I know What You Did Last Year

[RepentantSky]

Uh-huh. Another movie and a television series too? Geez. I do love the film series but 10 parts, a crossover and a remake should be enough. I wonder if that means a sequel to the remake, which was terrible in itself.

The game still sounds reeeeeeeeeeally similar to Last Year.

Its ALMOST on tier with DragonBall. Dang.

Nice play. I got a good laugh out of that. At least though Battle of Gods was pretty good.

[Mass Distraction]

Completely forgot that it has like a billion comics out there too :P

[EvilOverlord]

Just wanted to drop this here:

Last Year - 5 vs 1 Multiplayer Survival Horror [Submitted by [Private]]



Date: Jan 12, 2015

Sender
[Private]

Sent via online form

Recipient
Kickstarter, Inc.
58 Kent Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
USA

Re: Last Year - 5 vs 1 Multiplayer Survival Horror

Description of copyrighted material: Crystal Lake Entertainment, Inc. (Sean Cunningham) and Horror, Inc. are the rights holders of the "Friday the 13th" movie franchise. This includes all characters, such as Jason, and movie posters and one-sheets, and the right to create derivative works. This also includes all trademark rights.

Description of infringing material: "Last Year - 5 vs. 1 Multiplayer Survival Horror"

[Mass Distraction]

So... It is the same game? Sweet, looks like I was right.

[CLXcool]

Is that official? If it is. I had a feeling a cad warning was gonna pop up sooner or later.

[EvilOverlord]

Here's the link to the original, I cut out the senders name as I wasn't entirely sure of this forums rules.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/las...val-horror

[CLXcool]

As I said. I had a feeling a CAD was gonna happen.

[RepentantSky]

Here's the link to the original, I cut out the senders name as I wasn't entirely sure of this forums rules.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/las...val-horror

So wait, I'm confused. Did this happen because of the likeness of Jason, or because the likeness of a Friday the 13th game, or even both? The answer doesn't seem to be very clear unless I'm just missing something.

[Mass Distraction]

But... They didn't even use the exact likeness. That's like if I drew a realistic pony and got sued by Hasbro.

[CLXcool]

Another video game I was looking forward to gets its dust bitten by lawsuit. :(

[EvilOverlord]

So wait, I'm confused. Did this happen because of the likeness of Jason, or because the likeness of a Friday the 13th game, or even both? The answer doesn't seem to be very clear unless I'm just missing something.

It's extremely vague as to what they are claiming is infringing on their property, my best guess is the one or two pieces of concept art with the machete wielding killer in the lake level could potentially be mistaken for 'Friday the 13th'.
I just find it funny that about a month after the successful funding of 'Last Year' they announced the exact same game with Jason then proceeded to file a lawsuit.

[RepentantSky]

So wait, I'm confused. Did this happen because of the likeness of Jason, or because the likeness of a Friday the 13th game, or even both? The answer doesn't seem to be very clear unless I'm just missing something.

It's extremely vague as to what they are claiming is infringing on their property, my best guess is the one or two pieces of concept art with the machete wielding killer in the lake level could potentially be mistaken for 'Friday the 13th'.
I just find it funny that about a month after the successful funding of 'Last Year' they announced the exact same game with Jason then proceeded to file a lawsuit.

That makes sense that they'd think that. Until Dawn should have had that same problem though. I don't know if I find the timing of the claim and announcement of the game all that odd though. I imagine the Friday the 13th game has been in the works for longer than Last Year's kickstarter had/has existed. They probably just didn't want to file the claim until the game was officially in order to avoid revealing it early because that prompts people to dig and try to find out information they aren't intending people to find.  

[Mass Distraction]

So wait, I'm confused. Did this happen because of the likeness of Jason, or because the likeness of a Friday the 13th game, or even both? The answer doesn't seem to be very clear unless I'm just missing something.

It's extremely vague as to what they are claiming is infringing on their property, my best guess is the one or two pieces of concept art with the machete wielding killer in the lake level could potentially be mistaken for 'Friday the 13th'.
I just find it funny that about a month after the successful funding of 'Last Year' they announced the exact same game with Jason then proceeded to file a lawsuit.

That makes sense that they'd think that. Until Dawn should have had that same problem though. I don't know if I find the timing of the claim and announcement of the game all that odd though. I imagine the Friday the 13th game has been in the works for longer than Last Year's kickstarter had/has existed. They probably just didn't want to file the claim until the game was officially in order to avoid revealing it early because that prompts people to dig and try to find out information they aren't intending people to find.  

They could've at least had the courtesy of filing the claim in silence BEFORE Last Year was succesfully funded. Now it means a lot of people lost their money for nothing and the company making the game is in a bad spot.

[RepentantSky]

I'm not saying it isn't messed up, but I don't think it was malevolent or anything either. Besides, doing things in quite where the internet is involved is like trying to do something socially unacceptable in broad daylight at a capacity filled football game, while the camera's are looking at you. It's not easy.

[EvilOverlord]

There's a response from the creator of 'Last Year':

Hi everyone,

As you may have heard there has been an IP dispute on Last Year from the people who own Friday The 13th. These people claim that Last Year is too similar to Friday The 13th and they're trying to shut down the Kickstarter. Using a hockey mask is apparently not allowed...I guess we better file an IP claim against all the goalies of Canada too ;)

Just to give you an idea, it's been 25 YEARS since a Friday The 13th game...isn't it a funny coincidence that as soon as Last Year does a successful Kickstarter campaign all of a sudden a few weeks later Hollywood announces they will make an asymmetrical slasher game too! Oh and they send their lawyers after me saying Last Year is infringing on them. There hasn't been a really good movie-inspired slasher game and I took the opportunity to make it because, like you, I've always wanted a game like this as well. Now, all of a sudden Hollywood notices that people actually want a game like this so they try and shut ours down and make their own. Classic. Typical big guys trying to bully the little guy and wipe out the competition.

One of their statements was that our location Silver Lake Summer Camp infringes on their location Crystal Lake Summer Camp. Well, there are certain similarities and obvious inspirations/tips of the hat to the old classics, however, the dialog in the trailer clearly states this game is drawing inspiration from Friday The 13th. Silver Lake is not the same as Crystal Lake and Last Year is not deceiving, affiliated with, or causing confusion with the Friday The 13th brand...which is what the owners of Friday The 13 have now claimed. We are merely paying homage to the great classics and putting our own unique spin on it and creating our own unique universe. Granted, they did make one comment which was about using the movie poster of the original movie in the Last Year trailer. That's fair, and I will remove this from the video immediately.

I've reached out to their lawyer, my lawyer, and Kickstarter and I'm in discussion to sort this out and get the Kickstarter page back up with the necessary changes so we can move forward.

I would have wished that people who share a passion for the same types of genres including Crystal Lake Entertainment and myself could work together on something like this (which is a win-win for everyone, especially you the fans!) and not work against each other... We'd be able to make a game that's even more awesome as a team. Unfortunately they chose to work against each other which is really only them trying to benefit themselves.

I'm sorry about this, it sucks. I'm working to resolve it as soon as I can so we can move forward on making an awesome game.

Thanks for your support guys.

Sincerely,

James Wearing

facebook.com/lastyearthegame
twitter.com/lastyeargame

---

That makes sense that they'd think that. Until Dawn should have had that same problem though. I don't know if I find the timing of the claim and announcement of the game all that odd though. I imagine the Friday the 13th game has been in the works for longer than Last Year's kickstarter had/has existed. They probably just didn't want to file the claim until the game was officially in order to avoid revealing it early because that prompts people to dig and try to find out information they aren't intending people to find.  

Sorry for the double post but didn't want to include this under my last post.
Everything I have read about this new Friday the 13th game has indicated that it has just started being developed not that it has been in development for some time, that is why I said "I just find it funny that about a month after the successful funding of 'Last Year' they announced the exact same game with Jason then proceeded to file a lawsuit." as to me it looked as though some one was using the kick-starter to gauge the market for a game like this.