Fan Games Seem Popular…to Give Cease and Desist Letters to.

While perusing Reddit recently, I came across this link to a Cease and Desist letter for a Chrono Trigger sequel, and I was immediately reminded of a 3D remake of Chrono Trigger that also received a C&D (Cease and Desist) letter relatively far into development.  People do fan art all the time, so why shouldn’t they be allowed to make fan games?

Who doesn’t want a 3D remake of Chrono Trigger?  Or a true sequel? From what I’ve heard, Chrono Cross was rather disappointing to most fans.  Why shouldn’t they be allowed to release an unofficial sequel?  Well, from Square Enix’s point of view, no one.  I would assume that they’re protecting their IP for future releases that they may or may not actually have planned.  It reflects their property, and they may not want people to associate things that the fans have done to the original canon to whatever official adaptations are released.

But there’s obviously a demand for these games, so why hasn’t Square Enix announced one of these projects yet?  For the 3D remake, at least, the C&D was sent out in 2004, giving Square Enix 5 years to have announced such a project.  Maybe they’ve just put it in their rainy day folder of game ideas, but I’m sure a Chrono Trigger 3D remake, or a true sequel, would sell rather well no matter when it was released.

Despite what Square Enix feels about how fan games should be handled, Microsoft is taking the complete opposite approach with the Crysis mod called Mechwarrior: Living Legends.  A total conversion mod for Crysis, this fan game has attained something special: the full permission of the IP’s owner.  Microsoft gave the team their blessing to use the Mechwarrior franchise, and has not given the team a C&D.  What’s up with that?  Usually, Microsoft is very protective of their work (given Windows and the Xbox’s proprietary nature), so this is very out of character for them.  Wouldn’t they take a similar approach to Square Enix to protecting their IP that hasn’t been touched in about 10 years?  Given their past history with open standards (still can’t make a standards-compliant browser after how many years?), you’d think they would sell the IP off to a high profile developer for a AAA console release on the 360 or Games for Windows, rather than let it go for free to a group of modders.

So are fan games good for IP owners, or are they just a loss on the part of the developer?  In the case of Chrono Trigger, Square Enix seems to think that fan games are inherently bad, putting a stop to them as soon as their legal branch catches wind of their existance.  For studios like FASA  that have been closed for several years, and have their IP in a web of legal mumbo jumbo with their publisher (Microsoft), it would seem that the publisher is more likely to allow the creation of these fan games.  I’m interested to see this Mechwarrior: Living Legends game comes to fruition, but I’m also disheartened that the unofficial Chrono Trigger sequel has been discontinued (and the 3D remake of the original as well).  Square Enix should at least honor the Cease and Desist letter with a statement like “We’re actively working on another installment in this series, hence our intention to stop a conflicting release.”  All of this arguing over Intellectual Property is pretty dumb if a company isn’t going to actually use the franchise that they’re “protecting”, don’t you think?