Hello, I have become increasingly interested in programming another game and was wondering what my options are for using the sound/artwork from the fallout tactics game?

1. I have seen independent games such as FOOL use the Fallout 2 tile graphics directly. Is this legal?

2. If it is not legal for me to include the artwork in my game, would it be legal if the game engine required the user to supply the data files from their own copy of fallout tactics to extract it from?

3. If either option is legal, would I be allowed to charge for the engine or allow donations for server costs?

Thanks for any time spent answering these questions. Best of luck gamesas on your lawsuit and with V13!

Alas, we cannot give you permission since it is not our artwork. You would need to talk to Bethesda and their legal team.

Good luck with your project!

pax,
_Chris

The basic thing with using a game's resources is that you absolutely cannot charge money for it in any way. Mods, rebuilds, whatever....if you make something you want to share, it has to be shared for free in an unrestricted way or the lawyers will get you good. Duck and Cover: The site for all your Fallout needs since 1998

I'd check with a lawyer, just to be safe.

Bethesda has failed to reply to me regarding this. : (
Even if absolutely no money is involved and I do not distribute the artwork, could I get in trouble writing tools that would convert and pack the ZAR images into DDS format for use in my engine? As in, freely distribute my engine but the user is required to supply their fallout tactics cd to the program to extract it?

If you have the time, please explain the current situation with bethesda. I thought you maintained the rights to fallout 1, 2 and fallout tactics when you sold the franchise to bethesda.

If what i plan to do proves to be harmless, would it be okay if I occasionally ask some questions regarding some of the formats used in fallout tactics? Im not sure exactly how involved you were in that area but any information would be helpful. (directed to chris "the fallout rockstar")

thx

I can't give you an answer. I don't know and don't want to mislead you. I'd check with a lawyer.



As I understand it, we have the rights to sell the old games. They are not our games/assets/source code to give away or to license to another party.



You could ask, but I wouldn't be able to give you an answer. I'm a designer, Jim, not a programmer. ^_^

Well they finally replied...

We are in receipt of your request to utilize sound/artwork assets from "Fallout Tactics", part of the Fallout(r) videogame franchise.

Please be advised that your request covers copyrighted and proprietary intellectual property owned by Bethesda Softworks. Any use of the "Fallout Tactics" assets in the manner you have requested would require a written license agreement. While we appreciate your inquiry, we do not grant you a license or permission to use such assets.

Thank you for your interest in Fallout.

Sincerely,

Legal Department
ZeniMax Media Inc.

Despite this reply, I'm still not sold on the legality of not including any artwork in the project and offering it for free. In this case, its not really any differant from a mod or many projects I see that use other game assets. I assumed I wouldn't get the truth out of Bethesda anyways.

Please don't confuse the fair use policy of copyrighted material to assume that you can publish something at no cost to the end user and not be in violation of copyright law.

You may make something for your own use or play but you don't have any legal grounds to publish some else's work.

And now that you have come under notice of the legal owners of the copyright material and they seem to have many to burn/use, I would be very careful of ever letting any of your home brew stuff showing up, even causually mentioning it on the web.

Ianol, but have dealt with these kinds of issues professionally.

Dave Chase

Good post, Dave.

This is not the appropriate place to discuss the legality of using art assets from commercial games, so I'm going to lock this thread.