An Ugly Situation - USC trying to take Bloom? |
posted by:Dani-SF 4/2/2014 9:11:55 PM |
Hey everyone, Dani here. It has been an amazing year so far, with appearing on IGNs show for game design in 2012…to a failed kickstarter…. to a successful kickstarter … to publishers taking notice of our work…and even Dell / Alienware joining us as sponsors with some new machines.
We have been pouring our hearts and souls into this game, trying to push it as far as we can with what we have….and hopefully if it does well, the Bloom universe will be able to grow even more. We are just a tiny team of passionate artists and gamers and we definitely don’t have a lot in the world… but we can proudly say what we do have we worked hard and long for with the amazing support of players around the world.
But now we are facing an ugly situation that seems to only be getting uglier by the day…and the cards are stacked against us. The very name of Bloom (the name we have been using so openly for so long, which we have built ourselves around) is being robbed from us.
You see, a couple months ago I found out a program at USC (University Of Southern California) was developing a game started sometime last year with a suspiciously similar premise and title called “Bloom”. Luckily the game play and style behind the surface are different… but the name is already starting to cause confusion between our two games. So, when I found out, we tried to get in contact with them and sort this out.
This is where things start to get difficult….they ignored us.
So, after a while of no response, I tracked down the USC phone number and gave them a call. Speaking with some faculty there in charge of the program my concerns were largely dismissed… but they gave me a couple emails (the head of the specific project, and faculty for the program). Of course, I sent off an email right away saying we needed to chat and sort things out.
Again, they ignored us.
Were they busy? Did they take care of it? Or was it just a lack of respect? Either way, I had hoped it was the end of it…. But after a bit more time passed, I found out they were promoting their game and had plans to release into major digital distribution.
So, again, I reached out to try and solve this problem before it got even worse. I got through directly to the head of the project on the phone and was told he saw my email last month but that he ignored it because faculty told him we were nothing to be worried about.
Basically, they told us they are going to do what they want and if we have a problem we can sue them. Of course provided we have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around at lawyers.
I guess this is the crux of the issue, size and power. Trademarks and common respect for other developers just don’t seem to be granted to small developers in the minds of many.
The sad thing is this isn't even a new story, at least not in the world of game development. Other developers I personally know have also run into problems like this (and some much worse, completely cloning of games they have poured countless hours into). Vlambeer is famous for running afoul of such behavior. Somehow though, I never suspected it would come from a school like USC…and not towards us.
So what happens next? Well, I’m still trying to sort that out. I've been talking with lawyers…talking with other developers… trying to get USC to see reason or come to a compromise…. basically doing whatever I can to keep the name Bloom and not let them rip it from us.
The one thing I’m sure of though is we aren't going to take this laying down. As one developer told me “welcome to the dark side of indie games”.
comments...
We have been pouring our hearts and souls into this game, trying to push it as far as we can with what we have….and hopefully if it does well, the Bloom universe will be able to grow even more. We are just a tiny team of passionate artists and gamers and we definitely don’t have a lot in the world… but we can proudly say what we do have we worked hard and long for with the amazing support of players around the world.
But now we are facing an ugly situation that seems to only be getting uglier by the day…and the cards are stacked against us. The very name of Bloom (the name we have been using so openly for so long, which we have built ourselves around) is being robbed from us.
You see, a couple months ago I found out a program at USC (University Of Southern California) was developing a game started sometime last year with a suspiciously similar premise and title called “Bloom”. Luckily the game play and style behind the surface are different… but the name is already starting to cause confusion between our two games. So, when I found out, we tried to get in contact with them and sort this out.
This is where things start to get difficult….they ignored us.
So, after a while of no response, I tracked down the USC phone number and gave them a call. Speaking with some faculty there in charge of the program my concerns were largely dismissed… but they gave me a couple emails (the head of the specific project, and faculty for the program). Of course, I sent off an email right away saying we needed to chat and sort things out.
Again, they ignored us.
Were they busy? Did they take care of it? Or was it just a lack of respect? Either way, I had hoped it was the end of it…. But after a bit more time passed, I found out they were promoting their game and had plans to release into major digital distribution.
So, again, I reached out to try and solve this problem before it got even worse. I got through directly to the head of the project on the phone and was told he saw my email last month but that he ignored it because faculty told him we were nothing to be worried about.
Basically, they told us they are going to do what they want and if we have a problem we can sue them. Of course provided we have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around at lawyers.
I guess this is the crux of the issue, size and power. Trademarks and common respect for other developers just don’t seem to be granted to small developers in the minds of many.
The sad thing is this isn't even a new story, at least not in the world of game development. Other developers I personally know have also run into problems like this (and some much worse, completely cloning of games they have poured countless hours into). Vlambeer is famous for running afoul of such behavior. Somehow though, I never suspected it would come from a school like USC…and not towards us.
So what happens next? Well, I’m still trying to sort that out. I've been talking with lawyers…talking with other developers… trying to get USC to see reason or come to a compromise…. basically doing whatever I can to keep the name Bloom and not let them rip it from us.
The one thing I’m sure of though is we aren't going to take this laying down. As one developer told me “welcome to the dark side of indie games”.
comments...
Community is now live - in style! |
posted by:admin 11/9/2013 12:57:36 PM |
We had issues with our previous community (a serious serious spam overload) that caused us to shut it down. Today we introduce a much better community... REDDIT!
Thats right, we decided rather than try and reinvent the wheel, we would leverage what is probably the best community site in the world. It helps that I am a heavy redditor too.
So please, take a hop on over to our subreddit by clicking the community tab or by going directly to http://www.reddit.com/r/bloommemories
comments...
Thats right, we decided rather than try and reinvent the wheel, we would leverage what is probably the best community site in the world. It helps that I am a heavy redditor too.
So please, take a hop on over to our subreddit by clicking the community tab or by going directly to http://www.reddit.com/r/bloommemories
comments...
Kickstarter now Live! |
posted by:admin 11/7/2013 9:48:03 AM |
Our 3rd attempt at kickstarter is now live. We have come so far since last time.
Our Kickstarter Page
comments...
Our Kickstarter Page
comments...
Development Vlog Episode 1 |
posted by:admin 9/5/2013 2:02:40 PM |
a crazy week! - the good kind :) |
posted by:admin 5/23/2013 10:35:32 PM |
Hey everyone, Dani here again (I really need to come up with another way to start these), I just wanted to drop in and let you all know how things are progressing (abridged version - things are going great!).
This last week was been pretty crazy as we get everything set up to move forward with the limited resources we have. Thanks so much to everyone who jumped over to our PayPal (and amazon) campaign to make this next phase a little easier! It is definitely helping us out and we will be keeping it up as we forge ahead (so, plenty of time to hop over and take a look for those that missed it).
We’ve also been extremely lucky with some amazing offers of help on the project (including an animator from Dreamworks!)! So, we are taking advantage of the opportunity and over this last week we added on a couple more people to the team to get this out faster and better than we could have before.
Anyhow, for the next couple days we are continuing to get everything settled and sort out a few production details / who does what (I got dibs on the art!
). Then we jump into full production and keep pushing ahead! In addition to all this we’ve also come up with a couple new ideas that should be pretty exciting (like I said, it has been a crazy week!). I’ll be covering them once we have everything nailed down a bit more (so stay tuned 
Also, once the dust clears expect loads of new artwork / creatures / concepts. And, as always, feel free to chime in with suggestions or thoughts as we go along (feedback is always welcome).
Thanks again so so much for all the support, this next few months is going to be bananas (in a good way).
comments...
This last week was been pretty crazy as we get everything set up to move forward with the limited resources we have. Thanks so much to everyone who jumped over to our PayPal (and amazon) campaign to make this next phase a little easier! It is definitely helping us out and we will be keeping it up as we forge ahead (so, plenty of time to hop over and take a look for those that missed it).
We’ve also been extremely lucky with some amazing offers of help on the project (including an animator from Dreamworks!)! So, we are taking advantage of the opportunity and over this last week we added on a couple more people to the team to get this out faster and better than we could have before.
Anyhow, for the next couple days we are continuing to get everything settled and sort out a few production details / who does what (I got dibs on the art!
). Then we jump into full production and keep pushing ahead! In addition to all this we’ve also come up with a couple new ideas that should be pretty exciting (like I said, it has been a crazy week!). I’ll be covering them once we have everything nailed down a bit more (so stay tuned Also, once the dust clears expect loads of new artwork / creatures / concepts. And, as always, feel free to chime in with suggestions or thoughts as we go along (feedback is always welcome).
Thanks again so so much for all the support, this next few months is going to be bananas (in a good way).
comments...
Welcome to studio fawn |
posted by:admin 5/23/2013 8:07:49 PM |
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