Yoshi Unknowingly Used By Indie Developer?

[Randoman]

So supposedly, an indie developer created this game (called Era's Adventure), buying the Yoshi model off TurboSquid, using it as the main character of his game, not being familiar with Yoshi.

Full Story:

UPDATE (3/1/13): Botond Kopacz, the developer behind Era's Adventure, has gotten back to Ars Technica, saying that the use of Nintendo's IP was unknowing and inadvertent. "Actually this is an indie game developed by one developer, so due to the limitation of effort, I purchased a cute character from TurboSquid, one of the biggest 3D asset stores, without knowing the background story of the character Yoshi, since I'm not a Super Mario fan," he said in an e-mail.

Indeed, the model from Era's Adventure does seems to show up in a quick search of Turbosquid's database. Turbosquid representatives weren't immediately available for comment on their hosting of this royalty-free 3D model of Nintendo's copyrighted character.

"Once the game was released on the Play Store, after spending hundreds of hours in making the game, I started receiving 'kind' mails from Super Mario fans that I stole Yoshi, etc. So I started Googling and I realized that the character is really from the Super Mario series," Kopacz said.

But even after hearing about the problem, he says he didn't find anything related to the specific 3D model of Yoshi in the US copyright, trademark, and pattern database. "Since no assets are stolen from any Nintendo game or website and the Yoshi's name is not present anywhere, there is no copyright violation. [There would be] at least pattern violation if the 3D model is detailedly registered in the US pattern database."

Still, Kopacz says he's working on modifying the character to be less similar to Nintendo's iconic dinosaur. "I know that, even if I modify the character a little bit, that this will still be a big problem for the Nintendo fans, but I'm making the game alone so I have really limited time to do some changes. And I still hope that many people will find the game great and many people will enjoy it."

ORIGINAL STORY:

Mobile gaming boosters who want Nintendo to give up the hardware game and make titles for iOS and Android were probably excited to see a 3D render of Yoshi's smiling face looking up from a Google Play icon this week. Unfortunately, the green dinosaur's appearance in Era's Adventure 3D, from unknown Hungarian developer Andev, is as phony as the $1.99 bill you'd need to purchase the full version from Google's digital store.

As shown in its official YouTube trailer, the game features a 3D Yoshi model practically indistinguishable from the official art used for Nintendo's popular character (save for a permanent, slightly dazed grin on his face). It's unlikely that an official Nintendo game would feature that model walking around semi-realistic wood-and-stone environments, shooting a never-ending stream of fireballs at random piles of barrels and crates, but hey, you never know when Nintendo will decide to mix up the formula, right?

Google Play is full of homages to popular characters and games, of course (e.g., Awesome Land, which we featured in last week's Android app roundup), but this blatant use of another company's IP goes quite a bit farther than most. Despite Google's recent attempts to crack down on apps that are "confusingly similar," the Google Play store is still an untamed jungle with little order or control.

Unlike Apple, Google puts apps through little-to-no approval process before making them available on its online store, relying on post-release complaints from users or copyright holders instead. That might be for the best, since it's unrealistic to expect Google to do a full copyright and IP search for all of the thousands of apps that are submitted to Google Play every day (and even Apple's system lets through scams like last year's best-selling fake Pokemon Yellow app).

Neither Andev nor Nintendo immediately responded to our request for comment. In any case, we'd expect the normal post-release review process will take down Era's Adventure quite quickly, though it should be noted that none of the 12 "five star" user reviews for the game (out of 14 total so far) seem to mind the game's illegal use of a familiar Nintendo character. And the eventual takedown won't stop the 100 to 500 people that Google Play estimates have already downloaded the game from playing around with a virtual Yoshi on their phones and tablets. Maybe if they squint really hard, they can make themselves believe that Nintendo has actually fulfilled their dreams of a real Yoshi game on Android.

So what do you guys think? Is he innocent or not?

[Excellen Browning]

Innocence is up to a judge. Or nintendo, I guess, in this case, depending on whether or not they press charges.

Anyway, the dev is from Hungary, which hasn't exactly seen the same exposure to video games as the western world. So I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume he has never heard of Yoshi.

So if he bought it off TurboSquid, and with us assuming he doesn't know the Yoshi character, Nintendo probably can't harm him in court. His safest bet would probably to edit the character into something else as soon as possible, though. TurboSquid can be an entirely different story though, having sold a Nintendo character design, without paying royalty. The Yoshi character/design apparently not being copyrighted in the US does not mean they're safe per say, because trademark law still exists.

[Rehab]

You can buy animated models to insert into your game? Like there's the equivalent of a model emporium for this stuff? I..

I probably shouldn't be that surprised, but I mean what

Everything is lies

e: I wonder what games people in Hungary grew up on/play in general, if I'd know any at all.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

I wonder what games people in Hungary grew up on/play in general, if I'd know any at all.

The Russian/Eastern European gaming industry is actually quite sizable and apparently loads of good games are made there (If we consider that the examples that we get to see have been nothing less than great) though I wouldn't know because I can't Cyrillic.

[Klokinator]

This is simultaneously the most adorable and yet the most creepy game I have ever seen inmy life.

[Gryz]

Oh, wow. Damn. This game is too deep and artsy for me to comprehend. Can someone help me understand the symbolism behind the falling boxes-n-barrels and fireballs?

[Rehab]

Got a supposed link to the exact model the guy bought out of the article's comments section. Kinda labeled as somebody else's character. I don't know under what circumstances the site's allowed to sell the model, if it's correct to assume to say legal at all, or if the 3D model of Yoshi has gone untrademarked so that the guy who made the game technically didn't break any laws, but I'm finding the idea that he didn't know he was plagiarizing something a bit questionable here.

Might be as much a problem with Google Play as anything, if I read correctly they don't have a lot of ways to prevent this stuff from happening other than taking it down after the fact.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Rehab

[Randoman]

I'm personally not sure if I believe him or not. I can understand Hungary not receiving the same exposure to video games as other countries and the general public there not being familiar with popular video game icons, but an indie game developer that's making a game, not being familiar with one of the most recognizable video game characters? Either way, the link he used to download Yoshi even stated that Yoshi was from Mario, so he should have had at least some idea that he was using intellectual property (plus getting the rights to an existing game character for only $65 should have raised a red flag in his mind. Then again given Hungary's lack of exposure to video games in general, it may not be his fault that he didn't know that).

[Fenrir]

I'll believe he's innocent. If not just because I love the Yoshi that breathes fire and runs around smacking it's boots around.

Also, his story seems pretty legit. Nothing too defensive in his e-mail. Talks about how nintendo fans e-mailed him about Yoshi. Save this guy from negative energy/judgement.