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How exactly did From Software get away with releasing Dark Souls anyway?
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Mobius and pet octopus
Member
They are similar games, the way saints row was similar to gta3. Copyright only protects so far. You can make the same exact story as someone else and as long as you actually don't steal the story word for word, it's not copyright infringement.
LiquidSolid
Member
lol at insulting Shu for something that isn't even his job. He's the head of first party development, not publishing, so he had nothing to do with that decision. If you're going to blame anyone, blame SCEA and SCEE, they're the ones who fucked up (though at least Sony's willing to let other publishers localise their IPs if they don't pick it up themselves, which is more than I can say for Nintendo, Sega and a number of other Japanese publishers).
Their structure, story, and some features are different, but the basic gameplay loop and a lot of major mechanics are copied over exactly.
would you say the story and NPCS are more apparent than dark souls? Or are they really just the same thing
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
I fail to see the issue here if he didn't like it at first. People can change their opinions. I didn't even like Dark Souls first playing it and even questioned what the hell this is all about and why I'm putting myself through this obtuse bullshit and then it clicked, many hours later, and ended up putting in over 100 hours in my first playthrough of it. That ain't hypocrisy.
I think so, but it's basically Dark Souls 0 (or Dark Souls is Demon's Souls 2.) Different stages anda ll that, they aren't LITERALLY the same (except for Patches, he's always an asshole.)
Very true.
SmartWaffles
Member
There was a post couple weeks ago on how DkS was born, can't find the exact post but it basically was like this: Sony wants a Demon's Souls in the vein of another game (Castlevania? Can't remember) but From can't make it out so it become the DeS we know, Sony wasn't happy about it and deliberately buried it under marketing, From wasn't happy so found Atlus and Namco to publish it in US and EU, seeing its western success Namco strike a deal with From on Dark Souls.
It has its own cast of characters but a lot of them work in basically the same way. Meet them in the world, some have their own sub-plots, they may or may not come back to the hub area.
The story is distinct but shares some key ideas: World is falling apart, people gaining power from lost souls, etc.
Sanctuary
Member
These are pretty good examples. However, the games that are being compared to one another are mechanically more similar than dissimilar. There wasn't anything else like Demon's once it was released and with the release of Dark Souls, the "Souls" games basically became their own genre.
Booker Dewitt
Member
What of them?
nephilimdj
Member
From Software must have a agreement with Sony honestly, I mean even Soul Sacrirfice despite being another genre is a bit cheeky
CertifiedFP
Member
No, not that way. I'll need to dig up the wall of text I did on it again sometime, but it was Sony that commissioned FROM to make Demon's Souls, not FROM that approached Sony with it.
tl;dr since I don't want to dig up my Souls Corporate Politics History wall of text again nor write it again:
*Sony wanted a game that could be the PS3's answer to Oblivion when it was still a 360/PC exclusive.
*FROM was a freelance studio in need of work
*Sony offered them the contract to make a PS3 exclusive Oblivion clone
*FROM begins working on Demon's Souls as an Oblivion clone.
*Development stalls and DeSo enters a lite Dev Hell
*Oblivion gets announced for PS3 and released (And is to this day the ONLY Bethesda game on a Sony console to ever be a good port - And is outright superior to the 360 version in every way, running at equivalent to PC max settings with an unerring 30FPS)
*Miyazaki takes over DeSo's development and overhauls it to be its own distinct game with inspirations from King's Field, rather than an Oblivion clone
*Sony decides Demon's Souls has outlived its usefulness and sends it out to die in Japan, and scraps localization plans despite it originally being pitched to be an international release as well as already being localization-complete save for distribution.
*Atlus steps in and distributes the fully localized Demon's Souls in North America on FROM's behalf in spite of Sony.
*Namco offers FROM a far more lucrative deal soon afterwards, including this amazing thing called "European Distribution" Atlus hasn't discovered yet.
And the rest from that onward is common knowledge. This stuff is based off of some Miyazaki interview I should probably dig up again sometime, but all that is derived from his words. Apparently when he took over DeSo's development, it was a first-person open-world RPG with a tacked on multiplayer mode separate from the singleplayer - Of course though, whatever Engine FROM threw together was NOT the best tool in the shed for that job... (Which makes it baffling that allegedly DS2's dev team tried to do an open-ish world again when they started on DS2 until they eventually hit a wall, gave up, and duct-taped together random sections of the world into the unconnected mess that released.)
(Also, said attempt at cloning Oblivion is why the Souls series uses the same Red=Health, Green=Stam, Blue=Mag status-bar format as Elder Scrolls - When the majority of Japanese games in my experience represent Stamina as Yellow and Magic as Green.)
EDIT:
Alright, if anyone doesn't believe that development history I posted because I fucked up and fell for the PhyreEngine rumor, here is an excerpt of an interview with Miyazaki where he says pretty much the same things I had said.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=117133934&postcount=2
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-01-demons-souls-was-a-failure-before-miyazaki-stepped-up
(GAF > GAF?)
Dargor
Member
You don't even know how the version he played at first looked, played or even how stable it was.
Just take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6JXeX9sYYE
Maybe that was what he played at the time, performance wise.
Well I'm glad its not exclusive. It worked out everyone.
I've never been to that parallel universe, but I can imagine Demon's Souls 2 as a PS3 exclusive wouldn't have been as significant to the industry as Dark Souls on PS3/360/PC. No number in the title, 360 was huge last gen, and PC gave it new life. I know lots of people that played and beat Dark Souls without having ever even tried out Demon's Souls. Many of them didn't even have PS3s.
So while it is weird to think Sony could have had this megafranchise in their roster, I don't think we would have necessarily had Demon's Souls 4 in 2016.
funkystudent
Member
I remember Shu did a interview where he said Demons souls really didn't come together till the very end of dev so internally they didn't exactly have confidence in the title for a long time. Scea really didn't like the game pre japanese launch. The decision to not have sony bring it over might have already been made before it was even out in Asia as a result.
Oh man. I bet the focus groups for pre release demons souls where fun.
I can see, at the time why that game would have trouble getting support but what a huge mistake on sonys part to abandon it.
Worked out better for everyone in the end it guess thought. Everyone won!
Callibretto
Member
nah, I believe Shu, the very first time Demons Souls are playable to the public, pretty much everyone said it's shit, and Shu probably got to play an even earlier build than that. so I wouldn't be surprised if Demons Souls was crap at some point of the development.
Very interesting! LOTS there I didn't know about.
^ Yeah that sounded dubious
Is it true that Sony declined to fund a sequel to Demon's Souls? I know shu yoshida said Demon's Souls was absolute "crap" in an interview before.
Also, whoever said that thing about the Hyperdimension Neptunia engine is wrong. There is so much misinformation about these games...People still think Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 don't use the Dark Souls 2 engine.
According to the interview he played a almost final version of the game and gave up after two hours.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/10/shuhei-yoshida-interview.aspx?PostPageIndex=2
Also, whoever said that thing about the Hyperdimension Neptunia engine is wrong. There is so much misinformation about these games...People still think Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 don't use the Dark Souls 2 engine.
According to the interview he played a almost final version of the game and gave up after two hours.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/10/shuhei-yoshida-interview.aspx?PostPageIndex=2
The lore of Demon's Souls is very different and a Demon's Souls 2 would have had an other as Dark Souls got.
CertifiedFP
Member
Anyway, I don't think Sony really cared anyway about From taking Souls multiplat (Until they saw the LODSEMONE DS1 brought it), considering it was still coming to PS3.
Now, if Dark Souls had been even more similar and 360 Exclusive... Then we'd be cooking close to the fire.
Yeah OK really can't take what you say with any kind of authority if you thought that Bloodborne and DSIII actually used entirely different engines than the rest of the series. They all run on the same basic framework and it's not Neptunia's, as evidenced by the tweet from the lead R&D of that engine linked above.
SmartWaffles
Member
So blame Sony for framepacing issues afterall!
In reality though it is PhyreEngine, Sony's internal engine for smaller studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhyreEngine
CertifiedFP
Member
funkystudent
Member
Didn't dark and demons use PhyreEngine?
Sony didn't trademark any system like say Nintendo has the sanity meter registered. So as long as Dark Souls wasn't using the exact same assets there's nothing Sony could have done legally despite a few sfx and stuff like Patches being brought over as is.
And it's not like it matters because it wouldn't be in Sony's best interest to do so because it's not an enough of a bug franchise to cut From Software from he deal and develop the franchise with another studio, and it's especially true because of how fan based and word of mouth help give the title popularity in the first place, which would alienate a lot of fans in case a Sony lawyer went stupid.
Suing would've been a lose lose situation, instead of the win win situation they are now after throwing Demon's souls under the bus.
And it's not like it matters because it wouldn't be in Sony's best interest to do so because it's not an enough of a bug franchise to cut From Software from he deal and develop the franchise with another studio, and it's especially true because of how fan based and word of mouth help give the title popularity in the first place, which would alienate a lot of fans in case a Sony lawyer went stupid.
Suing would've been a lose lose situation, instead of the win win situation they are now after throwing Demon's souls under the bus.
From had been making samey RPGs since forever, with many mechanics and design ideas you find in Souls games. DeS was just an evolution of these, and its most distinct feature was the turn to third person. With that in mind From didn't copy Sony owned DeS to make DaS. They copied every other one of their own RPGs, including DeS.
Funny you guys mention Guitar Hero, because that itself was heavily inspired by Konami's Guitar Freaks. Heck, Konami even went after Rock Band because they didn't license certain patents like Guitar Hero had done. And in turn, Guitar Hero and Rock Band inspired Konami's own Rock Revolution. Music games are a strange well of copy cats.
fwiw Guitar Freaks still hasn't been topped
LiquidSolid
Member
In spite of Sony, owners of the IP and publishing rights? How exactly did they pull this feat off?
JayBabay
Member
Following that he said:
"Luckily third party publishers, Atlus in North America and Namco in Europe, [saw its potential] and it really became a great hit outside of Japan.
"We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making."
People don't always realize their mistakes at first and when he is admitting that it deserves forgiveness. Hind sight is always 20/20 and I think everyone has made mistakes, owning up to them later is what is respectable. He knows he is saying "this is crap" and chose to because of what follows that, his explanation towards his initial feelings.
CertifiedFP
Member
Alright, if anyone doesn't believe that development history I posted because I fucked up and fell for the PhyreEngine rumor, here is an excerpt of an interview(s) with Miyazaki where he says pretty much the same things I had said.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=117133934&postcount=2
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-01-demons-souls-was-a-failure-before-miyazaki-stepped-up
(GAF > GAF?)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=117133934&postcount=2
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-01-demons-souls-was-a-failure-before-miyazaki-stepped-up
(GAF > GAF?)
haha it's fine, I would have fallen for it too if the other guy hadn't pointed out that tweet.
The Miyazaki interviews are great, I've been meaning to read that Eurogamer thing about Demon's Souls troubled development.
To Far Away Times
Member
Generally speaking, it is very difficult to copyright gameplay systems.
Characters and branding sure. But slow paced, methodical, Medieval combat game that is very difficult is a bit harder to sue for.
Characters and branding sure. But slow paced, methodical, Medieval combat game that is very difficult is a bit harder to sue for.
Yeah, I believe the Oblivion thing, definitely. The PhyreEngine thing is just a rumor that got cemented in place because of Wikipedia lol. Still dupes people to this day.
Anyway, I agree with Miyazaki in that third person is much better for action-rpg mechanics than first person (imo of course). That's not to say that it can't be done well in first person, but you could say that open world is the quality of the Elder Scroll series, while combat is the quality of the Souls series. You need to be able to see your character to be able to have the most responsive control.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
Medal of honor>Call of Duty
deadscreensky
Member
Interesting. I'm assuming Sony didn't want to damage their relationship with From in the first place, but this also makes it sound like it would have nearly impossible to win even if they tried. Unless this is an anomaly it seems legal precedent is definitely in From's favor.
I tried to think of how that was relevant until I remembered that followed a very similar path. Doubt Bandai Namco is just going to run around making their own Souls games though, if they even own the copyright fully to have that authority without From going "sure we don't care."
It's so weird how you can sue for a couple of notes in music, but games you can't really do anything about it. I understand there is a lot under the hood for a game system. But sometimes I feel the copyright industry in music is kind of absurd, which is why it's a bit ironic.
CertifiedFP
Member
Pretty sure that even with Nintendo losing in court, that drama basically shamed Shouzo Kaga out of the Japanese games industry for the following 15 years until he decided to make a comeback as a Doujin developer.
IDK, I'd say that's actually quite loose. I mean, they both use the Quake 3 engine and are in WW2, but Call of Duty is thematically VERY different from Medal of Honor - Namely in that they came up with CoD because EA's vision for MOH was a Shark-Jumping GI-Joe America Fuck Yeah One Man Army Superhero game - Whereas Call of Duty emphasizes (Or rather, as of Modern Warfare 2 and onward becoming the precise thing Infinity Ward was fleeing from in the first place, EMPHASIZED) the player character being just another expendable cog in the war machine.
I'm pretty sure it was released internationally by Sony in Asia, which is why the localization existed. A lot of people imported that version before Atlus localized the game.
They probably didn't think the game would sell in the US and Europe as it goes against the grain in a lot of it's design. Honestly, while in retrospect it was obviously a mistake I can't really fault them considering the way the rest of the market was at that time.
It's one of those things that defies expectations and is an active disruptor really. Little interest in modern trends beyond how it can use them in a novel way (MP) and even being outright old fashioned. It's like a smaller scale version of what happened with Minecraft I suppose, which probably would have been laughed out by most companies itself if it weren't an indie smash success first.
He did Berwick Saga in 2005 which bombed and his studio stopped making games after that. What are you basing this "shamed out of the industry for 15 years" theory off of? It doesn't even make any sense as he still made another game after the lawsuit.
CertifiedFP
Member
Ok, so 11 years then.
But you basically reiterated it. He made A game after Tear Ring, and then completely vanished from the industry for 11 years until a few months ago when he announced Vestaria Saga.
I would not call retiring from the industry after releasing a bomba to be leaving on good terms in the slightest. Something-something honor and shame.
...n...no...
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