I disagree. And that is fine, not a problem, disagreeing is perfectly normal. To me, characters, names, techniques, shapes, combinations of materials, logos, music, combinations of sounds, combinations of objects, patterns, modes of production, are all ideas. Everything that exists physically is an 'object', everything that is not something physical (even though it can be described or be present in something physical) is an 'idea'. How much work you put into producing them is completely irrelevant to whether or not you should have the right to these things.

Again, I'm not getting into the question of why I think so, I'm just stating that I think that way. To me, there should be no ownership of anything that is not a physical object. If you have a car, it is yours. But if I have some way of making a car exactly like yours in every way to the point that it is indistinguishable, it is mine, and it is irrelevant whatever effort you put into creating it or its particularities. I have never heard an argument that would convince me otherwise, but again, that point is not relevant here - because I don't want to convince anyone to agree with me, and you won't convince me either.

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What is more productive is to focus on what we agree on rather than what we disagree on - which is the fact that Sonic Omens, or any other fangame, should in no way use Patreon or attempt in any way, direct or indirect, to monetize its production. Regardless of my personal ideology, or the ideology or views of anyone else who is defending this game (or any other game in the future), it is a complete waste of time to argue what "should be" or what "I believe is right" or anything like that. In practice, it's what's in the law that counts. If the law says that Sega has the rights to Sonic, then it does. If Sega doesn't want anyone else making money off of it, it is literally within its rights. Just don't do it. Don't fuck this for everyone else, it's that simple.

If someone want to make angry videos on Youtube about defending the end of copyright or intellectual properties, great, then make your videos and rants. Shout and curse a lot on Twitter. Complain that Sega doesn't make good games anymore, etc. Everyone is free to complain as much as they want or express their opinions. But those opinions are no defense to an illegal practice, and you can't violate an individual's (or company's) constitutional right just because you disagree with it. I think it is more productive to focus on the real, practical consequences of acting in this way. Both here in this forum, and when we go to argue with other people.

 

Exactly. The thing about fangames is that they exist because of copyright law. People don't typically call BBC Sherlock or Clash of the Titans fanfiction of Sherlock Holmes or Greek Mythology (as far as I've seen). If those laws weren't there, the things we call fangames would just be regular games. So even though the law itself is totally unjust, so long as we can't remove it, we need to point out how harmful breaking it can be to other fanworks.

I'm glad to see a message of "so long as you're not profiting, it's okay" from Katie, I hope it means there's some acknowledgement that not every fan or fan creator is involved or supportive of this, but I also realize that corporate lawyers are pieces of shit happy to annihilate anything that they say gets in the way of the dosh.

 

My stance on Omens is that it was directly making money off of a fan game due to locking playable demos behind a patreon before other people could play it for free, making you effectively paying for a fan game. Having a patreon to support the works of a studio is still questionable to me when the main focus of the studio seems to be said fan game. The only thing that feels acceptable to me is unrelated donations that attempts to disconnect itself from the fan game as much as possible.


As said here:

That aside, I'm not really sure on the official boundaries of donations in the eyes of SEGA. They could technically just go full Nintendo and just take down a fan game they don't like even if the donations are technically unrelated.

 

This is one very sticky reason why I'm keeping my Patreon campaign for a future Sonic-like project unlaunched until I'm done with my fan game. There's simply no clean disconnect between the fan game and the original project; people donate money so that you can have more time work on games, and some of that time is still being used to work on the project based on a property you don't own. Especially in a home studio setting, how do you even define, let alone professionally verify, a "clock in/clock out" time period where you guarantee that your patrons' money is only used for the original project by the hour?

Some peoples' motives will vary, too, as you've shown. A few will only care about the fan game you're making. I've seen some fan artists struggle to keep their following after they go all original, and stop producing fan art; they tend to lament this publicly.

This is an ethical spaghetti monster that can't be so easily untangled without a lot of questionable mental gymnastics. It's hard for me to find the nuance without that slippery slope feeling.

 

This is an incredibly tricky subject that I think is more complex that most of you are willing to acknowledge.

Copyright applies to everything related to a work, and every part of fandom culture. My avatar that features Nack, this website sharing screencaps and images without authorization. Youtube videos; reviews, lets plays, tribute videos. Sonic Inspired art and characters, and other derivative works even can and do get acted against in the real world by other IP holders. Everything. While Fair Use can and does protect people, it is nebulous and vague just how it would be decided in court and often comes down to the biases of the individual judge. Deciding what is and isn't transformative, educational, parody, or otherwise is extremely subjective and always will be. Even with the perfect case and precedent for fair use, judges can and have made decisions that set bad precedents that change the nature of what a person can and can't do (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimension_Films). Expecting it to be wielded in a way that's just or fair in a world where both scammers and corporate asshats exist each trying to maximize their gains against one another and squish the somewhat more innocent people in the middle doesn't change the fact that almost every single aspect of internet fandom that we've followed for the past 30 years can be wrecked at a moments notice should the rightsholder decide it is 'profitable' for them to do so. What is and isn't morally okay here very, very rarely has anything to do with how it really works, and is frankly entirely subjective. A lot of you arguing "this is never okay" are making a value judgement based on a preconceived bias that the law hasn't often shifted based on who is powerful enough to influence it. Worrying about how a bad actor will set a precedent does nothing when a company can simply change their mind with a new executive who believes in something completely different from what the previous leadership did.

The only reason copyright isn't enforced even more rigorously from big companies than it already is comes down to...

1. The ethics of the corporation/copyright holder - Not all big companies are unethical, we just live in a capitalistic system that happens to reward ones that are, so many almost inevitably become that way because they believe it will benefit them.
2. Whether or not a decision to enforce copyright is literally profitable in the long run. Will doing so stop credible damage to the IP? Will the negative goodwill against the brand hurt it? Will the community being upset impact sales and hurt the company's image/value/marketability? Will those profits lost outweigh the potential profits gained if we act and enforce our rights? Will the legal fees and the time spend acting on this be something we can recoup? Does the positive advertising of this item lead to more sales further down the line? Does it lead to less? Have we considered any of this before we act and are we going to make a decision just because we can, whether it's good or bad?

Now, in many cases, a content creator can win a fair use case, but that is far from guaranteed and the big companies love using methods to bully the little guy when they 'do' choose the aggressive route. Any fandom youtuber knows how much of a frustrating rabbit-hole these issues can be. It's an even bigger issue when the reality today is that the gaming community and even entire platforms (Twitch) are based on a very nebulous existence that could end at any time without warning with almost no defense for the little guy.

Rather than name-call these guys for exploiting their own monetization loopholes, you guys need to start recognizing that the entire system is borked in the digital age, has been for years, is only getting worse and abused more and more by those in power, and that they don't need a "bad actor" as a precedent to do it. Going on a cancelling crusade against a few people will do nothing to save this community. Telling the IP holder that you won't give them money when they shut down projects unjustly is the only way to protect these communities. Keep them accountable, above all else. Stopping a bad actor isn't your job if you aren't the community manager/website host. That will always be up to the IP holder themselves.

 

Fortunately, this is most of what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to defend these actions, just pointing out that another twitter fight is probably a bad way to handle this situation.

I've been watching the development of Sonic fangames (and used to make them), since 1998. Watching Tax/Stealth go Pro and create Mania felt like a watching a family member grow to become truly successful since I played their projects over many, many years long before Mania. I've seen how all this evolved and have very strong and mixed feelings about what we have and haven't gotten away with as content creators, but I'm also very grateful to Sega for letting this community contribute in the ways it has. I think the recent tweet they put out also indicates that they're aware of the issue and want to handle it fairly, and that I can live with.

I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Many years ago I was working on a Doom mod, but abandoned it because it was too ambitious and I didn't like how it was shaping up. Some other guy asked if he could pick it up as he had a similar idea but didn't want to start from scratch. I said sure, why not. Cut to a few years later, and I found out he was trying to start a crowdfunding campaign for it. I was pretty pissed, to say the least.

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On an unrelated note, hypothetically, how acceptable would it be if a fangame creator or hacker hired amateur voice actors using money exclusively from their own pocket? And obviously, not charge a cent to the end user for the end product.

 

I've been toying with the idea of redubbing SA1 with some OVA soundalikes. Not taking the idea seriously, but I think it'd be fun to do at some point.

I found out about the incident a couple of months after it happened. Plenty of other people criticized him and talked him down from it. I already knew that he had been insulting me behind my back before that point, but that + the crowdfunding situation really pissed me off. I ranted about it for a bit, and people told me it was no big deal and that I was being a whiner. If they were in my shoes, they would have been just as livid as I was. I really don't like the Doom scene anymore. There's some pretty great people there, but there's also an atmosphere of toxicity.

I'd rather not derail this thread so I won't say anything further about it in here.

 

I want to chip in because ever since Omens officially released yesterday, I've been thinking about this topic for a long time.

Someone brought up how CBS and Paramount treat Star Trek fanfilms. So let's look at that. For a long time, they were completely fine with fanfilms as long as they were noncommercial. Fanfilms could do whatever they wanted, essentially, and this included crowdfunding. Fanfilms kept the Trek brand alive from 2006-2017 during a time when there were no new Trek TV shows or movies being produced (aside from the Abrams reboot trilogy, which most people consider far removed from what they call "Classic Trek"). During this time, they noticed what they called an "arms race" in the community: fanfilms were getting bigger, and bigger. They were hiring more Hollywood talent, and raising more money to do so. The line between Trek fanfilms, and "real" Trek films was getting blurrier. This all came to a head when Axanar raised over $600k to produce a feature-length, studio-quality fanfilm with professional actors and previous Trek talent being onboard. At which point CBS said enough was enough. They made the difficult decision to sue Axanar in 2016, during the 50th anniversary of Trek, and on the eve of a new show coming out. They settled the following year, and Axanar was allowed to continue under new guidelines that CBS had set.

These new guidelines set a fundraising limit at $50k, along with a list of rules that fanfilms must follow in order to be legally sanctioned, promoted, and showcased on official channels and at official cons. Here's what people misunderstand: these are guidelines, not rules. CBS made it perfectly clear in the aftermath that they would deal with projects on a case-by-case basis, considering the intent of the production above all else. If the intent was for financial gain and to create a competing market for the studio's products, as was argued was the case with Axanar, then CBS will object. However, if the intent is to make the best Star Trek fanfilm possible, and merely to contribute to the brand, then CBS will most likely let it slide, as they have no desire to go to war with fans. This is why Star Trek Continues was allowed to keep the Trek branding, raise hundreds of thousands for its episodes, and continue to hire Hollywood talent. It wasn't "grandfathered in". CBS was well-aware of the project, and was directly in contact with its production team, and approved it despite it having a huge campaign on IndieGogo after the lawsuit and after the guidelines had been set.

So what does this have to do with Sonic?

It's important to learn that the law makes no distinction between what forms of copyright infringement take. Fanart is technically illegal. Fanfiction is technically illegal. Any videos of gameplay or cutscenes on Youtube are technically illegal. Even SonicRetro itself is technically illegal, and Sega could easily argue in court that the website infringes on the Sonic trademark, and that it unlawfully includes copyrighted images and video. It doesn't matter if money is involved, although that certainly can make it worse. Didn't stop Retro and Stadium from doing that. Several studios actually DID fight to take down websites about the Simpsons and such in the late 90s, until they realized it was a stupid idea. So it all comes down to what Sega personally allows fans to do. If they're ok with it, then logically, the fans should be ok with it too. They're not stupid. They know Omens exists and that its creator has a Patreon to help fund it. But as Kate said, much like CBS, they handle things on a case-by-case basis and they're mainly concerned if profit (IE financial gain) is being made. They did nothing about Omens despite the mass fan campaign for them to. Was it a mistake? Or is it perhaps one of the smartest and most progressive things Sega's ever done?

Sega, much like CBS/Paramount, has no desire to go to war with fans. And despite concerns that Omens could cause Sega to treat fangames the way Nintendo does, I'm inclined to think that (again, much like CBS/Paramount) they would only shut down a fangame or sue a fangame creator when it was absolutely necessary, and would never paint over all fan projects with a broad stroke.

Sonic Omens is a 3D fangame made in UE4 with fully animated and voice-acted cutscenes, with its own original levels, bosses, and soundtrack. How much money do you need to fund something like that? Some studios spend upwards of millions. According to a web archive from August 2020, Bolt was making $388 a month on his Patreon. If we add 15% to that to be generous considering it might have grown or lessened in the coming months, that means at most, Sonic Omens was earning $5300 a year. Compare that to the $50k CBS affords fanfilms, which people argue "neuters" them. Certainly a normal individual can do quite a bit with that money, but in terms of funding a full video game, that's almost nothing. That's a pittance. But it's at least something. Something to fund software suites, devkits, hardware, and any post-production costs such as storage. And because of that, we got a high-quality 3D fangame in a small fraction of the time games like SRB2 have taken.

But, let's assume that somehow Bolt and his team already had the necessary tools and any money made from that Patreon was pure profit. How do you define "profit"? How do you define "financial gain"? If money is being used to compensate for someone's time and labor, is that "profit"? Or is it only profit if the money is used for drugs and hookers? Certainly a project like Omens took a LOT of time and labor to make for it to come out in so short an amount of time. I find it hard to argue against any compensation for that. But what about them charging Patrons for beta-testing? Isn't that essentially charging money as a commercial release? Well, let me ask this: isn't arguing that a little hypocritical? Let's remember: any kind of money you make on Patreon off someone's IP is illegal. Should the many Sonic fanartists who have a Patreon for their art be shut down? Would you tell them to stop drawing Sonic and tell them to do something original instead? Would you tell Sega to shut them down because they charge a fee for someone to view their latest comic page a week early? What about someone who does unauthorized video game covers and remixes? Should they be shut down? Should they not charge on THEIR Patreon for viewing content early? What about me? I make a fandub series about a Capcom game. I charge people on Patreon for viewing an episode of a fandub of Mega Man Zero early. Should Capcom come knocking at MY door?

I don't recall people crying to Nintendo for Alvin-Earthworm making some $15k a year for making Super Mario Bros. Z, when he was. Of course, Nintendo shut it down eventually...but it came back. And stayed there for a while. And nobody seemed to care. But for some reason, for Omens, it's an issue. Maybe because unlike most other Patreons for fan series, Omens was firmly plastered all over it and Bolt made no secret that it was being used to help fund the game. Because nobody's willing to admit that their """personal""" Patreon is solely donated to by people looking at their most famous project and donating because of that. Bolt was a lie away from not having any controversy surrounding him whatsoever. "It's just for our game studio, what Sonic game? That's not on our Patreon! " There's little difference between a fanartist who has a Patreon and a fangamer who has a Patreon. The only difference is in how they compete with Sega products, but that's only IF they're competing at all. I would argue that the free original fangame with less production value/content and which has "Not affiliated with SEGA" plastered all over it is not competing with the $60 official product.

Of course, people still mourn the death of AM2R and scorn Nintendo for taking it down. It could be argued that that game is competing with an official Nintendo product, as Nintendo was still selling the original Metroid 2 on downloads and their own remake of the game. So if AM2R should be allowed to exist and its fans think it isn't REALLY competing with Nintendo, then what praytell is Omens competing with? What is it taking away from Sega? Certainly not money, considering at the end of the day, it's still a free download.

The concern seems to be that Sega will eventually put the hammer down if fan projects continue to raise money and get bigger and bigger, just like how it happened with Star Trek fanfilms. If it ever gets to the point where fangame quality actually really does compete with real games made by Sega, I would argue it's not on fans to dial things back but rather on Sega to realize the massive amount of demand and talent in the community and find a way to control it, and monetize it. Valve made it work with Half-Life fangames, so why can't Sega? Some say they shouldn't have to. I would argue it's in their best interest. After all, it is their IP and therefore their responsibility, NOT the fans'. There is a solution somewhere in here that results in profit for the IP owner as well as more freedom and compensation for the fangame creators. Imagine how much less time it would take to make, and how much better it could be, if a game like Sonic 2 HD or Utopia could be crowdfunded a little bit.

 

Well, despite the current tensions, it's incredible how a team of russian Sonic fans managed to complete such a project.

There being money involved in it all makes it a bit more ambiguous, but at least they got it done (and I love the final boss theme, with a feature by Bentley Jones).