Valve Blocks ‘Slenderman’ Game From Steam Due To Copyright Concerns - Polidicks

[video=youtube;wMEYmVLELr4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMEYmVLELr4[/video] [QUOTE]See here, the official teaser for [I]Faceless[/I], a game previously known as [URL="http://kotaku.com/5929402/theres-a-multiplayer-source+engine-slenderman-game-in-the-works?tag=slender"]Slender: Source[/URL]. It's got a complicated lineage: inspired by[URL="http://kotaku.com/5942056/slender-the-eight-pages-short-crude-and-one-of-the-scariest-games-of-the-year?tag=slender"]another game[/URL] which was in turn inspired by [URL="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man"]an internet meme[/URL].Despite popularity on Valve's new Steam "Greenlight" crowdsourced game initiative, [I]Faceless[/I]can't get itself onto Steam. [URL="http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/14/faceless-slender-man-stalks-blocks-greenlights-top-game-from/"]Joystiq takes a look[/URL] in a new article, speaking with [I]Faceless[/I] developer Justin Ross about how Valve has blocked the game's move to steam, citing copyright concerns. Despite the fact that Ross has gotten permission from the creator of Slenderman, who goes by the internet handle Victor Surge, as well as the fact that a similar Slendermanish game called[URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92910126&searchtext="][I]The Intruder[/I][/URL] has already been Greenlit, [I]Faceless[/I] languishes in Valve-imposed purgatory. From [I]Joystiq[/I]: [QUOTE]Valve writes to Ross, "The permission from Victor Surge/Eric Knudsen is fine but since he has an option holder we'll need their permission too." An option holder is not the trademark holder, but owns the contract on an IP and is able to license it out for a film, TV, book, video game, or other endeavor. Ross is currently in communication with the Slender Man option holder, and it looks like he'll have to sign a handful of documents to push Faceless through Greenlight.[/QUOTE] It tracks that there might be more interested and possibly legally involved parties than just the Slenderman's creator, and it's understandable that Valve would want to be absolutely sure they aren't opening themselves up to a lawsuit before greenlighting the game. It sounds as though the main mistake the [I]Faceless[/I] team made was to start off calling their game [I]Slender: Source[/I], and to link it so explicitly to the existing meme. But it also sounds as though, so far, no one with any rights to the Slenderman has any real objections to [I]Faceless[/I], and that with some time, emailing, and maybe paper-signing, everything will work out. I'm certainly intrigued by the premise of [I]Faceless[/I]—it's hard to pull off a multiplayer horror game, but the way they describe it sounds like it could work. Hopefully everyone will cross the necessary t's and dot the requisite lower-case j's and we'll get to find out.[/QUOTE] [URL]http://kotaku.com/5960579/valve-blocks-slenderman-indie-game-from-steam-due-to-copyright-concerns[/URL]

Thank fucking god

Hah [editline]14th November 2012[/editline] checkmate

[quote]as well as the fact that a similar Slendermanish game calledThe Intruder has already been Greenlit[/quote] Fuck you. What does it have in common with slenderman?

[quote] similar Slendermanish game called The Intruder has already been Greenlit, Faceless languishes in Valve-imposed purgatory.[/quote]what how the fuck

good, no more bandwagon culture rot on Steam

-Scratch that, it's already explained in the article.-

The Intruder got passed because although it is visually similar to Slenderman, it doesn't spin off directly from the Slenderman "franchise". Best example I can think of off the top of my head is in a Simpsons episode where they didn't want to use the money to license James Bond in a scene, so they named the character James Bont and got away with it.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;38455057]Fuck you. What does it have in common with slenderman?[/QUOTE] Slenderman was a pioneer in the horror genre.

royzo saves the day

Really, The Intruder can only be considered in any way a "Slendermanish" game because of some incredibly vague stuff in the teaser trailer (TV Static, creepy guy in suit etc.), even then that's incredibly subject to change. Even then, it still has nothing to do with it, Slenderman didn't invent the whole "Supernatural stalker" genre.

[QUOTE=Egon Spengler;38455050]Thank fucking god[/QUOTE] holy shit you guys I don't even care for this slenderman stuff but what the fuck why does everyone suddenly hate it now you guys had a number of megathreads in the GD awhile back also one game in the steam store isn't going to change shit get over it [editline]15th November 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=froztshock;37755342]Because slenderman is popular now and we all got bored with it a long time ago so it's time to be angry.[/QUOTE]

Why is everyone hating on Faceless? It sounds okay, of course no one has played it, so who is to say..

I remember when slenderman had a niche group of people that followed it and were interested in the backstory and creepiness of the character. Now it's everyone and Pewdiepie who believe they know everything about Slenderman by playing Slender

I like how slenderman was popular now everyone hates him. The cycle contuines

There's nothing wrong with the concept of Slenderman himself, it's just that people tend to have a problem with the way he's been used by others in the recent past. A majority of Slenderman games are of an incredibly questionable quality aswell, which doesn't really help matters. I think the issue is recent uses of Slenderman often skim over stuff like the origin story and whatever "official" (And I mean that as a VERY loose term) information there is on him, and instead just make him an active villain with no apparent motivation or goal for whatever he's doing while leaving no possible space for speculation or interpretation.

[QUOTE=Sir Drone;38455193]I like how slenderman was popular now everyone hates him. The cycle contuines[/QUOTE] It's not cool to like something that's popular, don't you know

Well the trailer was pretty uninteresting anyway. It was just a slow flashlight pan over dated source textures until a still image of slenderman flew at the screen for a half second. oo scury

[QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;38455186]I remember when slenderman had a niche group of people that followed it and were interested in the backstory and creepiness of the character. Now it's everyone and Pewdiepie who believe they know everything about Slenderman by playing Slender[/QUOTE] So? Just because some other people are enjoying something that you enjoy for different reasons then it doesn't change anything. Portal is "mainstream" with dumb LPers and 11 year olds playing it since Portal 2 came out, but FP seemed to be able to enjoy both games despite that.

The trailer looks awful, all those default low-res textures.

snop

[QUOTE=ColdWave;38455179]Why is everyone hating on Faceless? It sounds okay, of course no one has played it, so who is to say..[/QUOTE] I haven't seen the new Star Wars, so I can't think it's going to be bad?

For goodness sake facepunch. Just because people you don't like enjoy something doesn't mean you have to hate it with all the force you can muster.

Royzo defender of quality steam greenlights

[QUOTE=The Baconator;38455065]good, no more bandwagon culture rot on Steam[/QUOTE] Yeah, now we can get back to our great high quality Greenlight games. [img_thumb]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/558706247626058862/38863D966A2BE1DAE762F175ACF389D4FBF62102/[/img_thumb]

Slenderman and all fear of it was killed off by PewDiePie, and arseholes calling it "Slendy" on Tumblr. Completely novelised the whole backstory, like Marble Hornets for example.

Royzo get your ass in here and give us a bit of feedback. As someone who is developing a game taking partial inspiration from Slenderman, how do you feel about this? Would you have considered them potential competition?

[QUOTE=koeniginator;38455150]holy shit you guys I don't even care for this slenderman stuff but what the fuck why does everyone suddenly hate it now you guys had a number of megathreads in the GD awhile back also one game in the steam store isn't going to change shit get over it [editline]15th November 2012[/editline][/QUOTE] one game doesn't change anything taking a vague creepy internet cryptid and turning it into a shitty horror game hurts it unfunny swedish fucks lp'ing it and shrieking into the microphone hurts it even more making rehash after rehash of the same linear un-fun game because using creativity makes you more stressed out than a dyslexic kindergartner trying to write a college essay on particle physics kills it it's been exposed way too much and needs to return to the darkness where it belongs.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;38455057]Fuck you. What does it have in common with slenderman?[/QUOTE] Its a Kotaku article. What did you expect?

I hadn't even heard of this, was it really this bad?