Recent Steam-released game includes stolen 90s FPS assets

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Recent Steam-released game includes stolen 90s FPS assets "Duke 3D, Blood, TekWar, Doom, you name it!"

Marphy Black

#1 Posted 23 November 2016 - 09:34 PM

As initially pointed out on the ZDoom forums, there's some drama brewing regarding a recent game release on Steam that has some relevance here. To summarize the matter with a single image, recognize that button on the left? And that's just scratching the surface.

The game is called Space Truckers, and it was released on Steam today:
http://store.steampo....com/app/533320

Check the trailer and the screenshots. From the released media, there are clear elements from Duke 3D, Blood, Rise of the Triad, obviously all of the characters from TekWar, and quite a bit of fan Doom content. Recognize anything else?

Although it seems some of the assets were later edited, it's very blatant in this alpha trailer video:

Quite shameless! There's not much we can do by ourselves other than using the report button on the game's store page, but I imagine Gearbox, Atari, 3D Realms, Bethesda, and so forth's lawyers probably wouldn't appreciate this matter if they became alerted to it.

Additional (incorrectly titled) gameplay video, game begins at 1:05:

Sound effects lifted from Half-Life, so add Valve themselves to the list.

This post has been edited by Marphy Black: 23 November 2016 - 10:06 PM

HulkNukem

#2 Posted 23 November 2016 - 09:59 PM

Some of those edited sprites were also found in other mods; I recognize them from various times browsing custom sprite threads.
This is a shame, I rather liked Sickbrick for how weird it was :/
I hope Jim Sterling gets his hands on it
*edit* There are also sound effects for the original Half-Life, as well as some assets from Freedoom (however, this is technically the only one that is legal, just not ethical)

This post has been edited by HulkNukem: 23 November 2016 - 10:30 PM

Daedolon

Ancient Blood God

#3 Posted 23 November 2016 - 10:05 PM

I don't think it needs any more attention. Everyone who knows about it should just report it and forget about it.

HulkNukem

#4 Posted 23 November 2016 - 10:07 PM

Daedolon, on 23 November 2016 - 10:05 PM, said:

I don't think it needs any more attention. Everyone who knows about it should just report it and forget about it.

Its better to bring more attention to blatant plagiarism so the developers don't try to pull this shit again. Quietly killing them in the night means they could come back again; bring lots of attention to them means they will likely think twice, and if not, it means less people will fall for it.

Lunick

#5 Posted 23 November 2016 - 10:09 PM

It's not the first game to steal from Duke 3D. A few years ago a game named 3079 had stolen textures and they didn't remove it until I pointed it out (and was buried by its fans trying to hide the fact)

oasiz

Dr. Effector

#6 Posted 23 November 2016 - 10:14 PM

I love it when people resort for the shitty digitized NPCs from TekWar when they need some police/random pedestrians.

Game itself?
Some nice stuff but again it's yet another 32x32 stretched texture "retro-fantasy" game, tries to be everything at the same time.
Even Wolf3D had more resolution in it's textures.

16bit console era texture resolution in a game that mimics early 90s FPS design but has late 90s lighting tech and look, walls plastered with posters lifted from 2000s internet and in a 2010s engine.

Micky C

Honored Donor

#7 Posted 23 November 2016 - 10:44 PM

I hate it when games and TCs steal assets from other games. I hope that never happens on a project I'm involved with.

Lunick

#8 Posted 23 November 2016 - 11:30 PM

As I suspected, they are deleting any threads posting about the stolen content

Daedolon

Ancient Blood God

#9 Posted 23 November 2016 - 11:40 PM

Russians...

Or am I allowed to say it?

MetHy

#10 Posted 24 November 2016 - 12:26 AM

I think the worst offender is how terrible this mess looks. LOL at the switches from Fate.

I wouldn't be surprised if the guy took all this stuff out of a Russian textures/sprites rip site and has no idea which game the textures are from.
I mean, once I talked with the guy who did Brutal Doom and he didn't know the motorbike he was using was from Redneck Rampage: Rides Again...

Micky C, on 23 November 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

I hate it when games and TCs steal assets from other games. I hope that never happens on a project I'm involved with.

Not sure if ironic.

Shawneth

#11 Posted 24 November 2016 - 12:55 AM

Micky C, on 23 November 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

I hate it when games and TCs steal assets from other games. I hope that never happens on a project I'm involved with.

The AMC TC is well known for using 100% original textures drawn by James and you. God bless your hearts :mellow:

Marphy Black

#12 Posted 24 November 2016 - 01:05 AM

Daedolon, on 23 November 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

Russians...

The developers are Canadian, if that's what you're getting at, and at least the lead coder is well aware of Duke 3D and other classic FPS titles of the era judging by his fan trailers. Wait a minute, that's the DNF mod! Is there a double agent among us?

Anyway, some extensive research into the subject (aka the first Google search result) suggests these same developers were once Second Life moguls. And yet, they're now taking graphics from William Shatner's TekWar. There's a lesson to be learned here, I'm sure.

HulkNukem

#13 Posted 24 November 2016 - 08:40 AM

I also really just don't understand why people think they can get away with shit like this either.
I can see a team member using an asset from another game as a placeholder and forgetting to get rid of it, but this is pretty blatant they intentionally just took assets for their own gain.

Doom64hunter

#14 Posted 24 November 2016 - 10:56 AM

Micky C, on 23 November 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

I hate it when games and TCs steal assets from other games. I hope that never happens on a project I'm involved with.

Unless you guys have any plans of selling the AMC TC for 20 bucks on Steam I'd say there's a pretty big difference between them :mellow:

Edit:

Daedolon, on 23 November 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

Russians...

Or am I allowed to say it?

I don't blame you for coming to that conclusion, seeing how the majority of the reviews are key activations and written in Russian (which is highly peculiar seeing as to how the game itself is in English), and how you appear to be playing as a Russian in the game itself.

This post has been edited by Doom64hunter: 24 November 2016 - 11:23 AM

TerminX

el fundador

#15 Posted 24 November 2016 - 12:21 PM

This has been directly reported to our contact at Valve, so I don't expect it to stay up for all that much longer.

Richard Shead

"Dick Nasty"

#16 Posted 24 November 2016 - 12:24 PM

Daedolon, on 23 November 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

Russians...

Or am I allowed to say it?

-1

MusicallyInspired

The Sarien Encounter

#17 Posted 24 November 2016 - 07:23 PM

Aw man, Canadians? These morons give us a bad name....

Lunick

#18 Posted 25 November 2016 - 01:29 AM

http://forum.zdoom.o...tart=45#p957446 Holy shit, they used sprites from LameDuke and the DNF 2013 mod

Marphy Black

#19 Posted 25 November 2016 - 02:05 AM

I've been digging deeper into this mystery (aka I watched the other videos on the guy's channel), and I noticed the music in this trailer for their previous game Incognito sounded familiar:

In a truly bizarre source to lift stuff from, this is the opening theme of the Sin The Movie anime movie thing:

Oh my god, they've been playing us like a fiddle for years!

MetHy

#20 Posted 25 November 2016 - 02:49 AM

TerminX, on 24 November 2016 - 12:21 PM, said:

This has been directly reported to our contact at Valve, so I don't expect it to stay up for all that much longer.

Wouldn't it be more effective to tell Randy Pitchford's lawyers ? ...
This is using stuff from DN3D, and I'm assure Steam would be more inclined to listen if the complain came directly from a copyright owner.

This post has been edited by MetHy: 25 November 2016 - 02:53 AM

Lunick

#21 Posted 25 November 2016 - 02:52 AM

MetHy, on 25 November 2016 - 02:49 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be more effective to tell Randy Pitchford's lawyers ? ...

Valve would pull it down quicker, the lawyers would only be contacting Valve too.

MetHy

#22 Posted 25 November 2016 - 03:02 AM

What I mean is I'm not sure Steam would care until you get an official complain from one of the copyright owner.

What I mean is, for all THEY know, no matter how many people file a report, these people don't own the proof that Space Trucker is using copyrighted assets from other games.
Only the rightful copyright owners do.

Shit, even if you show them one by one that all these assets are from DN3D by doing a lengthy file comparison, I don't think they'd care unless it came from the people from own DN3D.
On top of that, they may think that as long as the different copyright owners don't care, it's not a problem. They may even think "we don't know if they bought the rights to use these assets".

Etc etc, There is plenty of angles to this and I don't believe anything other than a complain from a copyright proving something's wrong would do anything.

Everyone reporting is still good because it brings their attention to it though. But it doesn't have much power. The contact at Valve could answer to TerminX "you don't know if they paid for the right to use those assets".

This post has been edited by MetHy: 25 November 2016 - 03:05 AM

Micky C

Honored Donor

#23 Posted 25 November 2016 - 03:11 AM

I think that there's simply so many assets taken from such a huge list of games that it's pretty irrefutable. Even if Valve does turn a blind eye to a little bit of this, this game crosses the line, runs around the planet, then crosses the line again.

They'd be setting a pretty terrible precedent for the future if they allowed a game this guilty to stay on the market despite the large number of reportings.

This post has been edited by Micky C: 25 November 2016 - 03:12 AM

MetHy

#24 Posted 25 November 2016 - 03:13 AM

Yes, but they won't take it from granted unless they have irrefutable proof there is a legal issue. There is so much stuff in the store page's screenshots and videos alone that on the basis of "we think" the game shouldn't even have been allowed on the store to begin with, but it is.

Also who knows how many people report games on Steam under false excuses.

This post has been edited by MetHy: 25 November 2016 - 03:14 AM