Thread: Mechwarrior 5 in legal trouble -- NOOO...

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http://kotaku.com/5352295/mechwarrio...-legal-trouble

[img width=700 height=348]http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/07/mechwarrior.jpg[/img]

The future of Mechwarrior 5 is a little up in the air today, with Harmony Gold - the media company that holds the rights to the Robotech universe in the US - commencing legal action against the upcoming mech title.

Legal threats are being sent out to gaming websites as you read this, Harmony Gold demanding that they pull down the trailer for Mechwarrior 5. Why? It's a long story.

See, Mechwarrior (and its daddy, BattleTech) haven't always used original designs for their mech. They sometimes straight up stole them from existing series, particularly Japan's Macross, which in the US forms the first part of the Robotech trilogy.

So BattleTech and Harmony Gold - who hold the Robotech rights in the West - went to court in 1996. End result? BattleTech (and by extension Mechwarrior) ceased using mech designs lifted from Macross, and instead employed only mechs they had themselves designed.

Harmony Gold's complaint in this instance is that the Mechwarrior 5 trailer uses designs that they own the trademark to. Now, they may have a point - the red mech in the image above looks a little like the Tomahawk Destroid from Macross (pictured below). But only a little. Surely not enough to warrant legal action.

[img width=700 height=796]http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/09/tomahawk.jpg[/img]

Anyway, at the moment, the only legal threats we know about are those made to IGN. There's no comment yet from Piranha Games, the team working on Mechwarrior 5, or from Harmony Gold, explaining just what their beef is, and whether they'd be happy with edits to the game or are out for blood.

We'll update when we hear more.

On another note, I doubt it holds up.

And that "red mech" up there was in all the other fucking games, why bitch about it now? Oh wait...follow the money, Corpse, that will always give you the answer.

Same here, but why are gaming websites being targeted? You'd think it would be the developers...

The original Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix-Hawk, Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder, and Archer (and maybe more) were all stolen, straight up, from Robotech. Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix-hawk were all jacked from the VT-1 and they even had transforming versions of them that mimiced all three modes from Robotech (Aeromechs anyone?) Archer is a Spartan destroid, Marauder is a Zentrati Officer Battle Pod, Warhammer is a Tomahawk, and Rifleman is a Defender. I think the Crusader looks like a VT-1 with the extra armor set. I also think that the Shadow Hawk looks a lot like the Salamander too.
FASA is the one to blame here. It still boggles my mind to think that FASA thought Harmony Gold would just let them steal their stuff.
I knew they stole it from the first time I saw the original boxed set of Battletech.

Originally Posted by Gumby

The original Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix-Hawk, Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder, and Archer (and maybe more) were all stolen, straight up, from Robotech. Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix-hawk were all jacked from the VT-1 and they even had transforming versions of them that mimiced all three modes from Robotech (Aeromechs anyone?) Archer is a Spartan destroid, Marauder is a Zentrati Officer Battle Pod, Warhammer is a Tomahawk, and Rifleman is a Defender. I think the Crusader looks like a VT-1 with the extra armor set. I also think that the Shadow Hawk looks a lot like the Salamander too.
FASA is the one to blame here. It still boggles my mind to think that FASA thought Harmony Gold would just let them steal their stuff.
I knew they stole it from the first time I saw the original boxed set of Battletech.

Yup when they got in trouble the first time with the old Battletech game those mechs Gumby listed were called the 'unseen' because they could give the stats of them, but could not use the images.

There are some other mechs from other companies as well.

It will only halt production on those mechs, there are hundreds of other mechs that are pure Battletech/Mechwarrior.

I dont know why they cannot still use those mechs and just either pay Harmony Gold a licensing fee for the image rights or create new images for them.
Is an Archer less of an Archer if it has a different image?
It still has two LRM-20s 2 medium lasers that point forward and two that point backwards. Who cares what it looks like?
Funny thing though, as a huge fan of Robotech, the first thing that drew me in for Battletech was the box set featuring a great image of a Tomahawk (we called them Excaliburs at the time due to a bad translation in the original Robotech RPG manuals) that FASA was calling a Warhammer.

Originally Posted by Gumby

I dont know why they cannot still use those mechs and just either pay Harmony Gold a licensing fee for the image rights or create new images for them.
Is an Archer less of an Archer if it has a different image?
It still has two LRM-20s 2 medium lasers that point forward and two that point backwards. Who cares what it looks like?
Funny thing though, as a huge fan of Robotech, the first thing that drew me in for Battletech was the box set featuring a great image of a Tomahawk (we called them Excaliburs at the time due to a bad translation in the original Robotech RPG manuals) that FASA was calling a Warhammer.

Well they could easily just not put them in and not pay anything with the amount of mechs they have that aren't 'stolen'.

I think they want them for the exact reason you got into Mechwarrior, but we will see what happens. I think Harmony Gold overreacts a bit about it too, since there are many folks (like me) who have never really seen these mechs anywhere but through FASA and probably wouldn't had we not played mechwarrior.

Money rules the roost though, so we will see.

Originally Posted by Blakeman

Well they could easily just not put them in and not pay anything with the amount of mechs they have that aren't 'stolen'.

I think they want them for the exact reason you got into Mechwarrior, but we will see what happens. I think Harmony Gold overreacts a bit about it too, since there are many folks (like me) who have never really seen these mechs anywhere but through FASA and probably wouldn't had we not played mechwarrior.

Money rules the roost though, so we will see.

I love Battletech (Played it since the original boxed set when they changed the name from BattleDroids) but it was not my first Mecha game.
That would be the Robotech RPG game and there is no doubt that they stole the images. This was an issue long before the first Mechwarrior game came out. BattleTech fanboys love to gripe about Harmony Gold's "meanness" and what you call an overreaction. But everyone needs to face it. FASA was in the wrong and it should not have taken legal action. FASA should have hired an artist and drawn ALL their own stuff. But they did not. Then they tried to make HG look like the bad guys. For what? Protecting what was obviously theirs? FASA was the bad guy here. And it was not just Harmony Gold they ripped off. HG was just the only ones with the resources to defend their intellectual property. I swear every time I watch a classic mecha anime series for the first time, I see something I thought FASA had come up with on their own. The 3025 and 3026 Technical Readouts are full of theft.

Originally Posted by Gumby

Originally Posted by Blakeman

Well they could easily just not put them in and not pay anything with the amount of mechs they have that aren't 'stolen'.

I think they want them for the exact reason you got into Mechwarrior, but we will see what happens. I think Harmony Gold overreacts a bit about it too, since there are many folks (like me) who have never really seen these mechs anywhere but through FASA and probably wouldn't had we not played mechwarrior.

Money rules the roost though, so we will see.

I love Battletech (Played it since the original boxed set when they changed the name from BattleDroids) but it was not my first Mecha game.
That would be the Robotech RPG game and there is no doubt that they stole the images. This was an issue long before the first Mechwarrior game came out. BattleTech fanboys love to gripe about Harmony Gold's "meanness" and what you call an overreaction. But everyone needs to face it. FASA was in the wrong and it should not have taken legal action. FASA should have hired an artist and drawn ALL their own stuff. But they did not. Then they tried to make HG look like the bad guys. For what? Protecting what was obviously theirs? FASA was the bad guy here. And it was not just Harmony Gold they ripped off. HG was just the only ones with the resources to defend their intellectual property. I swear every time I watch a classic mecha anime series for the first time, I see something I thought FASA had come up with on their own. The 3025 and 3026 Technical Readouts are full of theft.

Meh, the Japanese mecha cartoons and games all rip each other off as well, so that is nothing new.