• ORION removed from Steam after DMCA from Activision over gun models
    125 replies, posted
[quote] Trek Industries’ open-world sci-fi shooter Orion has been pulled from Steam, thanks to a DMCA takedown request, according to the game’s developer. The game allegedly uses certain assets from Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. David Prassel of Trek Industries posted an update to one of the studio’s other games on Steam, Orion: Prelude, saying Orion (aka The Orion Project) was pulled from sale after a copyright claim. Prassel cites a portion of the takedown request in his post, which says the notice was issued "on behalf of Activision, who alleges that the game Orion uses weapon art content from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The weapon art in question includes the M8A7 rifle, the Haymaker rifle, and the Bal-27 rifle." Orion was pulled without advance notice from Activision or Valve, Prassel said, in the middle of Steam’s ongoing sale. Orion was being sold for $0.49, down from its regular price of $0.99.[/quote] [quote=http://steamcommunity.com/app/104900/discussions/0/358415738202489643/] So apparently Activision has removed ORION from Steam. This was done via a DMCA takedown request stating: “on behalf of Activision, who alleges that the game Orion uses weapon art content from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The weapon art in question includes the M8A7 rifle, the Haymaker rifle, and the Bal-27 rifle." I've uploaded comparisons of the weapons in question, from both games. I had to guess on weapons as no specific assets or images were provided to me, nor was I contacted by Steam/Valve or Activision prior to having the game removed from Steam. (Comparison 1 - Auto Shotgun) [url]http://i.imgur.com/8Qx1NI2.png[/url] (Comparison 2 - Auto Rifle) [url]http://i.imgur.com/IjS7dfO.png[/url] [/quote] SOURCE 1: [url]http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/27/12047914/activision-dmca-orion-pulled-from-steam-call-of-duty-trek-industries[/url] SOURCE 2: [url]http://steamcommunity.com/app/104900/discussions/0/358415738202489643/[/url] A bit of infomation on this dev: This isn't the first time this has came up. The other models in question: [B][url]http://i.imgur.com/ZQeBNGs.png[/url][/B] They ripped a model from Natural Selection 2: [url]http://www.gatheryourparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Paste-700x472.jpg[/url] And this apprantly came up as well: [url]http://i.imgur.com/05wXy6q.jpg[/url]
What an embarrassment tbh
[t]http://i.imgur.com/ZQeBNGs.png[/t]
It's like Limbo of the Lost all over again.
Wew, now my copy of futuristic dino warfare is limited edition. I feel special now.
Wow. There's lazy and then there's.... [b][i]this.[/i][/b]
Someone fucked it up, whether the team leader knew it or not. Someone very clearly used assets from Activisions game. It's not just similar, some parts are identical.
man i knew they were pretty shitty devs, but this takes it to another level.
Can these guys just stop trying already? How fucking many Orion games is it gonna take before they realize they can't pull it off? Better question is where do they even get the money to just keep pumping this crap out?
[t]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/104900/ss_689650081e2476a0922024f268f9e4819dc83fc1.1920x1080.jpg?t=1453148636[/t] [t]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/104900/ss_b4fb96eb34adb083dfa4ddff58a076374aa78bda.1920x1080.jpg?t=1453148636[/t] [t]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/104900/ss_67923f5d427067e58c9bc057a578abb27664851e.1920x1080.jpg?t=1453148636[/t] Lightsabers? World of Warcraft Orcs, and Ghostface? Fucking Robot Santa from Futurama? This was just a big Cease & Desist letter waiting to happen. No wonder why Prelude was only a dollar on Steam. Feel sorry for whoever bought this shit, should've gotten ARK: Survival Evolved instead if they wanted dinos and futuristic technology wrapped in one package though. [editline]June 28th, 2016[/editline] [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/games/104900/announcements/detail/834671877729233336"]Apparently[/URL] they say they don't feel the need to change any asset immediately despite being the main reason why they're getting slammed hard right now, that Activision is acting "malicious and overly aggressive" and are planning a counter-sue. Love to see how that turns out and blow up in their faces the same way it did with Imminent Uprising / Digital Homicide.
Why would you try to use models from one of the most popular and well recognized games of all time anyway?
They tried to rip off halo's (the first one) warthog and other stuff many years ago. They've been doing this for an incredibly long time, it's a surprise they managed to last this long.
The copies are so minimal i dont even see why they bothered. like they made 80% of the gun model new and slapped a Cod sight or rail or grip on it. With just a little more work could have been a whole new gun. these two look nothing alike though [t]http://i.imgur.com/8Qx1NI2.png[/t]
Most of these comparisons are immediately obvious but what am I missing on this one? [t]http://i.imgur.com/8Qx1NI2.png[/t]
[QUOTE=mickers;50608686]The copies are so minimal i dont even see why they bothered. like they made 80% of the gun model new and slapped a Cod sight or rail or grip on it. With just a little more work could have been a whole new gun. these two look nothing alike though [t]http://i.imgur.com/8Qx1NI2.png[/t][/QUOTE] That was posted by a developer. I mean, they don't look anything alike, but he definitely wasn't going to post anything incriminating.
[QUOTE=Caulo32;50608698]That was posted by a developer. I mean, they don't look anything alike, but he definitely wasn't going to post anything incriminating.[/QUOTE] ohh ok, that makes sense now.
An update from him. [quote]An additional update is available. For the record, I (-David) don't agree with this nor believe it's a good use of a small teams resources to immediately replace any asset. [B]I was just contacted by the artist responsible (he just woke up to all of this - Eastern part of the world)[/B] for the Automatic Shotgun (which is what appears most in fans-submitted comparisons) feels absolutely horrible and has contacted me to inform me that he would feel more comfortable in remaking said weapon regardless of what I do about Activision or how we proceed. So no matter what happens going forward, that weapon will be visually different. [B] He feels terrible that his piece of art resulted in these events that have affected so many things and he has started production on it this evening to remedy anything he can do directly. [/B] [highlight]What Activision is claiming isn't a valid or legal use of DMCA. If they were alleging that we had actually RIPPED the Black Ops 3 weapons FROM their game and used them exactly - their shipped meshes, their shipped textures - that is a DMCA case.[/highlight] [B]And the fact that they made an artist feel this way when it's ALL they do is absolute crap. [/B] What they are alleging is that our very own, separately created content is "too visually" or "artistically similar". That is *NOT* what the DMCA covers. That is a form of copyright and IP infringement dispute. Their lawyers know this, but filed this anyways. [B]We will be seeking resolution for all damages wrongly inflicted towards us FROM Activision via this malicious and overly aggressive tactic. [/B] [B]Our desire to remove said content is purely for our own benefit. We are a small indie team, any minute the game is not for sale during the biggest event is a stake to the heart. Us willing to remove any offensive content and to get it back for sale is to protect our selves, our company and our IP. [/B] As always, we regularly interact and involve our community. If anyone ever has a problem we always invite you to contact us directly at: [/quote] [url]http://steamcommunity.com/games/104900/announcements/detail/834671877729233336[/url] Planning to counter-sue. Oh boy.
the only thing that really matters is that activision was able to draw a dmca out of its ass without any notice or evidence or really anything. that means activision can temporally take down any game without penalty.
[QUOTE]What they are alleging is that our very own, separately created content is "too visually" or "artistically similar". That is *NOT* what the DMCA covers. That is a form of copyright and IP infringement dispute. Their lawyers know this, but filed this anyways. [/QUOTE] because that totally makes it any better or different lol [editline]28th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Foda;50608712]the only thing that really matters is that activision was able to draw a dmca out of its ass without any notice or evidence or really anything. that means activision can temporally take down any game without penalty.[/QUOTE] They're a retextured 1:1 duplicate so it's not like they won't be able to prove it tbh looks like they took parts and spliced models around, retextured, etc. [editline]28th June 2016[/editline] [t]http://i.imgur.com/VJKRRzp.png[/t] He's trying pretty hard to justify this [t]http://i.imgur.com/Nl1m8.jpg[/t][t]https://i.sli.mg/xpIy1W.png[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/QbHrqUz.jpg[/t] but fuck them, I love how people are defending these people despite the blatant asset flipping [QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;50608630] Lightsabers?[/QUOTE] to be fair, Star Wars shouldn't/couldn't have exclusive rights to laser beam swords anyways there are like a million billionty trillion games that gave light swords
[QUOTE=Foda;50608712]the only thing that really matters is that activision was able to draw a dmca out of its ass without any notice or evidence or really anything. that means activision can temporally take down any game without penalty.[/QUOTE] Yeah... I'm pretty sure the reason activision was able to take down the game is that several of the guns were cobbled together from direct copy pasted assets. I'm 100% on board with this happening, the devs of the game are scummy as fuck and you should not trust a word they say [QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;50608710]Planning to counter-sue. Oh boy.[/QUOTE] can't wait for them to try and get completely obliterated
[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;50608710]An update from him. [url]http://steamcommunity.com/games/104900/announcements/detail/834671877729233336[/url] Planning to counter-sue. Oh boy.[/QUOTE] Maybe it'll be the final nail in the coffin for them. Prassel is a god damn joker of a "developer" who doesn't listen to a single bit of criticism or advice and fucks over his employees. I remember multiple people on this forum telling him back when Orion was a source mod to tighten the core mechanics of the game before trying to ram in dinosaurs, vehicles and jetpacks because the guy just expected it to work. Obviously, the mod came out and just died immediately because there was no attempt at balance and the movement/gunplay was so bland which made the gimmicks even more useless.
there's a [URL="http://i.imgur.com/NpGNDSF.png"]reviewer[/URL] who has 2,351 hours on record he has over 400 games and [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/id/DPrassel/stats/ORIONDinoBeatdown/?tab=achievements"]most of them haven't been played at all[/URL] is this reality [editline]28th June 2016[/editline] oh my god wait that's the dev of the game how did I not realize this sooner this guy has like, every game on steam but he's only actually played like, 5% of his entire list
they should have sticked with the hl2 mod and run with it
[QUOTE=The Pink Scotti;50608787]they should have sticked with the hl2 mod and run with it[/QUOTE] They "tried" but just did not listen to any criticism or input people gave them. They assumed they could just take Halo's DNA and ram dinosaurs in, in some weird attempt to recreate the Halo 1 beta without actually calling it Halo.
david prassel is the gift that keeps on giving. i remember when he used to spam the forums with update [b]threads[/b] on his hl2 mod. i also remember him permabanning? ip banning? me from the mod entirely after i criticized it as well as pointing out how the models looked like they were ripped from halo.
If they haven't ripped the models they don't technically have any real legal causality here, I mean yeah they should probably fire whoever did the models but it isn't technically illegal unless its either a model rip or a straight up reproduction of an entire model, its not like this sort of shit doesn't happen in basically every creative industry ever. Theres enough different here that I don't honestly think they would be able to go through with this, more so when you consider that all of the stolen parts are either missing elements or while they look the same, are different in sizing over the course of the part etc.
[URL="http://imgur.com/a/5XOhh"]Made an Imgur album[/URL] of all the known copyright infringing stuff plus the pieced together and outright model rips. Don't know how anyone can defend these people honestly, it's all right there in the open for everyone to see. [editline]June 28th, 2016[/editline] Wow, unrelated but is the Imgur community this toxic or are people just sending me ironic replies?
[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;50608830][URL="http://imgur.com/a/5XOhh"]Made an Imgur album[/URL] of all the known copyright infringing stuff plus the pieced together and outright model rips. Don't know how anyone can defend these people honestly, it's all right there in the open for everyone to see.[/QUOTE] [t]http://i.imgur.com/gNgqbGK.jpg[/t] I don't understand this one, the "proportions" are not even the same for most of them.
[url=http://i.imgur.com/W8q2FqS.gifv]Another comparison[/url] (Guess you can't embed gifv)
[QUOTE=Elspin;50608744]Yeah... I'm pretty sure the reason activision was able to take down the game is that several of the guns were cobbled together from direct copy pasted assets. I'm 100% on board with this happening, the devs of the game are scummy as fuck and you should not trust a word they say can't wait for them to try and get completely obliterated[/QUOTE] so the issue isn't that they copied the assets (well, it IS an issue and until we see the polys we can't even know for sure if it's the same asset, or one made to look just like it. are all game assets under copyright? who the fuck knows), but the issue is that a DMCA can be used because your gun looks like pieces of my gun and that I can make that claim and get your game removed from steam. the question really becomes "how many polygons are required to make my gun legally different than your gun?"
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