- Joined
- May 4, 2015
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 38
- First Language
- Portuguese
- Primarily Uses
- Other
Good morning/afternoon/evening for all of you, wherever you are now, lads and lassies.
Before shooting my book sized questions, let me say that I have researched about these subjects as much as I could, because I didn't want to bother anyone...
...However I couldn't find the answers for my questions. I apologize if I'm asking something that others have asked a hundred other times.
My friends and I are veterans of the RPG Maker, we use the engines ever since we were teenagers, however now we are taking this more seriously and we wish to sell a commercial game. Now, the game isn't complete yet, however every member of the team (me included) has a legal copy of the engine we are using for this game, as a steam software. My questions are:
1 - I cannot find the serial code of our copies through steam (where we've acquired our copies), so I assume that I must enter in contact with Enterbrain/Degica to get my license. Or to complete my registration, is this correct?
2 - If my assumptions above are correct, what's the "name of the copy owner" I must give for the registration, in regards of the copy that I use? My name? Or I should register it to the "company" name? Please note that the "company" is just "the group name", its a informal, unregistered business. Can I still sell/publish the game under the company's logo, if I register it to my own name?
3 - Still in regards of question 2, I use my copy through the steam account of our group, that I administer. Nobody else of the group uses the group's account. The RPG makers and every other product in that account is only used by me. Correct me if I'm wrong ('cause this will sound really stupid), but I'm not infringing the program's terms of use, am I? Should I acquire another RPG Maker copy for myself in my personal steam account or I'm just being overly paranoid and crazy?
4 - Like I said, every other member of the group (minus the composer, that uses famitracker, and has no need for direct contact with the engine), has a legal copy, through steam. Do they need to complete the registration in their names as well, if the steps in question 1 and 2 are really necessary? Or only the publisher of the game needs to complete the registration? Jesus, this is confusing.
5 - What about copyright? We make our own assets (music, sfx, graphics, charsets), everything minus scripts and fonts. We'll ask for permissions, heck, I'll even pay the external resources owners' licenses fees, so other than that and the engine, the whole thing is ours. Still, how do we register our product's copyright? Is it something automatic or we must contact a lawyer or something to assure that nobody will steal the franchise's setting and assets? How much something like this would cost? How long it would take?
6 - What about Dead Trademarks? Heck, I'm not sure everyone here remembers Namco's "Monster Party" game for the nes, but I unfortunately happen to have a visual novel that carries this title. It shall be a commercial game... But I'm seriously afraid of being sued by the company for reusing this name without their consent (even if it's a Dead Trademark now). The bad thing is that I invented the name before finding out about Namco's game, and now I don't feel like letting it go. What should I do?
7 - Uh, same question above, but the problem is slightly different: It's about a name similarity with a child's book title: Evermore Dragon.
My other commercial RM game's name is "Evermore Dragoons". I've had this damn name in my head for a while now, and when I decided to Google it... Bang, there's this kid's book with similar, if not same, title. I don't know what I should do either, I seriously don't want to disrespect the lady who wrote the book. But I didn't find anything just as catchy and perfect for the game's story.
I think this is it, I apologize for bothering so much, But asking now will do less harm than it would do if I didn't ask anyone.
PS.: Before thinking that I'm really crazy to work on 3 commercial games (The team's game, "Monster Party", "Evermore Dragoons"), I'm not working on them at the same time. The last two will only come out if the team's first game is successful enough lol.
Thank you lads and lassies, have a nice day! ^-^
Before shooting my book sized questions, let me say that I have researched about these subjects as much as I could, because I didn't want to bother anyone...
...However I couldn't find the answers for my questions. I apologize if I'm asking something that others have asked a hundred other times.
My friends and I are veterans of the RPG Maker, we use the engines ever since we were teenagers, however now we are taking this more seriously and we wish to sell a commercial game. Now, the game isn't complete yet, however every member of the team (me included) has a legal copy of the engine we are using for this game, as a steam software. My questions are:
1 - I cannot find the serial code of our copies through steam (where we've acquired our copies), so I assume that I must enter in contact with Enterbrain/Degica to get my license. Or to complete my registration, is this correct?
2 - If my assumptions above are correct, what's the "name of the copy owner" I must give for the registration, in regards of the copy that I use? My name? Or I should register it to the "company" name? Please note that the "company" is just "the group name", its a informal, unregistered business. Can I still sell/publish the game under the company's logo, if I register it to my own name?
3 - Still in regards of question 2, I use my copy through the steam account of our group, that I administer. Nobody else of the group uses the group's account. The RPG makers and every other product in that account is only used by me. Correct me if I'm wrong ('cause this will sound really stupid), but I'm not infringing the program's terms of use, am I? Should I acquire another RPG Maker copy for myself in my personal steam account or I'm just being overly paranoid and crazy?
4 - Like I said, every other member of the group (minus the composer, that uses famitracker, and has no need for direct contact with the engine), has a legal copy, through steam. Do they need to complete the registration in their names as well, if the steps in question 1 and 2 are really necessary? Or only the publisher of the game needs to complete the registration? Jesus, this is confusing.
5 - What about copyright? We make our own assets (music, sfx, graphics, charsets), everything minus scripts and fonts. We'll ask for permissions, heck, I'll even pay the external resources owners' licenses fees, so other than that and the engine, the whole thing is ours. Still, how do we register our product's copyright? Is it something automatic or we must contact a lawyer or something to assure that nobody will steal the franchise's setting and assets? How much something like this would cost? How long it would take?
6 - What about Dead Trademarks? Heck, I'm not sure everyone here remembers Namco's "Monster Party" game for the nes, but I unfortunately happen to have a visual novel that carries this title. It shall be a commercial game... But I'm seriously afraid of being sued by the company for reusing this name without their consent (even if it's a Dead Trademark now). The bad thing is that I invented the name before finding out about Namco's game, and now I don't feel like letting it go. What should I do?
7 - Uh, same question above, but the problem is slightly different: It's about a name similarity with a child's book title: Evermore Dragon.
My other commercial RM game's name is "Evermore Dragoons". I've had this damn name in my head for a while now, and when I decided to Google it... Bang, there's this kid's book with similar, if not same, title. I don't know what I should do either, I seriously don't want to disrespect the lady who wrote the book. But I didn't find anything just as catchy and perfect for the game's story.
I think this is it, I apologize for bothering so much, But asking now will do less harm than it would do if I didn't ask anyone.
PS.: Before thinking that I'm really crazy to work on 3 commercial games (The team's game, "Monster Party", "Evermore Dragoons"), I'm not working on them at the same time. The last two will only come out if the team's first game is successful enough lol.
Thank you lads and lassies, have a nice day! ^-^
