I Have Some Really Bad News About Our MGS Fangame, Peace Day.  It’s Not Happening.  Not Anymore. 

I have some really bad news about our MGS fangame, Peace Day.  It’s not happening.  Not anymore.  We put in 4 months of work into it, making the sprites and interactions and a physics engine.  Backgrounds and storyboards and all kinds of fun stuff.  But we were working under the misleading concept of fair use.  You guys have been awesome support on our project and some of the sweetest people we’ve ever talked to.  This whole game was meant to be a love letter to the MGS:PW fandom.  I’m devastated that we can’t make it work, and that we created a shitload of vaporware.  If anyone wants the sprites for their own personal (noncommercial) use, they’re welcome to them.    We were so dumb.  Even the most basic research would have turned up that despite the fair use clause being a real thing, you can still get sued - or at the very least, have your stuff DMCA’ed.  You can defend yourself in court, but the question is, do you have the cash for that kind of legal defense? Not all companies do this.  Sega and Valve have given people permission to make fangames, and so has the creator of Undertale.  But there’s something about fangames - not fan art - that makes companies like Konami and Nintendo go nuclear.  Even if you’re not making money off of them.  Even if you’re not using any in-game assets.  Even if you’re just representing their characters and bits of story.  They will sue you and then slap you with an NDA so you can’t ever talk about it.  Maybe Glowdust and I are taking the cowardly way out.  But I’m not about to spend another 3-6 months of my life creating something only to risk being sued, or to have my work buried in the ground forever.  We’ll be making an original game that uses all the lessons we’ve learned in the last few months instead. And I’m so, so sorry. :-( https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5pxldd/ultimate_as_promised_guide_to_legal_needs_and/ http://kotaku.com/5420240/how-to-make-a-fan-game-and-not-get-your-ass-sued http://www.wired.co.uk/article/investigation-are-fan-games-legal