I'm afraid to take Nintendo's lawsuit.

[Boneca_S4B031r4]

This is my second game is a parody of the game Fire Emblem, I'm afraid to be prosecuted Nintendo.

Can Nintendo come here at home?
Can I be arrested?

All characters in this game are 18 years or older.

Can I continue the game without fear of Nintendo?

 

[bas]

I don't really think this forum has much legal expertise or authority when it comes to copyright law bud.

 

[MerlinWizard01]

This is my second game is a parody of the game Fire Emblem, I'm afraid to be prosecuted Nintendo.

Can Nintendo come here at home?
Can I be arrested?

All characters in this game are 18 years or older.

Can I continue the game without fear of Nintendo?


View attachment 139326

Can Nintendo come here at home?
No.
Can I be arrested?
No/highly improbable.
Can I continue the game without fear of Nintendo?
I don't know for sure since Nintendo doesn't even allow gameplay of their games uploaded to Youtube and such. If they find out they might contact you to delete it.

 

[aereton]

Back in 2008 I was working on a Source mod with one of Nintendos franchises and got taken down. They were very kind and understanding but made it clear that I'd face legal action if I would not take down my ModDB page.

It wasn't a porn game but they're very non threatening at first contact. You won't get arrested OP. :coldsweat: If they even notice it, I have the impression they let porn parodies do their thing and won't touch that topic with a ten foot pole.

 

[Ungawa]

I don't really think this forum has much legal expertise or authority when it comes to copyright law bud.

I can take this on Canada and the US side.

Basically, you have Fair Use Defense within the judicial system. Most people don't get that far. Youtube has a take down system with Nintendo which will prevent you from using their material (games in this circumstance).

Now for parodies and adult material? You're supposed to be protected, but that's provided that they figure out where you live and want to sue. This is the same Nintendo that sued an

You must be registered to see the links

but gave him a statue.

Overall, can they sue you? Sure. But they suffer bad PR and have to come after you with their resources which may not be worth the time.

I'd merely suggest to @downdiablo to make head nods to FE but not directly copy any story plots and such. But the choice is his to make.

 

[Obsidion69]

Given the staggering number of dōjin manga, amateur artists, and cosplay models (both PG & adult) who make bank off Nintendo characters it's safe to say you don't have much to worry about especially given you're using Honey Select models as opposed to accurate artwork. Even if they were gonna come after you I've seen several amateur projects get shutdown by major companies before and they always start with a cease and desist order, or several if you ignore the first one, which is basically a letter saying "you're using out IP without permission, stop it or we'll come after you for real". They do it like this cause 999,999 times out of a million it's enough to get the "offending" party to stop even the law is on their side and if the law really is on the companies side it's a lot cheaper to threaten action and see if it works than take real action from the start.

 

[Akatriel]

It's always better for you to make Original Content and IP. Not only do you own it legally, but you can franchise, make merch, make a sequel, profit and legally protect those profits. You have far less or these luxuries making a deviation or fan game.

Nintendo are pretty protective over their IP, but it's hard to sue someone if you can't prove they are harming your profits or potential future profits. Just because other people do it, doesn't give you any protection. Will you be sued? Very unlikely at this stage. The first step, would be a cease and desist. That's the first step, but by no means the last.

If this game becomes popular and you start making serious money from this, the stakes and likelihood of legal action both increase. You're shooting your future self in the foot.

Fair use is actually very defined and narrow in scope. Are you criticizing, educating or parodying the work in a transformative manner? Can you prove this? You also have to remember IP rights and Copyright not just for the work as a whole, but for each name, the title and the likeness to each character. Your georgraphical location is also not a shield to international IP and Copyright. You'd just be legally obliged to go to America to a court of Nintendo's choosing. And then automatically lose when you don't show up.

You should be fine at the moment. But you should be wary. If this project means anything to you, or you want to make money from it in the future, do yourself a favor and make it an original work.

(I'm not a lawyer and the above should not be considered legal advice in anyway)

 

[Boneca_S4B031r4]

Maybe changing all the names of the characters?
I'm currently doing it in the RPG maker.
I wanted a graphics engine just like a strategy game, where could I find one?

 

[Akatriel]

Changing the names is a good start. I'm not familiar with Fire Emblem but it would help if the characters didn't share a striking resemblance too. You're good as long as a reasonable person wouldn't confuse the two characters for one another. A common technique is to merge two characters from the original work into one hybrid.

Names and titles are usually subject to Copyright. So no "Fire Emblem" names or logos. You can make winks and nudges and even quote the original work, however. Treat it like your characters have watched the TV show Fire Emblem and know about it. They can joke and make references. They can't be the same characters.

I'm not 100% on all the game engines out there. RPG Maker is an oldie but a dependable workhorse. I don't think there's a specific Engine for "Strategy" Unity 3D is my engine of choice, it can make any game, has a free version, but you need to program in C# to be effective, which can be a barrier.

 

[StinkyGnome]

All major games ... not the one you propose, never heard of it myself ... have lee-way on starting, probing, rehearsing. Patreon is a free to try and come support platform, safe and ready to stand by creators side. If anything, use i ou t ub e and see how fast they take u down. Any parody or derivative of any software can be reached by g o0 g l3 therefore anybody can find and take down anybody by offering a free new game to a 13-16 y 0 hacker who drolls for games and works for peanuts. Take the leap if you must, but do not pretend u do not know all too well what lies ahead.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Changing the names is a good start. I'm not familiar with Fire Emblem but it would help if the characters didn't share a striking resemblance too.

The change in the name is more important than the change in the character's look. And I don't talk here about legal issue, but about common sense.
Nintendo don't pay people to look at all the videos, play all the games, read all the pages, and so on. Like all the other, they use the service of a company which use complex algorithms to crawl over the data. So, obviously, if the game state, "hey, it's a parody of Fire Emblem", or use the real name of the characters, it will be easy to find it. But if it don't, the only way to find it is to hear about it. Just because, despite the progress in term of figure recognition, matching a character with it's caricature is not for tomorrow.

 

[Obsidion69]

Actually changing names is about the least effective way to avoid copyright since it is not only difficult but virtually impossible to copyright a name unless it is applied to a profit seeking entity such as a business or performer. The exception is when dealing with a original combination unique enough to pass as an original concept such as Tolkien's Middle-Earth in Lord of the Rings.

In the context of a character within a body of work names generally only becomes a part of the copyright when linked with the characters design and/or personal story. For example let's take the name Akira Fudo, the main character of Go Nagai's Devilman franchise. Now anyone can use the name Akira Fudo for an original character because both halves are commonly occurring real world names which are likely to have existed as a joined pair far before Nagai created the character. As soon as you use the name in combination with Nagai's design or backstory it becomes an issue of infringement unless enough has been altered to avoid being classified as a non-parody derivative work.

 

[Epadder]

You must be registered to see the links

- Just appeared on Steam it has a demo version available to try, it looks similar to RPG maker and would probably be relatively easier to make a Fire Emblem-esque game in.
As others have said... if you want to turn this project at any time into one where you make money... it would be best just to avoid using actual Fire Emblem characters... tropes/series nods won't get you smacked around but otherwise legally it could be a nightmare.
If it's a just for fun project... no intention to ever make money on it... just work on it silently and maybe ask for feedback privately not in a semi-public forum. As long as your cooperate when your contacted and remove your own links to it... you shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of others (I am in no way a legal expert though so as much as 'internet' wisdom is to shout at people who talk about projects early that get shut down, who knows if it works)... sadly though if it came down to it Nintendo has more money and more lawyers than you and it could just be best to avoid directly parodying it at all... :coldsweat:

 

[Chatterbox]

Copyright laws do not forbid parodies under U.S. copyright laws. For example Weird Al can parody any song he likes without permission of the original artist, and without paying royalties. Obviously you would need to change the names. The names could even rhyme and you're covered. That said...I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but if you have doubts, any lawyer would probably tell you the same thing. It would also be wise to look up the legal definition of a "parody".

 

[Epadder]

While it's true parody is protected by Fair Use under U.S. copyright laws, as an amateur who doesn't have legal advisors and people with experience doing porn parodies safely, it seems like a big can of worms to open for a project. :coldsweat:

 

[Boneca_S4B031r4]

So long for nothing.

Fuck nintendo, I spent a lot of time modeling these characters.

I'm not doing this game to make money, nor patreon I have.

 

[RexDaGod]

Honestly unless you somehow gain a lot of traction they probably won't care. There have been fan project shut down by Nintendo which were like the mario 64 multiplayer and AM2R but that was also because they had HUGE following and somewhat threaten Nintendo's interest (as in making game people would play instead of playing the games Nintendo makes.)

What you're doing hardly falls into that catagory and even if they do somehow find it and want to take it down they will just send a cease and desist order. You can just stop then and literally suffer zero consequence.