Capcom Kneecaps Fan Remakes Of ‘Resident Evil’ Games The Company Isn’t Planning To Remake

Failures

from the evil-indeed dept

You might think that perusing Techdirt posts on the topic of fan-made video games using the IP of others would yield you only one kind of story in which threats and lawsuits abound. Fortunately, that’s something of a misconception. While there are indeed plenty of stories of that nature, there are also examples of studios and publishers that have figured out a way to embrace their biggest fans. Paradox built an affiliate program to allow its fans to create “official” games, such that there would be no threats of litigation for doing so. Sega has likewise been lenient with fan-games, even going so far as to poke fun at its competition for doing otherwise. Even Blizzard got into this act with at least one fan-made game.

The point is that there are ways to handle this that don’t involve being an IP bully or whipping the corporate attorneys into a frenzy. Or you can go the Capcom route and simply bully two fan projects into shutting down, even though there are no plans for a competing project.

The developers behind fan remakes of Resident Evil and Resident Evil Code: Veronica have announced that development on both projects has ceased after Capcom allegedly contacted them and asked the developers to cancel the project.

In a video announcing the Code: Veronica project’s cancellation, Briins Croft said that 90 percent of the Code: Veronica fan remake used existing assets from Capcom’s recent “Remake” games, such as 3D models, animations, and textures. The fans released an initial Code: Veronica demo back in June 2021, and planned to put out a much more substantial one in the beginning of 2023.

So, a couple of things of note here. First, yes, it is probably the reuse of Capcom assets in these fan-made games that really put these projects on Capcom’s radar. That’s different than simply remaking a game from scratch, to be sure. But, as I outlined in the opening, it certainly does not have to represent an insurmountable barrier. The company, which would own the copyright on those assets, could have worked something out with these fans.

Meanwhile, the release of these games was going to be free. This is purely a labor of love, in other words, rather than some attempt to make a bunch of money off the work of others. Of the two C&D notices sent to Croft, he reports that one of them carried a curious tone, but the other was quite hostile. Due to that, the whole thing is shutting down, despite having been announced and worked on beginning years ago. Notably, Capcom reps publicly confirmed that there are no plans for remaking these games within the company. Note as well that both games were originally released over two decades ago.

The fan developers believed that Capcom canceled their unofficial remakes for being too visible and official-looking. “[The Code: Veronica remake] was going to be free, so we weren’t doing anyone any harm,” Croft said in the cancellation announcement video. The publisher seemed to disagree. Capcom allegedly cited copyright factors and licensing agreements as reasons why the project couldn’t proceed.

“I was personally a bit surprised by Capcom’s decision. But hey, we were using [their] toys to create a free game, which was already creating a lot of visibility,” said Croft in the video. “So it’s okay. We can understand the cancellation.”

Nice of him to say, but this is still quite annoying. Fans worked for several years to make a re-make of two beloved games that wouldn’t compete with any currently available games from Capcom, but the company still decided to torpedo the project entirely instead of getting creative to let the fans have their day.

It could have been otherwise, but c’est la Capcom.

Filed Under: copyright, fan games, resident evil
Companies: capcom