“WHELP. IT HAPPENED,” begins the tweet from Lilith Walther (b0tster on Twitter), one of the developers behind Bloodborne Kart, a fanmade spin-off of the popular FromSoftware game. Sony has allegedly contacted them requesting the removal of copyrighted content from the game.

“Long story short I need to scrub the branding off of what was previously known as Bloodborne Kart, which we will do. But that requires a short delay,” they continue. However, they add that “the game is still coming out! It'll just look slightly different.”

It’s not entirely surprising since the Bloodborne Kart directly references the title of the 2015 PS4 game and includes characters from it. The game is a “meme made real,” originating from an April Fool’s Day Tweet back in 2021. What is surprising is that it has taken so long, as the game has been in open development for quite some time now. It’s perhaps because, a few months ago, it was given the release date of January 31, which is next week.

Of course, the developers were planning to release the game for free, but it’s still infringing on the company’s copyright. It’s honestly not at all surprising, which Lilith states themself in another tweet, saying, “Like I've said in multiple interviews, we were all expecting this to happen so we could be pleasantly surprised if it didn't.”

It’s definitely a bummer, and I feel bad for the development team who were looking forward to putting their creation in the hands of fans, but they’re taking it in stride. Lilith says, “Turning this into an original game that we have full creative control over is kind of exciting. This is a fan game no more!”

Lilith says that they are current uncertain of what the new release date will be for the rebranded Bloodborne Kart, but they hope to share news as soon as possible.

The post After warning from Sony, Bloodborne Kart is dropping references to the brand appeared first on Destructoid.

Amper Software, the team behind Team Fortress: Source 2, and James Lambert, the dev working on Portal 64, have stated that they’re ending development of their fan projects following cease and desist demands from Valve.

Team Fortress: Source 2 was a fan project aiming to port Valve’s 2007 multiplayer shooter, Team Fortress 2, over to the newer Source 2 engine. While the team had paused development in September, they were hoping to resume at some point, but the DMCA has made that pause permanent.

Meanwhile, Portal 64 is a project intended to demake 2007’s Portal to run on the Nintendo 64 hardware. Just a few days ago, the developer was celebrating the release of the game’s “First Slice,” which demonstrated the game's progress.

The Team Fortress: Source 2 takedown seems rather understandable since Valve still supports Team Fortress 2 and may one day want to port it or create a sequel themselves. The DMCA posted on the public GitHub page cites that their reasons are due to Valve’s own assets being used in a project, though that hasn’t stopped some other fan games based on their properties from being published and even sold on Steam.

Meanwhile, James Lambert says that Valve has stated that they’ve requested Portal 64 to be taken down because “the project depends on Nintendo’s proprietary libraries.”

This is somewhat surprising since Valve has long supported fan endeavors based on their games, going as far as allowing them to be sold as retail products on Steam. Either this demonstrates a shift in the company’s policy toward such projects, or they actually have reasonable concerns toward these particular projects. Either way, it’s not a great look directly after their announced shift on their storefront policies in regards to AI.

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A Mugenguild member that goes by Dr. Basara Kilnklein has revealed that they’ve received an email from Interplay requesting that they cease and desist development on their fangame, ClayFighter: Infinite Clayfare. The game was being built in MUGEN and, therefore, couldn’t be monetized, so it’s a bit interesting (though not outside their rights) that Interplay are being dicks about it.

ClayFighter was initially released in 1993 on SNES before receiving ports on other consoles. It received a 16-bit sequel, ClayFighter 2: Judgement Clay, in 1994 before moving to the N64 with ClayFighter 63 ⅓. The last entry to the series was 1998’s ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut, which was largely just a fixed/expanded version of the previous title. I say this as a fan, but the series was never very good. It largely stood out because of its claymation visuals. However, the development of most of the games were mired in complications, and none of them came out cleanly. The 3D ones are easily the worst. There’s probably an alternate reality where there was one redeeming title, but we’re not living in it.

However, as I said, I consider myself a fan, and I’m not the only one. Beyond ClayFighter: Infinite Clayfare, there are also various ROM hacks for the games to try and turn them into something worth playing. There hasn’t been a new game in the series for 25 years. The only people fans have to turn to are each other.

It's probably worth noting that the letter has an attachment with the name of Ultra ClayFighter, the ClayFighter: Tournament Edition ROM hack, so it's not impossible that they've received similar correspondence.

https://youtu.be/p0WoO8M9awc?feature=shared

I'm a human bean

Interplay was something of a force in the ‘90s. They’re the publisher that brought us Earthworm Jim and Fallout. But they started struggling in the late ‘90s before locking tongues with Titus. They went into a nosedive and then started shedding its intellectual properties. The last real twitching we got out of the corpse was when they were left developing Fallout Online. After that game failed to materialize, Bethesda sued them and got the remaining rights to the Fallout series.

Since then, Interplay has still hung around, but mainly just as a funny smell that also banks off of the last scraps of former glory it clings to. With that in mind, you’d think that they’d also try to maintain whatever goodwill they have left with fans, but I guess not.

The developer of ClayFighter: Infinite Clayfare has replied to the cease-and-desist to clarify the project and request the ability to proceed but says that if it doesn’t meet with Interplay's satisfaction, they will abide and remove everything as requested.

As a final note, yes, Interplay is within their rights to request the removal of something that makes unauthorized use of their properties. I mean, don’t quote me on that since I’m not a lawyer, but we’ve seen cases like this before. With that said, it’s a pretty crappy move from a company that barely exists anymore. I guess since Baldur’s Gate 3 is a continuation of one of their old properties, they feel like they’re allowed to put on the big boy pants again.

On the other hand, if you feel like playing ClayFighter in a place where lawyers can’t reach you, it is currently available on Antstream Arcade.

The post Interplay (which still exists) sends cease and desist to ClayFighter fan game developer appeared first on Destructoid.

Firing Blanks

The developers behind powerful "auto-aim" mod User Vision have announced that they have ceased development on the software, following what was probably a sternly worded request from Call of Duty publisher Activision. The User Vision project has seemingly now been halted with no plans by the developer to continue plans to develop or release the tool.

User Vision first attracted eyes last week, when the powerful auto-aim software — which used learning software to continuously recalibrate its aim — was showcased in a video featuring the world's most profitable shooter franchise, Call of Duty. Following a copyright claim from Activision, the video status change to unlisted, but it seems the publisher was not done with its cease & desist energy, and now the User Vision project is no more.

"My intent was never to do anything illegal," read a statement from developer "USER101". "At the end of the video that brought so much attention to this project, it stated 'coming soon'. The software was never published [...] This type of technology has other actual assistive benefits, for example, by pointing a webcam at yourself you could control movement without the use of limbs. Unfortunately, because of its potential negative impact I will not be developing it further."

The removed video touted User Vision as "undetectable and unstoppable", a notion that casts serious shade on any earnest declaration of noble usage. Even offering the developer the benefit of the doubt, creating an algorithm-learning aimbot — and then showcasing its capabilities on the biggest shooter on the planet — was never going to attract cheerful mail from said shooter's publisher, especially while it is currently engaged in a hopeless ongoing battle to eradicate cheaters from its servers.

Auto-aim cheatmaker halts development at Activision's request [Ars Technica]

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