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I love this thread!
Screenshot from Limbo of the Lost by Majestic Studios:
from TDS:
info from ag.ru
Last edited by clearing; 23rd Jun 2008 at 18:37.
I love this thread!
That's not all. Check out the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpH8P...eature=related
The game features apparently stolen graphics that, according to news site GamePlasma, are identical to the game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[1] Further screenshots and video have indicated that environments and features have also been stolen from Diablo 2, Painkiller, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Thief: Deadly Shadows, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and Silent Hill 3.
Good goddamn. They didn't even change the railing or the window.
No, because it's a static backdrop... a screenshot. It's a 2D point and click adventure.
If it were just a team of hobbyists who cobbled together the game in their spare time, I'd laugh. But it's a professional developer so... aw heck, I am still just laughing.
Ah. Less evil, but showing a distinct lack of originality.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure...yadded;title;1
It seems they've gone on 'vacation' now and can't be reached after all their hard work on the game.
This interview is very amusing when you apply what you know now.
Gordon: During the long gestation for this game, what sort of changes have you made to bring it up to date.
Steve: All of the game (apart from initial background story and some character designs) had to be re-written, all the characters had to be created in 3D and animated, all the background scenes re-created, all the sounds, coding and music?..basically everything had to be redone or newly created for the PC version. This is not an old game that has been dressed up. This is the original concept, dusted off and re-created.
However, stealing good elements is better than creating bad ones, isn't it?Do you have an English proverb for this kind of thing? OK, the intend might be "to steal" and not "to copy and paste", but...
There's another interview here (also available in German).Originally Posted by Digital Nightfall
I quite unexpectedly felt some kind of sympathy for Majestic Studios after reading the interview. And I needed to understand why, so I did some research.
How professional are they, really? Have they ever earned a dollar at all? How many titles do they have under their belt previous to this one?
Wikipedia claims the answer is "none". Oh, and notice their geocities home page.
They are a team of hobbyists in practice (do you think they've received a lot of advances for their publishers?). That Steve Bovis has been waiting longer than Duke Nukem Forever to tell his story through an adventure game. I mean, they started redesigning the game for the Amiga platform in 1995. Wonder how that would have looked like.
Tri Synergy has removed the YouTube version of their trailer, but it still was on the ftp. I guess that means "hurry up" (22.7 MB):
ftp://ftp.trisynergy.com/pub/LimboOf...tL-Trailer.zip
There's definitely a hint of tragedy amongst all this staggering idiocy.
But I don't know. There might be a decent adventure game in there, for all I know, at least the story and characters sounded interesting. I feel this might become the game with the highest pirated to sold copies rate this year.
--
Larris
Wow - to think we have FM makers who worry whether using TDS assets in TMA missions is OK or not, and the Dark Mod people being very careful not to use Eidos' IP, and all the time this bunch of chancers has been trying to flog their game for 30 quid!
I'm sure there most be some original content there but if you've fixed your sights on creating a commercial graphic adventure but don't actually have any background artists, you're bound have trouble.
It may be that there was a good concept there that just needed a bit of help from a publisher with more resources. Perhaps they suddenly found themselves with a publishing deal and felt they had no option but to re-use other people's graphics to complete the thing. There are actually quite a lot of casual point and click / puzzle games out these days (although mainly on the Mac) that aren't exactly mindblowing but they're well-presented and fun enough for a few hours. Maybe the publisher simply hadn't come across the other games (I only recognised the TDS shots) or didn't ask enough questions, though I'm sure there must be something in a contract to cover this kind of thing.
Either way, the developers should have taken a lesson from Introversion Software: for indie developers, content is bad.
OMG. And British quid sterling, too. Even after having watched the teaser trailer, which BTW is entirely different from that quaint YouTube gameplay "Join us" trailer which Digi linked to above. (There are cute grammar errors in the opening texts, though, and I find great entertainment in that.)
I have no idea what could have happened. The teaser did show some original backgrounds, I thought. They must have found themselves in a real pinch somehow.I'm sure there most be some original content there but if you've fixed your sights on creating a commercial graphic adventure but don't actually have any background artists, you're bound to have trouble.
That'd be my best guess, but it's still too damn imbecilic. Like when I was six, I thought it'd be a great idea to create pop hit songs by cutting and pasting melody lines from other popular tunes. ...no wait, that's actually genius.It may be that there was a good concept there that just needed a bit of help from a publisher with more resources. Perhaps they suddenly found themselves with a publishing deal and felt they had no option but to re-use other people's graphics to complete the thing.
Maybe they had already sunk all their money into some third-party services?
I find it quite unbelievable that not one of the publisher's QA/playtesters had played neither TDS nor Oblivion. Or Diablo II, or all the other titles referenced by the news sites.Maybe the publisher simply hadn't come across the other games (I only recognised the TDS shots) or didn't ask enough questions, though I'm sure there must be something in a contract to cover this kind of thing.
Well, there are different kinds of content, of course, but... I see what you mean.Either way, the developers should have taken a lesson from Introversion Software: for indie developers, content is bad.
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L.
If the backgroud is just static couldn´t they just find... oh I don´t know...
a good artist to do the artwork ?!?
From other games too? http://www.gamershell.com/news_52752.html
The Legend of Zelda: The Light of Courage, RUNE, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Spawn movies.
The publisher has pulled the game from sale.
Sharon, MA, May 11th, 2008 – Tri Synergy, Inc. (www.trisynergy.com) would like to publish an official comment regarding recent comparisons of level design and artwork between Majestic Studios’ Limbo of the Lost and Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion/Eidos Interactive’s Thief: Deadly Shadows.
Tri Synergy is just as shocked as everyone else is by the recent screenshot comparisons. At no point during our dealings with Majestic Studios up until the point that the comparison was first publicly made by a third party did we have any knowledge of these similarities. Additionally, Tri Synergy will discontinue distribution of Limbo of the Lost in both retail and online outlets.
We have contacted the developer, Majestic, and are anxiously awaiting their response. As soon as we know more on this matter we will issue another statement.
I was going to drop a "This is what happens when" but I think we already know this is what happens when.
Did they really expect NOBODY was going to notice that ?
What were their hopes ? To be an underground cult game that could sell without getting the attention of main companies ? How impossible is that ?
Wow, the publisher must have a crack team of specialists working for them if they didn't notice the similarities until now.
Wow, this is just so absolutely ridiculous. How could these guys have been stupid enough to so obviously steal the assets and pass it off as their own to the mass market?
Add UT2K4, Vampire:Bloodlines, Morrowind, Painkiller, and WoW:Burning Crusade to the mix. Possibly Black & White 2, too. And others I've forgotten, I've read page up and down of forums posts the last twenty minutes.
Game of the bloody Year.
--
L.
Too funny, they grabbed assets from such mainstream games too. How in the world did they think they'd get away with it? This really is theft in it's purest form.
Last edited by Brethren; 12th Jun 2008 at 19:50.
If I were them (and I'm glad I'm not), I would claim the game was a parody. "Why of course these are screenshots from other games! We're making a statement! Can't you see our subtle irony and interplay of references?"
"Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home."
That paints an amusing picture. Three old potheads sitting around making a "video game".
