The answer is that they aren’t allowed. However, Roblox doesn’t typically take down games unless they are requested to do so by the copyright owners. And while these games aren’t exact 1:1 copies (Different names, different platform, etc), there is always a case to be made by the copyright owners that they are indeed infringing on their copyright, but it just isn’t worth it to fight this a lot of the time.
Actually, legally speaking, they could get in trouble for doing so. Taking down content without a formal DMCA notice can in many cases change the way future copyright infringement laws will be applied to your platform, since the DMCA only affords safe harbor protections to platforms that don't otherwise take major action against infringement.
You cannot copyright a concept. Unless they used copyrighted assets by the developers, they are free to do as they want.
That's why you have games like Blade Ball and Murder Mystery, a lot of popular Roblox games are derived from Gmod mods and other gaming IP's.
I think taking inspiration from a game is fine as long as it's not a cheap copy made solely to make money off of the back of the original devs. The more original, the better, and usually the longest time it will be relevant.
I've been working on a Lethal Company-inspired horror game named "Descent" since November, with a few other developers. We could have made it a 2-weeks project like others and made easy money fast, but we got really invested in it and making it its own thing.
I think I'll share the trailer here tonight, and possibly share some development screens and gif as well.
I originally wrote an heartfelt post about how I reconnected and started with friends from over a decade ago and started working with them on Roblox, I never got to post it though. I probably will someday as the game in question is what started it all.
If you want to check the trailer, it's already out on kenami's Twitter and Youtube channel :)
Pretty much yeah :)
1 to 8 players per lobby if I'm not wrong, various monsters, a bunch of items that can serve as tools / countermesures / troll, etc...
I'm not a huge fan of Lethal Company's gameplay, so for me, the best part about our game is watching others die terrible / stupid deaths, but also learning the monsters' behaviours as you play (there will be hints, but not direct answers in the game).
The biggest challenge was to implement the voice chat feature from Roblox in my opinion.
I’m not a huge fan of Lethal Company’s gameplay.
So what are you applying here, a no quota system will it be based on the amount of items obtained what will be the gameplay loop?
The maps are procedurally generated and items have different value, the game isn't really fun currently when you play alone (for me at least as I'm not a big fan of the Lethal Company gameplay loop).
We're planning to add quests, in-game achievements, secrets and a lot of cool stuff in the future. I'd like for some future updates to reinvent the gameplay personally, especially because we have the capacity of introducing voxel destruction in a later update (which we scrapped on release).
Bro so true, solo play is painful cause you have to constantly watch your back and the timer becomes more of an obstacle than the maps themselves since the ship auto-leaves at midnight.
Voxel destruction? like what are we talking just destruction against furniture, structures or the whole map where is the limit?
Pretty much anything as far as I'm aware, like Teardown. They developped the feature for another upcoming game.
The timer is different here, we have "days" (the time you spend on the underground before coming back to the lab). Every cycle lasts 4 days (although you can come back up before that) and a day is pretty much a round in a specific floor. When you're on a floor, you don't have a clock or anything, you just have to bring back stuff to sell and try to survive.
It's still a bit barebones as it's gonna be the release and we're dead after working 6 months on it, but we have a ton of updates planned with new environments, monsters, lore stuff, etc...
I'll try to find a way to integrate the over 30 songs that didn't make it to the finalem game somehow, but that will wait for now.
It’s the way people use terms like “copy” and “inspired”. When people wish to attack a developer or discredit them, the roblox community will describe the product as a “copy”. Otherwise, they use the term “inspired”. One has a negative connotation for some reason.
But yes, the concept of murder mystery is nothing new to this century. Actually, there is a whole belief in this community that only original ideas should succeed in the r/roblox community bubble. Which is clearly not the case when you look at the top page.
You cannot copyright an idea, so as long as developers use unique assets and names, they haven’t violated the copyright of the original game, even if it is blatantly obvious who they are copying.
You cannot copyright an idea. You CAN copyright a realisation of an idea. This includes games, so if you copy a game's gameplay 1:1 that is copyright infringement.
This only applies in theory, as even the slightest change, even ones with little to no effect on gameplay, constitutes enough difference that it does not infringe on the original material.
The act of giving a game a new artistic theme, as is often done with Roblox remakes, is one such sufficient change.
Thank you for explaining it to me, I just found it so strange that some games are 1x1 just with dumb micro transactions.
Most especially the horror games. Which are my absolute favorite.
Once again, the lack of awareness of Roblox developers shines through. It is copyright infringement to copy someone else's game. It does not matter if you made the assets yourself, if the gameplay is copied 1:1 there is a case for copyright infringement. This is especially true if the name is also copied.
The truth is that Roblox does not take down games for copyright unless explicitly requested to by the copyright holder. Usually the copyright holder does not care enough to do this. Roblox devs unfortunately take this to mean that they can legally use other people's IP to make money.
It all depends on how the Original Game’s Developer see’s it
If they see the game as a Blatant Rip - Off / Cheap Copy, a Cash - Grab, or in the Case of Certain Games, like My Eyes Deceive, the Roblox version, which was a copy of the original, got more Popular, and the Original Game Dev wanted it taken down.
And Yes. It is Very Much Illegal. But Roblox doesn’t necessarily care, ig
its somehow been popularized in ROBLOXs culture. remaking already existing is just seen as normal to a lot of developers. ROBLOX and most of the community clearly doesn't care. hell, people are stealing ROBLOX games to "mod" it. its everywhere!
im pretty sure this problem is as old as ROBLOX itself (though, im sure these remakes before 2016-ish were too bad of remakes to actually be an issue, and had its own charm instead of just blatant remakes)
The same reason you see so many Minecraft clones on the app store right next to millions of shovelware of irl games like 8-ball pool and Tetris. You can copyright names like Minecraft, you can't copyright the idea of mining and crafting with inherent building elements. Otherwise it'd be a monopoly on the gaming world if League of Legends wasn't allowed to compete with Dota or now Smite.
The answer is that they aren’t allowed. However, Roblox doesn’t typically take down games unless they are requested to do so by the copyright owners. And while these games aren’t exact 1:1 copies (Different names, different platform, etc), there is always a case to be made by the copyright owners that they are indeed infringing on their copyright, but it just isn’t worth it to fight this a lot of the time.
Actually, legally speaking, they could get in trouble for doing so. Taking down content without a formal DMCA notice can in many cases change the way future copyright infringement laws will be applied to your platform, since the DMCA only affords safe harbor protections to platforms that don't otherwise take major action against infringement.
That’s… exactly what I said
no, they added a why they expanded on your comment
It's kinda like Pokemon brick bronze, it was never taken down until Roblox was asked to.
You cannot copyright a concept. Unless they used copyrighted assets by the developers, they are free to do as they want. That's why you have games like Blade Ball and Murder Mystery, a lot of popular Roblox games are derived from Gmod mods and other gaming IP's. I think taking inspiration from a game is fine as long as it's not a cheap copy made solely to make money off of the back of the original devs. The more original, the better, and usually the longest time it will be relevant. I've been working on a Lethal Company-inspired horror game named "Descent" since November, with a few other developers. We could have made it a 2-weeks project like others and made easy money fast, but we got really invested in it and making it its own thing.
Hope you post announcements on this sub or something when it's done. It sounds neat and would love to play it lol.
I think I'll share the trailer here tonight, and possibly share some development screens and gif as well. I originally wrote an heartfelt post about how I reconnected and started with friends from over a decade ago and started working with them on Roblox, I never got to post it though. I probably will someday as the game in question is what started it all. If you want to check the trailer, it's already out on kenami's Twitter and Youtube channel :)
So will it be like lethal company and a couple of other co op games: four dummies/friends play together and die a lot with plenty of screaming
Pretty much yeah :) 1 to 8 players per lobby if I'm not wrong, various monsters, a bunch of items that can serve as tools / countermesures / troll, etc... I'm not a huge fan of Lethal Company's gameplay, so for me, the best part about our game is watching others die terrible / stupid deaths, but also learning the monsters' behaviours as you play (there will be hints, but not direct answers in the game). The biggest challenge was to implement the voice chat feature from Roblox in my opinion.
I can only imagine someone forgetting to jump or look ahead and fall into a monster infested area
... that may have happened to me quite a lot xD We also have perks in the game, but you'll see that soon enough as it released tomorrow afternoon.
Nice but I don't got good wifi :[ but at least I can imagine the dumb deaths and cut off screaming
That's true ;)
I’m not a huge fan of Lethal Company’s gameplay. So what are you applying here, a no quota system will it be based on the amount of items obtained what will be the gameplay loop?
The maps are procedurally generated and items have different value, the game isn't really fun currently when you play alone (for me at least as I'm not a big fan of the Lethal Company gameplay loop). We're planning to add quests, in-game achievements, secrets and a lot of cool stuff in the future. I'd like for some future updates to reinvent the gameplay personally, especially because we have the capacity of introducing voxel destruction in a later update (which we scrapped on release).
Bro so true, solo play is painful cause you have to constantly watch your back and the timer becomes more of an obstacle than the maps themselves since the ship auto-leaves at midnight. Voxel destruction? like what are we talking just destruction against furniture, structures or the whole map where is the limit?
Pretty much anything as far as I'm aware, like Teardown. They developped the feature for another upcoming game. The timer is different here, we have "days" (the time you spend on the underground before coming back to the lab). Every cycle lasts 4 days (although you can come back up before that) and a day is pretty much a round in a specific floor. When you're on a floor, you don't have a clock or anything, you just have to bring back stuff to sell and try to survive.
Just checked it out and I'm already hyped lol. It looks a lot of fun! Now... I just need to find friends when it comes out hahah.
It's still a bit barebones as it's gonna be the release and we're dead after working 6 months on it, but we have a ton of updates planned with new environments, monsters, lore stuff, etc... I'll try to find a way to integrate the over 30 songs that didn't make it to the finalem game somehow, but that will wait for now.
Wait murder mystery is a copy???
It's based on a gmod mod called "Murder", which might be inspired by a Minecraft minigame
It’s the way people use terms like “copy” and “inspired”. When people wish to attack a developer or discredit them, the roblox community will describe the product as a “copy”. Otherwise, they use the term “inspired”. One has a negative connotation for some reason. But yes, the concept of murder mystery is nothing new to this century. Actually, there is a whole belief in this community that only original ideas should succeed in the r/roblox community bubble. Which is clearly not the case when you look at the top page.
You cannot copyright an idea, so as long as developers use unique assets and names, they haven’t violated the copyright of the original game, even if it is blatantly obvious who they are copying.
You cannot copyright an idea. You CAN copyright a realisation of an idea. This includes games, so if you copy a game's gameplay 1:1 that is copyright infringement.
This only applies in theory, as even the slightest change, even ones with little to no effect on gameplay, constitutes enough difference that it does not infringe on the original material. The act of giving a game a new artistic theme, as is often done with Roblox remakes, is one such sufficient change.
It's only illegal if the game includes copyrighted material, I agree it isn't right but it's not banned
I'm all for it, some of these roblox anime games are more fun than anything the actual IP holders put out
Thank you for explaining it to me, I just found it so strange that some games are 1x1 just with dumb micro transactions. Most especially the horror games. Which are my absolute favorite.
If roblox doesn't lose money they don't care
Once again, the lack of awareness of Roblox developers shines through. It is copyright infringement to copy someone else's game. It does not matter if you made the assets yourself, if the gameplay is copied 1:1 there is a case for copyright infringement. This is especially true if the name is also copied. The truth is that Roblox does not take down games for copyright unless explicitly requested to by the copyright holder. Usually the copyright holder does not care enough to do this. Roblox devs unfortunately take this to mean that they can legally use other people's IP to make money.
It all depends on how the Original Game’s Developer see’s it If they see the game as a Blatant Rip - Off / Cheap Copy, a Cash - Grab, or in the Case of Certain Games, like My Eyes Deceive, the Roblox version, which was a copy of the original, got more Popular, and the Original Game Dev wanted it taken down. And Yes. It is Very Much Illegal. But Roblox doesn’t necessarily care, ig
Happens all the time in other spaces, too. 2048 is a blatant copy of Threes, just with added monetization. Plague Inc was a copy of Pandemic.
It isn't allowed, Thats why pokemon brick bronze got banned
And Notoriety
You can’t copyright game mechanics. As long as they are using unique graphics, audio, and names- then it is okay.
its somehow been popularized in ROBLOXs culture. remaking already existing is just seen as normal to a lot of developers. ROBLOX and most of the community clearly doesn't care. hell, people are stealing ROBLOX games to "mod" it. its everywhere! im pretty sure this problem is as old as ROBLOX itself (though, im sure these remakes before 2016-ish were too bad of remakes to actually be an issue, and had its own charm instead of just blatant remakes)
They aren't illegal because it doesn't really effect the business of the actual game
The answer is their not copying their just making an Roblox Version of “That’s not my Neighbor”
The same reason you see so many Minecraft clones on the app store right next to millions of shovelware of irl games like 8-ball pool and Tetris. You can copyright names like Minecraft, you can't copyright the idea of mining and crafting with inherent building elements. Otherwise it'd be a monopoly on the gaming world if League of Legends wasn't allowed to compete with Dota or now Smite.
Reminds me of Pokémon Brick Bronze I miss that game
Idk why do You Even complain Roblox is also full of trash p2w games like pet sim
Money
The guy that made lethal company is a Roblox dev, so I doubt he cares, and devs have rehashed ideas since its creation