Square Enix pulls the trigger on Chrono Trigger fan projects

Has anyone written to Square Enix to see if this is real or not? They post notices about actions against piracy on the news release part of their corporate website, but there's been nothing about 'quashing project by malicious fans'.

The pdf e-mail Joystiq posted says: "we understand you claim a copyright to CT:CE..." while their source links states: "made by fans for fans without copyright claim...". Legal services don't make false claims in cease and desist letters, so why start now?

For the record, there's a lot of discussion around the Net as to how legitimate this is. That C&D letter they got looks very suspiciously off, especially compared to the letter received by Chrono Resurrection team.

Hate Square/Enix all you want but when you let anyone even fans do what they like with your IP and you do nothing about it, then you basically just gave anyone the right to do what they please with your material.

The reason these projects get shut down is because it would be dumb to let anyone who is not licensed and employed by the holder of the copyrighted material to let anyone create and distribute that material. Once you do, you open the door for everyone and it would be a legal hell from there on.

In this day and age, people should know that such projects will get shut down. It's even worst if you are using the companies’ assets to create such a project as well. Lets be honest, how dumb do you have to be to continue to do such projects know that the IP holder has to stop you or they basically just released their IP to public domain.

I do not applaud people who do something dumb then want love when the hammer they new would come hits.

So to be blunt about it, these guys were idiots. They did the dumb move which made SE have to do what they have to do to protect their property which causes them to lose face to the people who have no clue why they must protect their IP or lose it to public domain.

Reminds me of Chrono Resurrection
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/
Damn, did that thing look awesome :(

I'd have sent a FUCK YOU back to them claiming fair use and fan art.

Nobody has balls anymore

Square Enix you JERKS. Sure it's their copyright, but that's no way to treat FANS who I'm assuming weren't making ANY profit from the whole thing.

this isn't right. But I'm certain this isn't the end. 99% certain. I don't believe they'll destroy all copies. Most of them yes. But not near all of them.

I was actually looking forward to this. Its Chrono Resurrection all over again.

What are SE possibly gaining from this? This game wasn't exactly going to draw any sales away from their own games and pulling it is nothing but bad PR. Sounds like they're just bitching over someone else using their IP without paying.

It's a fact: Square-Enix hates the Chrono series.

Anyone remember Chrono Trigger: Resurrection?

There's one damn reason why I think Squeenix should be damned for doing this: They're NEVER going to attemp neither a CT direct sequel nor a remake (I believed they would, before the DS version came out). Chrono Cross was as close as they're willing to go... They won't risk tainting their classic -- Final Fantasy is the series for such risks, as it is powerful enough to survive anything by now.

This has been up on other networks like Kotaku now for ages- how on earth did this take so long to get posted? O_O

I'm amazed they thought they could release this. I mean, aside from the copyright infringement (which is totally legit for Square to act on anyway) they actually used CT sprites? that's backwards engineering isn't it? that's pretty bad.
Still, It's kind of an asshole way to go about it- they should have shut these guys down as soon as they knew it existed. I can only speculate that they must have seen this years ago, not this week.

Can't help but feel this is another one of those "we were doing it for attention!" things. Squeenix has repeatedly sent cease-and-desists to people making CT games, like the 3D one a few years back. If they really wanted to get the game out, they would have developed it behind closed doors until it was ready for release. At that point, if they received a cease and desist it would have been out of their hands, since you can't realistically expect people who downloaded it to delete it too.

Square-Enix is frightened to see fans making better pre/sequels.

SquareEnix is a bit silly

Illigal or not, theres some talent there, why not work with them? They make mini games, you earn some of thier profits :D

Maybe hire their team into a mini company to make fresh and original games?

Agh, what do I know, its just something I would do if I happened to have a successful franchise people were fans of :P

They should do what Slash did after he left Guns 'n Roses and start their own franchise with a suspiciously familiar name. I'd recommend "Fourth Dimensional Firearm" for the title.

Here's hoping they didn't delete all the work and it somehow 'leaks' onto the internets soon enough.

Square Enix had every right to issue a C&D, no matter how crappy it was of them. It'd have been awesome if they'd have simply offered to publish this game fully (instead of what I understand was going to be online-only distribution) and take a cut of the sales.

Even if it never surfaces to the rest of the world, you just know the creators will finish it and keep it to themselves :)

Well you could be like valve who have no problem with a fan remake of the origional Half-life. And I'm not talking about piracy, that's a whole nother subject, I'm talking about fair use so the audience can contribute to the experience, not just passively observe it.

A creator has all the right in the world to stop someone from doing anything to their creation but they should have allowed fans to go through with it with Square Enix reviewing it first. After all, fans want more and it appears as Square Enix has no plans to give us more CT, right?

Hey JC, was the point of this article to generate unjustified hatred for a company?

Regardless of whether this is real or not, did anyone stop and realize Square Enix isn't ONE GUY? I mean, If anyone doesn't know how a bureaucracy works, it's a bunch of different departments (for instance, executive, production, development, distribution, legal, etc.) who NEVER talk to each other. I really doubt the group of people who are in charge of whether or not a new Chrono game is created has anything to do with the people who make the decision to shut down random rom hackers. Yet almost everyone replying here has found some way to group them altogether.

Maybe because they found a way to group themselves together in the form of a corporation?

@ Rob Bourne

Wow, you're sure of it? You have no idea what went on behind the scenes, but you're going to make assumptions anyway since it allows you to vilify an entire company. Brilliant.

I think you folks would be well served to consider that Square never gave anybody the rights, implied or otherwise, to alter their games or to use their copyrighted materials to make derivative works. It's really that simple. What Valve does or doesn't do is irrelevant.

Yet another reason to destroy IP laws as we know them....

I don't know why these guys bothered stopping, they're almost done and what REALLY could Squeenix do to them? Sue them for....their parents' basement? Demand possession of all the nonexistent hard copies of a game that has infinite life on the internet? They really don't have much threat, and I'd like to imagine that no court would punish people for a freely distributed work that is not a carbon copy of Chrono Trigger.....but then, this is America, and the people with money win.

Time to email Squeenix customer service and let them know that due to this dick move, I'm gonna go pirate all of their stuff....and hey, looks like I found a reason to pick up the 360 version of FF13, since that's gonna be much easier to pirate than the PS3 version! Arrrrr, I be sinkin yer profits, ye scurvy dogs!

I for one believe that instead of ordering the destruction of the game, if they found it to be so threatening (or perhaps in competition to possible sequel under development), they could have bought the rights to the game. Regardless of old school graphics, it would have worked fine as a sequel on PSP or NDS. This honestly feels like a very childish move on SE's part. One of the first things I plan to do if I ever have any major work published is openly embrace fanfiction and customization.

This game was actually almost finished & out too. Hmmmm.

Just have someone "leak" the thing like every other dev.

Square never cease to amaze me. Let a great property decay over vast periods of time? Check. Rehash the same material over and over? Check. Allow the vibrant fan base to bring something new-ish to a tepid landscape of lackluster sequels and complete letdowns? Meh... Fail SqEenix! EPIC FAIL!

The company has to stand behind the decision as a whole regardless of who was in charge of making the decision.There was a re-make of Chrono Trigger done in full 3d that also got shut down. I'm not gonna blame the guy in legal, or the guy in PD, or the woman in marketing because the entire company has to back up the decision or the individual dissentors will likely get the axe or be forced to "resign" which is the same thing.

just add some jokes about the original game and seek protection under parody law.

There is a petition being created asking square to reconsider their decision. If you are a fan of the game, please sign. It's a small thing to ask, and if enough sign square might realize enough people want this game to just buy it and sell it. Here is the address: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/squeenix

Square is the most xenophobic, worst public relations, greedy and selfish game company in the industry and I for one will be glad if their current lackluster sales continue to bring them down.

That's why they released CT full priced as a DS game (which tanked on the charts) instead of a 10 dollar virtual console game.

Its also kinda dumb for the people making the mod game to be so public about it.

They shouldve just made it and spread it through the internet anonymously.

I can't wait till the day that Square goes out of business and dozens of better developers buy off their franchises, making the games that the fans want to see, not the games Square's wallets want to milk.

That's utterly brutal, my condolences to the devs.

Not surprised. To any Chrono Compendium members that read this, I ask this question.

Karma's a bitch, eh?

Not all of the members there are bad, but to those that are, that question is for you.

Well, the Chrono Trigger fans ain't gonna let this go down without a fight, we need'a stand up to Squeenix! Here's a video that 's been made by a CT fan for all the CT fans in the world...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dF67s_r8QI

There's a petition to sign too, but yeah what a let down that Squeenix did the fans dirty yet again... >:(

More reasons to dislike SE...

Seriously, no one's going to fucking play this instead of the real game, SE.

Anyone stop to consider maybe Square Enix is planning a real sequel

What if Square Enix is pursuing this because they are about to release their own Chrono Sequel. Maybe we'll finally get a localization and release of Radical Dreamers, or a port of Chrono Cross to the DS.

Or maybe we'll finally see the long-rumored last game - Chrono Break.

Having said that, I'd totally agree that changing the names and the sprites so they no longer resemble the original characters might solve this problem... depending on how much this relies on the plot of Chrono Trigger. Maybe that wouldn't work.

For those who are familiar with the Kings Quest series, the same thing happened a few years ago with a fan game to end off the unfinished series. They were months away from release, and boom: C&D letter. The fans all banded together and created a site where fans all bombarded Vivindi's company inbox until the company finally granted The Silver Lining a fan license.

Perhaps we should do the same for this game!

The devs for this are useless cowards for not releasing it. Everyone here should contact all the known beta testers and convince them to release their 98% complete copies. SE has no legal grounds to take it to court at this point.