MODS - James Bond Skin & Why does Hitman not have workshop?

[GameDevDave]

This really is one of those games that would become extremely popular under the modders and should thus become mod-friendly.

I would love to walk around as James Bond, Pierce Brosnan or Connery. Hitman is THE game to pull off such mods.

Wouldn't you as Solid Snake or Sam Fisher?

[Kunovega]

Because technically what you are requesting is copyright infringement (illegal)

[Am-I-Insane?]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Because technically what you are requesting is copyright infringement (illegal)

Its not copyright infrigement if mod is non-profit. Even if it were the companies dont sue modders, its bad rep

[McShave07]

I can 100% garentee, if a James Bond mod was uploaded via a workshop for Hitman 2, Ion Productions would sue someone if they found out about it. Nobody protects an IP as much as they do.

[Duckilous]

So we're gonna just forget the fact that Gmod and L4D2 workshops are full of mods that is from other copyrighted IPs?

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Hans ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Because technically what you are requesting is copyright infringement (illegal)

Its not copyright infrigement if mod is non-profit. Even if it were the companies dont sue modders, its bad rep

I don't think you know how copyright infringement works, it doesn't matter if it's non-profit or not, it's that you do not have the legal right to redistribute copyright content that you do not own regardless of whether you make a profit on it or not

Also part of the risk is not just you as the mod creator, ioi could be sued by the copyright holder because it's them allowing the illegal content to be distributed for their benefit and they are making a profit and that profit is what they can be sued for

Then it's up to a judge to decide how much of their profit is due to people specifically wanting that mod in the game

It's a legal mess

And don't give me that "but modders never get sued" nonsense, some have been sued, and worse some of the companies that allow those mods to be distributed get sued

https://virtualcrimlaw.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/modding-for-fun-and-for-profit/

The WB sued a Skyrim mod team for using Lord of the Rings themes in a free mod, and that's just one example of many

You really should learn the law before you try to flaunt your lack of knowledge about it

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Duckilous:

So we're gonna just forget the fact that Gmod and L4D2 workshops are full of mods that is from other copyrighted IPs?

Just because some people get away with it does not mean it's legal, some companies do not enforce their copyrights, others do

Your comment is like suggesting that speeding and driving reckless are legal simply because you personally haven't gotten a ticket for it yet, sure, you got lucky, but don't come here and whine when a cop finally catches you and starts fining you for traffic violations

If ioi intentionally allowed known copyright violated material into their game and helped distribute it, it opens them up to legal risks

Some companies don't care about those risks, others do. Hitman would gain very little by allowing those copyright violations but open themselves to a lot of legal risk as they would be high profile and obvious

Much like the group that was sued for adding Lord of the Rings content to Skyrim, they went too big and the copyright owners noticed

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by McShave07:

I can 100% garentee, if a James Bond mod was uploaded via a workshop for Hitman 2, Ion Productions would sue someone if they found out about it. Nobody protects an IP as much as they do.

And that's because they are legally required to do so if they want to keep their copyright

A company that does not actively protect their copyright works is actually at risk of losing the copyright. If enough copyright violations exist in the world to the point where everyone is being allowed to use it, the content actually eventually becomes public domain

Copyrights and trademarks must be enforced or they are considered abandoned after a number of years without being enforced

It would be like Disney letting anyone put Micky Mouse into their game, if they never enforced the copyright, after a certain number of years Micky Mouse becomes public domain and they aren't allowed to stop anyone from using it for anything, even for profit

But, by enforcing it they've managed to keep Micky Mouse copyright protected for decades, going on nearly a century

[waynechriss]

Because you're asking a developer to turn its proprietary tools into something usable for consumers and its not just that easy? Lets not get into whataboutisms regarding Valve and Source SDK and how you think any developer is capable of achieving the same results. But in short, Valve has long been a proponent of user generated content which is why they've designed their games and develoopment tools hand in hand, hell that's why they curated steam workshop in their own game service client.

Sure modding tools would be 'nice' but aside from the concern of copyright infringement, there are a lot of technical hurdles you are not taking into consideration and also perhaps its just a matter of principle that they won't want their proprietary tools in the hands of anyone.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by waynechriss:

Because you're asking a developer to turn its proprietary tools into something usable for consumers and its not just that easy? Lets not get into whataboutisms regarding Valve and Source SDK and how you think any developer is capable of achieving the same results. But in short, Valve has long been a proponent of user generated content which is why they've designed their games and develoopment tools hand in hand, hell that's why they curated steam workshop in their own game service client.

Sure modding tools would be 'nice' but aside from the concern of copyright infringement, there are a lot of technical hurdles you are not taking into consideration and also perhaps its just a matter of principle that they won't want their proprietary tools in the hands of anyone.

Indeed, Hitman is built with a proprietary engine (Glacier) it's an engine ioi has been developing for 20 years now since the first Hitman, literally every game they've produced has been on a new updated version of this engine

No other company has ever actually used it, nor have they ever made their development tools public

For whatever reason they've never used any of the "public available" or name brand engines like Unreal, Unity, Source, etc that have public available mod kits made from the start as part of the engines

They'd actually have to develop the mod tools to be user friendly and these have been in-house development tools private to them for two decades