Using unoriginal media in your games...

[dabooda]

First I will be honest, although I love game development, the media part of it sucks. Because I am not an artist, a musician and sound engineering isn't my thing. I can do a little bit of tile creation to get me by and maybe even some rudimentary atari age sprites. But if I was going to make an all out game with different settings, pieces of music and sound effects, I will be ripping the hell out of them. I won't use maybe the specific entire graphic set, but will mold them to fit my game. Music and sound effects goes without saying for they will all be unoriginal already produced pieces. Even Lyn's Legacy which in my opinion is what freebasic games should be, uses graphics from other games. I have played Zelda 3 on the SNES and yes those trees look very familiar. But this doesn't bother me, nor does it detract from the game in the least.

I guess the true question that I am trying to find an answer to is: Is this wrong, does this keep you from playing and judging the game on the basis of the game itself? I know that scoring on a game includes originality in graphics and music so using unoriginal stuff will make for a lower score. But honestly this doesn't bother me, because if the game is good enough it really doesn't matter. But of course this is my opinion on this.

I am just trying to get a feel for the community on this. Because I will be creating larger and larger games later on and will most likely be using and merging resources from many, well, sources. Because realistically speaking(or posting) I will never find a pixel artist, a musician, or a sound engineer willing to work on projects with me. Considering all my stuff is freeware and will never turn a profit.

DaBooda out....

P.S. I don't want this to turn into a debate, basically just a collection of opinions on this subject.

[notthecheatr]

Comparing to Lynn's Legacy I'm pretty sure the trees aren't the same, although they certainly are similar (to my knowledge most or all of the LL graphics were made by Josiah Tobin).  Still, I know what you mean - I see it all the time.

But in answer to your question...

If the graphics you use is free public domain, that's great.  If you rip it from a non-public source it's probably illegal, but so long as nobody sues you you're fine.  As for the communities perception, I can't answer for everyone but I will answer for myself:  the game is the important thing.  I'd rather play a game with ripped graphics that look nice than a game with crappy home-made graphics, but ultimately whether or not the game is fun, engaging, addictive, interesting, exciting, etc. is the important thing.  Ripped graphics?  I only dislike them if I recognize them (and often I don't)

For myself, I would much prefer to make my own graphics, and I just happen to be fortunate enough to have a brother who is really good at drawing graphics in a paint program.  So I won't have any such problems.  And for things like grass, dirt, etc., which are of imprecise shape and colour, I can make those myself - in fact, I've made some pretty good textures just taking non-tilable free public domain textures and making them tilable.  They don't look like they originally did, but they fit my purposes - and they look good.  But if you don't want to or can't make your own graphics, I think it's forgivable to steal so long as the game itself is good (and whether or not you want to keep within the boundaries of the law or not is up to you).

[Eponasoft]

Not a single pixel in Lynn's Legacy was ripped from any other games; everything was done by Josiah.

Generally speaking, my opinion is that if it's something that hasn't been overused already, it's usually okay. When 1000 people use the theme song from Final Fantasy in their game, it's a little stupid...okay, it's a lot of stupid. But if, for example, someone just downloaded a bunch of interesting tracks from modarchive and used those in their game, then that's cool. As far as graphics go...as long as all the pixels mesh well together, I don't tend to care what the source was.

[KristopherWindsor]

But if, for example, someone just downloaded a bunch of interesting tracks from modarchive and used those in their game, then that's cool.

That's exactly what I did for Zonaxtic.

I'm working on a small game right now, and I think it is only the second game I have made without just using GFX primitives, or the Space Invaders graphics provided for that competition. (And I haven't even released that first game yet!) I got some of the graphics from Google image search, but mostly I make the graphics in Photoshop. They don't look too good but they work.

[Leonheart]

Piracy is a crime, but monopoly is worse than crime.
I appreciate intectuality, so i likely not use unoriginal media from not free public domain.

You can use FM synthesis software for create sfx instead. Or you can resyntesis it with Cosine Transform, so you dont must use unoriginal sfx media.

Sometimes, I want to create FM synthesis and Cosine Transform sfx extraction app, so maybe when it's done i'll put it in this site.

Two same thing, I dont understand how create nice art too. But I still always learn new things for improve skill. "too ambisious project just make an ruin", so just go and take step slowly. 

The second, this time i work alone as independent programmer too. But, i always opened for someone want to help me out. More friend, more power!

Keep going! 

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Ripped graphics?  I only dislike them if I recognize them (and often I don't)  

Yeah, I agree with this too. One of the best RPGs I played was a freeware RPG Maker 2000 game entitled Love and War. All the graphics in the game were from the RPG Maker standard graphics set and some ripped. Some people handle non-original graphics well, some don’t.

Still, personally I’m not inclined to use them myself. Perhaps as a framework around which I work around and expand, but beyond that no. I prefer to mimic some original piece of graphics than copy it completely. Something that Joisah did in Lynn’s Legacy. Anyway, I’ll never improve in graphics if I consider my skills constantly unusable and always resort to ripping. I think many people just need to try more.

[notthecheatr]

I agree.  Making your own is legal (although ripping isn't always illegal), if it's original there will be nobody to say "apparently this guy is incapable of doing his own work", and it generally fits together better (unless you only rip from one game... pretty difficult, though not impossible).  However, I'd say there are two sides to it.  There's a "right way" to rip graphics and a "wrong way."

[SSC]

For my projects I will always use custom art, whether it's the crap tiles that I come up with (some of my older low res stuff was good) or art from someone else. I have been semi-searching for an artist for my game for some time, and for those of you that don't know custom professional art cost A LOT of money. In fact most of the estimates I hear are in the thousands, some in the ten-thousands. Custom music seems to be cheaper but finding a musician that meets your specific needs seems to be more difficult than finding an artist. I don't object to using placeholder art or music in a game for technical reasons, but (and this is important) if possible have custom art made for the final product. If it is a big project like mine you'll almost certainly have to fork out money, but you can find artists that will work on smaller stuff - you jsut have to look for them.

On the other hand I kinda agree with some of the others, if it is art that I don't recognize then it won't bother me, but if I have seen it before I'll know it was ripped. All that aside if the game is good enough and original where you got the art wont matter too much to the people that play it.

[dabooda]

Ok, I will concede to josiah being inspired by the trees in zelda 3 ;P Sorry to even taint the holy grail of FB Gaming.

I don't straight up rip the graphics, but I use them as a base. With Sokoban I used graphics from Phantasy Star 2 on the genesis as a base for the walls and the background. They aren't the same, but rather similar, for I had to fit them to my tiling needs and give them some different colors. The monitors, floor, and grids are all me. The man sprite actually came from a nintendo game called Magician, I simply brought him into the 16 color range, instead of 4 color, trust me I had very little to work with on that one. The font table came from Flashback on the SNES, I had to clean up a few characters and I did the menu frames. This is what I am talking about, not taking an entire games graphics and placing them in mine, but rather picking and choosing, editing them to my needs then using them.

The music of course I found online in some old .mod archives, and the sfx where ripped from Megaman X on the SNES. I tried doing my own sound effects playing around with Saw and Square waves, but they sounded really horrible. I am curious about how to mess with FM and can't seem to find any information on this or what I can find, can't seem to grasp. So I will stick to finding or ripping my sound effects.

Even with all these resources from other applications, it still has my touch. And I guess thats as good as it's going to get, because I'm not paying for people to make resources for a freeware game, that would be insane.

DaBooda out....

[SSC]

Even with all these resources from other applications, it still has my touch. And I guess thats as good as it's going to get, because I'm not paying for people to make resources for a freeware game, that would be insane.

For small games paying for an artist is not neccessary, but for larger projects if you can't get good art by other means then it is. I think of it this way, I'm paying for my hobby just like someone that playes golf does. You cant play golf with out clubs, and while my game is going to be free I still want to do it as good as I can. So paying for something I enjoy isn't insane =)

[dabooda]

I simply will not feel guilty for ripping graphics. I just don't want people to concentrate on that fact and not on the game itself. That is all I am really worried about. As for being sued or what not, that really doesn't concern me because I am not making a profit off of anything I do. I know this doesn't excuse me from any illegality of it but I am simply not worried about this. And if there are repercussions isn't that my problem and no one elses?

I'm going to do some total remakes also, simply because I feel the games are classics and I am trying to keep them alive by bringing them somewhat into the present(well from 8-bit to 16-bit). This I know is a big no-no but again I am not concerned, you either play it or you don't. I used to worry about people respecting my work, but then I realized that isn't why I program. I program for myself and its the journey(yes I also read pritchard's zen) that matters. I see too many people becoming critical for the sake of criticism, I am guilty of this and try to catch myself when I do it. For lack of a better term its like a pissing contest you didn't enter but are forced to play. And its usually over the stupidest #$%& and has no redeemable value to it whatsoever. You try to ignore it, but I will be honest it stings, when you put a lot of hours into a project and then some idiot bashes it simply because they simply have to much time on their hands. So I have decided to keep myself in check, both in the criticizing as well as the being criticized. I will hold my tongue with the former and ignore the latter. I will simply let my work speak for itself.

Blathering and way off topic...DaBooda out...

[Lachie Dazdarian]

That's an interesting approach SSC. I mean, I would also pay for artists and musicians if I had money. I just never thought about my hobby on this way, as something I wouldn’t mind spending money on because I enjoy doing it.

But you are absolutely right. People do spend money on their hobbies, so why in the case of freeware game design this should be odd?

BTW dabooda, I personally enjoy both reading and writing game reviews. Do they exist for the criticism itself, I don’t know. But I’m not sure if that is a bad thing by definition. I always appreciate it someone takes an analytical approach to my game, even if the end score is a negative one. And I think I’m intelligent enough to ignore a malicious or anal one, although I never got an “official malicious review” of my game.

On the end, I make games for the feedback. I sure wouldn’t make them if I was the last man living on Earth. Would you?

P.S.

GameHippo reviewed Star Cage: http://gamehippo.com

Yay!

[notthecheatr]

But you are absolutely right. People do spend money on their hobbies, so why in the case of freeware game design this should be odd?

Maybe because most freeware game programmers like you and I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on an artist   

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I was talking about principles. I mean, we shouldn't point fingers at game developers who pay people to work on their freeware projects.

[notthecheatr]

Oh, well no - certainly not.  If you have that kind of money, I wholeheartedly recommend it as it will make the game experience better for me