Monetization and Crowd-Funding of Fangames

If I was involved, the voice acting wouldn't be so shitty.

 

Other than Tails sounding more girlish than boyish, and Shadow having a russian accent of sorts, the other (relevant) characters sounded OK to my ears.

 

Something about the -way- lines are delivered definitely put me off. Maybe the inflection? It isn't well -acted- is the best way I can say it. The voices are tolerable I guess, but definitely the delivery was off enough for me to not want to watch any of the cutscenes.

But at the end of the day this is a thread about the monitization and crowdfunding of fangames, not specifically a Sonic Omens thread (while that project relates to and is likely the reason for this thread, we're veering off the main topic, is my point).

To answer the question, I would say that this is a very thin legal grey line. It's hard to objectively answer where it falls and how it should be treated. My own opinion is that donating voluntarily to a creator you support, regardless of what project they're working on, is fine as long as no laws or morals are intentionally being broken- but specifically for the purpose of the project being created, no money should be involved in fanworks. They're hobbyist projects for a reason, being based on others' intellectual property, by definition, makes it not your wholly owned property, and thus does not give you the same ownership and sales rights as that property's rightful owner, and the rightful owner has all the justification in the world for squashing out such attempts to profit off their ideas.

 

I personally don't know which authors of fan projects have donations open, how many of them do being known only for their fan projects, and how many of them really try to do something other than their fan projects with the money obtained this way, so I can't judge each case or know the whole case list, but I'd argue that's exactly the point because, if any chance of confusion can lie in that practice, they should say what those donations will go for or what are they related to, and it shouldn't be the author or the fan project. If we use Lapper as a case (sorry Lapper!), he is or has been involved in a lot of projects, but I have no idea how many of them aren't fan stuff, so I can't tell where that money is going for; I'd just expect it goes to some original project, because otherwise it's still profitting of someone else's IP, even if it's pitiful and doesn't pay costs. I mean, Lapper could have done a full indie project and get money of it just with the time and effort he spent on Studio, so it's not like he's doing it for the money or the fame, but I get the complain about that Kofi.

 

All I'll say about the voice acting is this: when people tell me that Drummond or Griffith's acting was bad, I'll link them this game's cutscenes. The Sonic actor can do The Sonic Voice™ but is a complete mess in comparison to those two. I'm not saying those two were amazing actors, but I'm glad I have an example of someone trying to do the same kinda totally-radical-dude voice they went for and just fucking it up every line so people know what actual bad acting sounds like.

 

There was for sure a muddy transition era with my YouTube channel and adding the Ko-Fi link to it.
When I began making YouTube videos in like 2017/18, they were very focused on the fangame stuff, the channel was even named "Sonic Studio". Eventually I had begun making some more generalised Sonic YouTube videos like I do these days, with fangame update videos still ongoing alongside but even they were becoming more involved with the editing and some skit moments.

I think this around is when I made the ko-fi, it was supposed to be a YouTuber/content creator donation thing from the start, as the videos began to become a project for me all of their own.

Eventually I cut the two separate completely, the videos had transcended the fan project, and I grew uncomfortable with the sus connection between the 2 different goals.
I don't remember when this happened properly, but I don't remember it being Omens that made me do it - I think it was constantly getting comments SS related on unrelated videos.

The link there on Ko-Fi is to my current YouTube channel, which used to be named differently due to being Sonic Studio related originally. It had the mixture of content I mentioned above. My personal Twitter at the time was also called "SonicStudioDev" (with the project's one called "SonicStudioProj") as I was being overly gradual/cautious in transitioning things as I was concerned of giving my audience whiplash.

So, I never deliberately tried to monetise the fan project. Was not the intention (even though that was more than likely the effect for a little while). I was not careful enough with it and definitely ended up having these kinds of links in SS related places for a bit unfortunately.

 

SSC is a Russian Sonic Convention organized by fans which is not affiliated with Sega. Sonic Fangames having a booth there is not uncommon.

 

Katie's response makes me happy. Not only does it give more transparency and confirmation on what Sega's community management will not allow, but also, notice how there's no C&D. There was no hostile defense of Sega's IP with a cold, legalese-ridden document. It was a simple, kind, polite request, and an explanation of WHY the request was made. It's comparable to a Youtuber asking someone to give credit to their original upload for a reaction video, and that's very progressive of a stance for Sega to take.

If they continue to treat fangames tied to paid content in this way, then I don't think the community has anything to worry about.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that Katie said nothing about crowdfunding, and nothing about the Sonic IP being used to kickstart Ouroboros as a dev studio. If there was any chance that Sega took issue with that, she would've mentioned it.

 

Except that she said that in relation to paid content and locking things behind paywalls.

 

By that logic, you can start a Kickstarter for a Sonic fangame. You're still receiving funds to help create a project using someone else's IP. Crowdfunding can also come with perks for certain individuals and/or everyone involved, depending on how much is spent and accumlated. It's very similar to how Patreon usually works.

 

"If money starts getting involved" doesn't mention paid content and locked things, it mentions "if money starts getting involved". What's your vested interest in having these guys get paid for this game anyway? You're defending this like it's the Alamo

 

From my understanding, any fangame must be a passion project developed and financed by the dev(s).
Any outsider investment during development or recompense after completion falls into legal issues.

Seems to me that's what Katie alluded to with that tweet.
If Omens (or any other fangame) stays free and available to anyone, it should be no problem.

 

That's putting the focus onto the finished product and if there's profit from it- but the issue is not just focused on the final product. If they got paid to make the game, it's still not good, even if the final game is then free.

 

Hence me saying "Any outsider investment during development or recompense after completion falls into legal issues."