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That's a good outcome but Sega can change their stance at any moment. And they still have to like the game to let you publish it.

hnlmorg 5y ago
> That's a good outcome but Sega can change their stance at any moment They could. But they've already had a long history of not doing that. So while the risk is there, it is definitely less risky than doing it with (for example) Nintendo IP. And to be honest I don't consider "Sega might change their minds" as a good enough reason not to do something. Intellectual property laws are already broken enough without suggesting people shouldn't engage with assets from the few companies that are more generous to their fans, just in case those companies change their mind. That feels like a senseless loss to me. > And they still have to like the game to let you publish it. While they are releasing the source, assets and some precompiled binaries for free, I don't think it's fair to say it's being "published" because generally when that term is used with regards to gaming it means something a lot different to releasing a project on GitLab. Semantics aside there's always going to be risk with a fan projects. However suggesting they release with original assets misses the point of these projects. They're exist because of the parent project not in spite of it. Sure they could release an original game with the same mechanics but different assets, however the point of this is a re-imagining of Sonic...specifically Sonic. Releasing this with original assets would undermine the point that this is intended to be a Sonic game (albeit an unofficial one). It's a little like asking a Queen tribute act to play original music. The point that band was formed was to cover Queen's music. I do understand that music royalties solves this problem, somewhat, so the analogy isn't water tight. But I hope you understand the sentiment behind it. To go back to the StarFox example you gave in your original post, the aim of that project was to publish a commercial game rather than something for fan service. So the aims are different between that and this Sonic game (and this is also why I made the distinction about this Sonic game not being "published" even though technically speak it is).

hnlmorg 5y ago

> That's a good outcome but Sega can change their stance at any moment They could. But they've already had a long history of not doing that. So while the risk is there, it is definitely less risky than doing it with (for example) Nintendo IP. And to be honest I don't consider "Sega might change their minds" as a good enough reason not to do something. Intellectual property laws are already broken enough without suggesting people shouldn't engage with assets from the few companies that are more generous to their fans, just in case those companies change their mind. That feels like a senseless loss to me. > And they still have to like the game to let you publish it. While they are releasing the source, assets and some precompiled binaries for free, I don't think it's fair to say it's being "published" because generally when that term is used with regards to gaming it means something a lot different to releasing a project on GitLab. Semantics aside there's always going to be risk with a fan projects. However suggesting they release with original assets misses the point of these projects. They're exist because of the parent project not in spite of it. Sure they could release an original game with the same mechanics but different assets, however the point of this is a re-imagining of Sonic...specifically Sonic. Releasing this with original assets would undermine the point that this is intended to be a Sonic game (albeit an unofficial one). It's a little like asking a Queen tribute act to play original music. The point that band was formed was to cover Queen's music. I do understand that music royalties solves this problem, somewhat, so the analogy isn't water tight. But I hope you understand the sentiment behind it. To go back to the StarFox example you gave in your original post, the aim of that project was to publish a commercial game rather than something for fan service. So the aims are different between that and this Sonic game (and this is also why I made the distinction about this Sonic game not being "published" even though technically speak it is).