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Survey: Should Fakemon Be Shared?

DarkPsychic

DarkPsychic

146
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Quite the interesting topic...

As a fakemon creator,
I don't see any reason to not release my sprites or designs.

In the end Pokemon is not my IP and my sprites are for the community...
Yes credit is nice but honestly I would much rather see them being used in a game than just collecting dust in a folder that could get lost one day...

I can understand how other creators can become attached to their work, specially when it comes to how much work and time went into their creation...
Then to get no credit for it, can be a bummer.

Though it really is up to the one making the hack to credit all creators of the resources they used and help received...
Out of respect for the community to be fair.
 
Vagrant Pixels

Vagrant Pixels

Pixel Artist
24
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7
Years
You know what? Reading this thread made me want to dig up my own fakes from years ago, give them a makeover/polish to reflect my current abilities, then host a gallery thread not just for showcase, but for fangame creators to help themselves.

Like many others here, I agree. This supports the fangame community, so why not? It's all for the hobby.
 
Kyepha

Kyepha

~K Y E P H A~
19
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6
Years
I agree with you on some points, and I have seen crossovers occur. But I guess it's really up to the owners of the Fakemon themselves if they want others' to use their work for their games. I think doing it via crossover would be the fairest method.
 
Mana1

Mana1

10,078
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15
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Whilst a project is ongoing/live, Fakemon should definitely not be shared. The creator has put in a lot of work (or perhaps money even, if they have hired a spriter to help). It also ruins one of their selling points if their unique fakemon are ripped and thrown into another game with minimal effort.

However, if a project dies or is long past its sell-by date, I would love to see more creators donate their fakemon and sprites into the community. That way we can celebrate their efforts and add to the pool of potential pokemon.
 

Panamanian

32
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  • Age 34
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I wouldn't take an artist's work without permission, but if someone used their art, used it in a fangame and credited the original owner, what is there to complain about?
 

00.Archer

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ResidentEcruteak said:
I hope I'm not too blunt here, but honestly...

building a game out of a massive amount of content within copyrighted IP that it's creator never has given (and probably never will give) permission to use for adapting it to personal projects and sharing the derived work, all this despite of repeated objections of the original creator of the IP for it's unauthorized use, and then feeling bad for the idea of sharing the tiny input he/she added to the game along with the IP...

I'm sure it's hard work creating fakemon or any content of your own into a fangame, but I really feel that even in the more larger projects the amount of original content is most of the time trivial compared to the IP - pokemon franchise - that everyone is using. Not wanting to despise anyone's hard work, but I was surprised no one had raised this point yet. (Also sorry for a long sentence)

But to end this post positively: do it, share your work, for good ideas are worth sharing :)
Click to expand...

ResidentEcruteak said:
My concern with my post was that the Gamefreak staff are no less artists than fans that create fakemons. So, if people take the official work and use it without permission why would a fakemon artists be offended or surprised if a fakemon they add to fangame etc. gets used without permission? I think, ironically, that someone using your work without permission is, in a way, a mark of that work's greatness as no one would not care about it if it wasn't any good - it's not of course respectful towards the artist to act against his/hers will, but still...

And so what if Gamefreak staff is paid for their work? Is, for example, Kenji Sugimori's work with creating all the 800+ original pokemon designs - which we all love and are inspired by - over the course of 20 or so years, less valuable because he got paid for it? It doesn't matter if he agreed to effectively sell his rights to the work by doing it for the company; it is simply what he, as an artist, agreed to do - it is his terms of use.

However, if his and Gamefreak's, for which he worked for, wishes are not heeded regarding the use of the official work, then again why a fakemon artist - or creator of any fan content - would try to, as someone said, horde all the work for him/herself? Yes, your work is dear to you and you don't want it to be misused, but I'm pretty sure that the official artist and rest of the Gamefreak staff feel the same way.

Simply put, it's not fair to use someone's work without permission or affiliate with a project doing it and then demand the very rights to yourself that you took away or helped took away from someone.

I know it's tricky; we all would like to build on what we grew up with, but we will likely never get permission for it. I was also interested to make fangame with fakemons and all of my own, but in the end I could not find honest way to do it and respect the wishes of those people who gave all these good childhood memories. So, I dropped it and started to sough ways make completely original game idea which was still "inspired" by pokemon - I just wish more people would do it this way. All those great fakemons for example could be creatures of their own right in a world where there is no conflict with an existing IP...


I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult anyone :( I just made a point: something that single fan adds to fangame is small compared to the pokemon franchise/phenomenom as whole (i.e not fakemons compared to rom hacking).
Click to expand...

These 2 posts represent my view perfectly.

Give people freedom to use. There is no way that limiting the use of an asset you made will benefit the end user of that asset - in this case, the player.

As long as you're not claiming to have created something you didn't, then it's all fair game to me. And guess what - this is exactly what copyright laws were originally made for.
 
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Chillywray

Chillywray

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  • Age 39
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Where would you share them if you had some.

I'd be willing to share fakemon sprites so long as I was able to play the game they was used in.
:)
 
Yotes

Yotes

GameDev
43
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7
Years
It'd be a wicked cool collab. Imagine an ultimate fan dex with the best of the best fakemon and credits out to their creators and projects of origin.
 

Chris_P

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I feel like once you put your creations on the internet, it is unrealistic to assume you can moderate how they are used effectively. They are out there for anyone to steal, whether you like it or not. Stealing is of course terrible, since it is manipulative and shows disrespect, but it is what it is.

And on the other hand, just as it's been said before in this thread, in the same way that you were inspired by the official pokemon franchise and wanted to toy with it and add your own spin, others will want to do the same inspired by your creations under that brand name, and, well, isn't that the point of creativity and sharing?

In an ideal world, everything would be open and everyone would be crediting their sources properly and I believe that we would all benefit collectively and individually from such conditions. In my opinion!

I'd rather show goodwill and openly state that my creations are free to use in hope people will in return have the goodwill to credit me, instead of telling people "look at what I did with the material someone else created, but don't you dare do the same with mine." It just... doesn't work.

edit: It is of course a different case if someone is profiting financially from your work or if you do have financial benefits from the work you are doing and that's why you want to protect it. But making money off a brand that does not belong to you and that you do not work for is problematic in the first place, and another kind of stealing in and of itself.
 
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Urrr

Urrr

Devil's Advocate
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In the end this all comes down to honor and how you want to be viewed in the community.

Legally, as a Fakemon creator, you could do nothing. Someone could go out their and "steal" every fakemon out of every popular fan-game and you could do nothing to him/her in court.

1. You don't even know who you had to sue. The person "stealing" the spirtes is anonymous.
2. Even if you knew the person, he most likely comes from a different country, with different laws. You are a private person, let's say from the US and want to sue someone from Poland? Better do in the polish justice system, otherwise even if you came through with your ridiculous lawsuit, it might not be recognized in the other country.
3. You are creating something that is already in a legal gray area because you are calling them Fakemon, an obvious alteration of an existing franchise under which you already only allowed to exist thorugh fair use. Even more so, when these sprites are already part of a existing fangame. Good luck finding a lawyer for such a case.
4. Even if the stars aligned and it comes to a lawsuit, what are your chances to win? The amount of money you would have to pump into this, just to get to this point is in no relation to your chances to win.

So in the end, all that prevents someone from "stealing" your content is their own honor and how they are viewed in the community.
You could of course decide you don't want to make your work public to prevent this, but hey, are you then even a content creator anymore?
 
Marin

Marin

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I'd say something that also prevents stealing content, is that they and their game wouldn't be allowed on PokéCommunity (or any other fangame/hack community with moderation)
 
Espik 23

Espik 23

3
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6
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I'm actually currently working on a fan game with Fakemon from other games. I feel like the variety of Fakemon would make an interesting concept. Of absolute course, there'd be no way I'd use Fakemon without their creator's permission and credit. Not every creator I've asked has said yes, which I can respect, because different people have different opinions. As a Fakemon creator myself, I'm fine with people using my designs, as long as they ask first and credit me. It's different for everyone, and although the concept sounds cool to share designs, the choice is ultimately up to the creator.
 
Fairy

Fairy

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So I responded to this thread a year ago but I'd like to amend my statement:

Fairy said:
As a fakemon artist - and I want to explicitly state that this is my own opinion and not necessarily reflected by any other artist - I always felt it was part of my duty as a Pokemon fan to make my art available to game devs in an effort to strengthen the custom game / artistic pokemon community. So long as I am personally asked for my permission, appropriate credit is given, and no one profits from my art, I really can't see a good reason for me personally to horde fakemon to myself. Art is meant to be shared and enjoyed, after all! It allows for more creativity to be spread throughout the community!

At the same time though, I can completely understand why some artists choose to be protective of their sprites. Often times people do steal their hard work or withhold credit, and as a result the artist is all but invisible compared to the irresponsible dev. Maybe the artist has exclusive loyalties to a dev who is a close friend? And others still are justifiable jaded. You enter a weird grey area of usage rights when you're editing another company's intellectual property.
Click to expand...

At the end of the day, no one can stop another person from using their art without permission. It's just a consequence of putting your content on the internet. However, I think we can all agree that it is good etiquette to get permission and credit the artist. But there is no legal recourse in this case for "reclaiming" your artwork, like Urrr said. It's just not possible. The best that can be done is to try to convince other people not to download the hack.

I still believe that sharing your fakemon should be done despite the possibility of someone stealing it. Part of being a reasonable artist online is recognizing that you're helpless to prevent every person from doing whatever they want with your work. Keep creating, keep posting, and keep doing the artwork that makes you happy.
 
Logan

Logan

[img]http://pldh.net/media/pokecons_action/403.gif
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People have asked me if they could use fakemon from Sienna in the past and I've always said yes, however I've never seen those games come to fruition :P
 
riles

riles

terapok dunsparce fan
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I am strictly against sharing fakemon with strangers! Using someone else's fakemon in your game is a CRIME! All such offenders need to be PUNISHED! If anyone tries to use my fakemons, or any of my custom assets, I'll see them in Kangaroo Court! i"ll suuuuuuuue them to their last penny!!

P.S.: I don't have any fakemon or custom assets designed yet ;) ;)
 
Miggiz125s

Miggiz125s

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Ok, Now the thing is, The Pokemon Company has absolute control over the Pokemon Franchise and can easily make everything closed off to us, be it the tiles, sprites or even the games themselves. Now I must ask, Why shouldnt we do the same for our original content?

I mean, It IS our work and we DO have our rights, and so we should have a choice between whether or not we want others to use them.

Honestly, All people who have original works do have a free will to do whatever they want because it is their work. As for people who make modifications to somebody's work (with permission) Have rights to whatever they own, even if it is implemented in someone else's work. Because at the end of the day, Isnt it just fair that you get the same right to choose as the original creator?

I think that we should think about it like custom tiles for a ROM Hack. We can use them, But only if the original creator says we can. I just think that it is only fair that creators have the right to choose when they make something.
 
_pheebee

_pheebee

[I]Gosh! What's poppin'?[/i]
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I feel it's up to the creator of said Fakemon (obviously)

If everyone could use the same Fakemon, where's the originality?
 

CoolKnightST

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I think it would be intressting to see some fanmade evolution made public. Mostly fake evolutions on existing pokémon. Some examples of this could be designs for a farfetch'd evolution (what won't get a evolution in the games anyway during the easter egg hidden in it's name) and maybe some Eevee evolution for types that don't exist yet. Maybe an nice evolution for Noctowl or even an regional version. God dam I believe every fangame would love to have an white Noctowl that's based on Hedwig from Harry Potter that is Ghost/Flying.

I just believe some pokémon deserve to have an evolution & it should be an community effort to get an design from them as a resource. Another great example would be Gorochu (the scrabbed evolution of Raichu).

I don't think it will be that hard to have some designers sitting arround a table & work together on some well ballanced fanmade pokémon that everyone is going to use. It would also help ballancing them out. Their are so many fake pokémon & fanmade design that just doesn't look good, have unballanced stats, have a poor ability or just have bad moves overal.
 

aveontrainer

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As a tileset/ overworld/ battle background creator who makes all his work for public use I completely understand where you are coming from. I for one could never make a game with all the bells and whistles like some of these other games out there due to my lack of knowledge of coding and story writing. I'm making my own game but it's for my two little boys to play when they are older. I am a Christian and it will closely follow the faith using Arceus as the focal point of the game. Arceus will have Trinity forms. I'm in the art building stage of the game and don't see a point of hoarding my work to myself and just "showing it off". Because I for one would browse pages of other games and wish I could use pieces of art from their games as it would fit a certain map I was creating. But people would refuse to let me use stuff. That's what prompted me to start creating new content. When I saw people liked it I made it all public.
 
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