Ripping Ethics: Commercial vs. Noncommercial Games

[Dunkelschwamm]

Hey guys, I hope I'm posting this in the right forum (this seemed like the most natural fit, but I won't take it personally if you move the topic).

Across my ripping "career" of dozens of games, I've noticed an interesting conception of ethics around sprite ripping that seems worth discussing.

The following is an invitation for dialogue and not an invitation for ruthless attacks.  I am genuinely interested in hearing what everybody thinks on this topic without lighting some kind of powder keg.

So, I certainly got my start on this site with ripping noncommercial games (mostly mods at first, like Action Doom 2) and moved into more commercial games like Heretic, Lisa: RPG, and so on.  Something that I've seen is that people will get fairly sensitive on the subject of my submitting sprites ripped from noncommercial (as in, not sold) games.  It seems most sensitive around the area of mods, as I haven't really had any backlash from people when I rip standalone noncommercial games (the original La-Mulana, for example) or RPG Maker games (MortisGhost's Off, Space Funeral, etc).  I'll chalk the separation between the mod developers' reactions and the RPG Maker/Standalone developers' reactions up to differences in community.

But what really interests me here is the perceived difference between ripping a noncommercial games and commercial games.  Mod developers (or, more often than that, the communities around mods) seem to posit that there is a real difference between the two and that noncommercial games should be given more care and special attention to giving credit to artists.

Now, my attitude toward this has mostly been that if a developer directly requests that I add credit then I will do so (as was the case with Shadow of the Wool Ball) but I consider the attribution of the sprites to the game that they are ripped from to be my crediting the sprites to their rightful origin, which in turn will direct those seeking more accurate information to find the original artists in the credits of the game.  I simply don't have time to sort through credits (by default) on games which sometimes don't even specifically list the duties of the names therein to credit somebody, and I would feel even stranger about doing so for commercial games where the credits may be even harder to obtain.

But that is where the interesting split happens: apparently I should care more about crediting modders (according to many of the complaints I've heard) than I should be about crediting professionals.  I'll attempt to summarize what I think is the argument here (but it may come out distorted as I can't say I agree wholeheartedly with this assertion):

1. Modders create their games out of passion or recognition more than money.
   
2. When posting their sprites outside of the context of their mod without credit, you remove them from the recognition they deserve.
   
3. Professionals create their games for both recognition and money.
   
4. At least professionals are still getting their money if you post their sprites outside of the context of their product without credit.
   
5. Therefore we owe it much more to modders to give specific, personal credit than we do to professionals.
   

I have a couple problems with this argument.  The first is that this actually creates a brand of logic where more people are hurt in the case of professional sprites being ripped, because now we are not only taking the sprites created by a professional but we are also using a material that somebody had to pay to have created.  In the case of modders, you aren't taking a product that had to be paid for by the publishers of the mod (most of the time).  This puts modders at much less of a loss when their sprites get ripped than professionals, so their explicit hurt and assuming that they get hurt more is made somewhat ridiculous.

The second issue I have with this is that, in many of the cases where I have received complaints, they have been for mods which steal resources (without credit) from many commercial games.  When I receive complaints in this kind of instance, it is usually from members of the communities around the mods more so than from the developers themselves, so I don't think that many of these developers are being hypocrites as much as members of their communities are.  For example, very early on I got complaints from a couple members of the Doom forums who thought that I ought to not rip Action Doom 2 without crediting all of the spriters.  Well, I could not find all of the spriters in the credits, they did not provide the information for me to append to the sheets, and Action Doom 2 was a game that used sprites from Metal Slug, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and many other games with no credit given to the creators here.  I'm not likely to respond well to hypocrisy, so these complaints were ignored after it became apparent that these seemed to be people looking for something to be upset about.

Further, if I were to have any more issue with the argument: why would professionals already getting money out of their work suddenly make it less important that they, as artists, as professional developers, have credit "omitted" as those who would complain may suggest?  It seems that if it is a slight against the few who do this as a hobby, it would also be a slight against those to whom this is their career.

Now, as I've mentioned, I'm on the side of credit being inherently pointed to in that I have never suggested that I created the sprites and I always attribute the sprites to the games they were originally ripped from.  I've also mentioned that if a developer specifically asks that I add credit to the sheets themselves then I will do so no problem, regardless of if they are enacting the perceived hypocrisy I mentioned above or how polite/rude they are in asking.  I figure it's my duty as a ripper to grant the wishes of the content developers should they be direct with me.

This has been a semi-issue that pops out rather often for me, and I've stumbled into communities where I've found my name being trashed because of the sprites I've ripped.  It might hit me more often then it sometimes hits other people, but if you run into this topic yourself I'd love to hear what your personal philosophy on this is.  If you disagree with me, I'd also love to hear you out.  I'm certain the discussion is far more complex than I have painted it in this first post.  The more perspectives I can see in here, the better.  I think that discussion on where credit is more deserved is one worth having within the community.

Cheers 

[Gors]

i tried reading through this but i really didnt get it, just give the most credit you can, regardless of the game's origin. If you can't find the modders individually, then try generalizing (you dont have a crystal ball to discover their names without any source, after all)

any other complaint is just bullshit of the complainer's part i guess

[puggsoy]

Basically what Gors said. For commercial games, I feel like crediting the game and developer/publisher/both is sufficient, they own the rights or whatnot. For original work from mods you should credit the creators if you can (within reasonable effort of course). For the most part just stating the mod/game it came from is really enough.

If the community around a mod but not the actual creator is complaining, that's just dumb. The only person who should tell you what you are and aren't allowed to do with their resources is the creator themselves.

I don't know if there's much to discuss, anybody other than the owner complaining is their issue and they don't really have a right to do that. It would be like Nintendo fans saying "hey you should take down all your Mario sprites" while Nintendo itself doesn't care.

[MinusDaPony]

After Mane6 were told to Cease and Desist making Fighting is Magic, I went looking for people to help me rip the sprites so I could help join the cause to keep it alive. I was shocked to find people refusing and even shaming me, saying that if I respected the work of these creators, I'd not rip from them. I was told this by sprite rippers... Luckily some people did help me in the end, and a bunch of us were able to start on finishing the game off. Mane6 have never once complained about these fan-finished versions.


I only rip sprites from games I really respect, and I wish I could meet the spriters and thank them. Even when I saw the sprites I ripped go into a REALLY bad fangame, I was just really pleased. I can't think of a bigger compliment than for a fangame to be made based on your own game. And knowing I helped someone make a fangame feels great.

If I had ever managed to finish my Guardian Heroes fangame, and helped to hype people up about the original, maybe Treasure would've made that sequel. I feel like I let them down by not being ready in time. Just like Yugioh Abridged is responsible for a shockingly large portion of the Yugioh fanbase, a fangame can do the same. It can revive a dead series, or show that there's an audience for a sequel. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery for a reason.

Even if I keep failing to make games, just knowing I at least helped someone else to make one puts me at ease. And I can feel like I am paying these game studios back from the great times they've given me. A few £s to the gamestore alone just doesn't feel like I'm really doing enough to thank them. Fan art, fan music, fan movies, fan games. They are the best way to say thanks, and fan games need sprites, so to suggest we shouldn't rip from non-profit games is just absurd. It's backwards!

That, and any sprites worth ripping must have been made with care and passion. Paid or not, artists deserve respect and recognition. If they did a good job, nothing else matters. Money should never come into it. All artists should be credited. But you know... they don't make it easy. Knowing who made it, or if it was made by one or many people is difficult to find out. Crediting the game is completely fine to do. It's just safer that way than to get the credit wrong. The spriters can always contact us if they want to. I bet they'd even release the sheets themselves if they were legally allowed to.

So in short: People complaining about which games are okay to rip from, and which aren't, are just not thinking at all. Ripping is respect. And we should credit all artists weather they were paid, or are huge jerks, or anything else. And that crediting a game when it's unclear who the spriter is, is completely fine to do. We're rippers, not detectives. Sorry for the large post. I've just experienced shaming for ripping certain games, and even for ripping at all. I just needed to get it off my chest.