These companies don’t give a shit about your passion. They will shut you down or sue you. Put that effort into making your own original game and reap the benefits of your passion.
It’s the same reason people make fan art or fan fiction. it’s a way to develop technical skill without starting from scratch with creative skills you may have no interest in.
It’s totally understandable why people do this, but my advice would be stick to small mods.
As soon as an add on is large enough to be a DLC, or even its own game, big companies are 100% coming after it. Especially if it is a popular game and it gets in all the gaming press like this.
Must be an awkward relationship, though. I don‘t know if I would want that because if I‘m that talented, I wouldn‘t need a job offer from the people that antagonized me.
Or make them quietly and release them basically complete, or release them anonymously (and actually anonymously, not via a pseudonym on a website like github where you can be easily tracked down)
But at that point I probably wouldn’t bother either
Trouble is, in addition to it likely still being taken down, or you being sued still, that also means you can’t ask online for assistance in building it.
These things are rarely one person working on it. They get the word out to find more modders who want to help.
Releasing something anonymously is not going to prevent a company from getting the content removed from the web server. Hosting companies have to act according to local laws, and if a company can abuse this (like DMCA) then releasing stuff anonymously is not going to change anything
Sure but the project gets completed and released onto the internet. If it’s not of note then it probably won’t get noticed and deleted. If it is then it will probably get covered by publications like this, downloaded a ton, and archived before removal.
Like that links awakening windows port that one dude released. Just showed up and dropped it anonymously, feature complete with widescreen, 120fps, crazy map view upgrades, and dipped. Nintendo nuked it within the day but you can easily still find it for download
Use the torrent (but use a vpn as Nintendo is pretty notorious for sending love notes to your isp)
Edit also fwiw just tried the zip, on mobile atm but def works? Download completed, extracted, files are correct. Can’t run it bc I’m on mobile but it’s correct
Some people who make these do it just for fun and to learn game development. Getting shut down is actually a badge of honor, means the company thought it was good enough to be a threat.
Stop making “fan projects” 👏
These companies don’t give a shit about your passion. They will shut you down or sue you. Put that effort into making your own original game and reap the benefits of your passion.
It’s the same reason people make fan art or fan fiction. it’s a way to develop technical skill without starting from scratch with creative skills you may have no interest in.
It’s totally understandable why people do this, but my advice would be stick to small mods.
As soon as an add on is large enough to be a DLC, or even its own game, big companies are 100% coming after it. Especially if it is a popular game and it gets in all the gaming press like this.
I’d say that’s better for your resume though.
Games workshop hired the Astartes fan video dude after trying to take his work down after all.
Must be an awkward relationship, though. I don‘t know if I would want that because if I‘m that talented, I wouldn‘t need a job offer from the people that antagonized me.
Keep making fan projects, just ignore the law and distribute it anonymously.
Copyright and patent laws need to die. Future generations are laughing at us for how stupid we are in keeping them around.
Or make them quietly and release them basically complete, or release them anonymously (and actually anonymously, not via a pseudonym on a website like github where you can be easily tracked down)
But at that point I probably wouldn’t bother either
Trouble is, in addition to it likely still being taken down, or you being sued still, that also means you can’t ask online for assistance in building it.
These things are rarely one person working on it. They get the word out to find more modders who want to help.
Releasing something anonymously is not going to prevent a company from getting the content removed from the web server. Hosting companies have to act according to local laws, and if a company can abuse this (like DMCA) then releasing stuff anonymously is not going to change anything
Sure but the project gets completed and released onto the internet. If it’s not of note then it probably won’t get noticed and deleted. If it is then it will probably get covered by publications like this, downloaded a ton, and archived before removal.
Like that links awakening windows port that one dude released. Just showed up and dropped it anonymously, feature complete with widescreen, 120fps, crazy map view upgrades, and dipped. Nintendo nuked it within the day but you can easily still find it for download
Like I just googled it and within 30 seconds found https://archive.org/details/links-awakening-dx-hd
You didn’t try to download it did it, did you?

Use the torrent (but use a vpn as Nintendo is pretty notorious for sending love notes to your isp)
Edit also fwiw just tried the zip, on mobile atm but def works? Download completed, extracted, files are correct. Can’t run it bc I’m on mobile but it’s correct
Some people who make these do it just for fun and to learn game development. Getting shut down is actually a badge of honor, means the company thought it was good enough to be a threat.