Legality and ethic of MUGEN
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The engine itself entirely belongs to Elecbyte, so there's no
question asked here. It's not nice to re host it without permission (not
to mention it's completely useless), and hacking it and claiming it as
your own is of course frowned upon.
Furthermore, the engine is free. If you find someone who is trying
to sell it with any sort of content, it's illegal. And it's also a very
bad idea, as it might catch the attention of companies like CAPCOM and
SNK, who might get irritated at the entire MUGEN community.
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Sprites are often ripped from commercial games. Big companies like
Capcom and SNK have been contacted before on the matter of using these
sprites in Mugen, and both have answered that they didn't mind as long
as it was not for commercial use. There are records of the mails that
have been exhanged on forums like Mugen Fighters Guild.
Other than that, there are some creators who actually make the
sprites themselves. There are those who bring a more or less important
amount of edits on sprites ripped from games, and there are those who
draw the sprites themselves. Obviously, taking someone else's work and
claiming it as yours is very, very heavily looked down upon. And don't
even think that people won't notice.
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The code is (usually) written entirely by the creator of the
character (or stage, screenpack etc.) and this belongs to him and him
only. This is legally true, although, for obvious reasons, you'll be
hard pressed to find someone who would actually sue you for that.
As the code makes most of the work on a Mugen creation, it means
absolutely nothing to claim that "Mugen creators steal from the
companies anyway, so it's alright to steal from thieves !" Well, no,
it's not alright, and you're not stealing from a thief, you're stealing
from someone who worked for a long time on something he liked.
Of course, the term "stealing" does not look like it makes a lot of
sense when talking about digital content. Afterall, if you download a
bunch of Mugen files and use their content for your own and claim it as
yours, what the original creator did is not going to lose anything, so
"stealing" in the physical sense of the term is unfit. And yet, when you
copy someone else's work and claim it as yours, you are claiming for
yourself everything that goes with the release of anything : pride for
your own hard work, respect from other people, and then there's the
terrible insult of seeing your hard work being used and degraded and
soiled by someone else's poor talent...
A matter of ego ? Maybe, but at the end of the day, you're still a
douche if you're not nice to other people and don't respect their work.
You may not care, but other people care, and no matter what excuse you
try to use, the person with the wounded ego will never be worse than the
person with zero civility. And anyway, it's useless to begin with, so
that would also make you an idiot for not even obliging to most common
courtesy, as it doesn't cost you anything. The question is, why would
you even take someone else's work and claim it as yours ?
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A number of people don't really like it when someone re hosts their
creation on various sites. Of course, there's the pride in one's own
work : you made it, so it damn well should be seen on your site and not
someone else's. And no, it doesn't mean anything to act like it's
selfish or a mark of bloated ego - why would you even want to host
something on your site ? Afterall, it's already available at the
original author's site. Isn't that greed for your own ego ? One other
more practical reason would be that this version that got uploaded by
some random guy could very well become obsolete the next day if the
original author udates it on his main site. The only thing you get is
multiple outdated versions of the characters, which is generally not
really nice. If you only care about having as many characters for
download on your precious site and don't care about the actual quality
(a behavior usually referred to as "warehousing", and that's not a nice
word in the Mugen community) you'll draw quite a lot of bad attention.
And again, it's just useless. Honestly, it's that much simpler and less
troublesome to just link to the site of the guy who made the creation to
begin with.
Similarly, downloading a bunch of characters off the Internet,
making a pack and dumping it on the Internet does not warrant being
called "making a game". Most of the time, "character packs" are entirely
useless, because they are way too punctual in time. It may be nice for a
complete newcomer who has no idea where to look at, but quite frankly,
there is zero upside to this compared to just giving a series of links
to the websites where the characters can be found to begin with. And
again, as with warehousing which I've just mentionned, you risk getting
mostly outdated creations. This serves zero purpose, and all the
reaction you will get from the community is getting verbally assaulted.
You want to contribute to the community ? This is not how you do it.
It's just so much simpler to give a list of links. Just downloading a
bunch of characters and dumping them in a single zip is also in no way
equivalent to making a game. Making a game in Mugen implies working on
every single character so that they work well together, giving everyone a
similar gameplay, similar effects, the same system... Making a game
involves a lot of work.
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Being productive in the community can have a lot of meanings. There
are those who create characters and stages, but there also are those who
help them create. Those people are just as helpful to the community ;
it's always great to see people who care, and who give back to the
community even if they don't have the time or knowledge to create a
whole character. Giving feedbacks to help someone improve his creation
is extremely appreciated in the community. This is a pretty simple and
easy way to contribute not only to the creator, but also to the
community as a whole. There is always a way to help each other out.
However, here again, there are a couple of things to keep in mind so
that discussions don't get too heated. First, at the end of the day,
creators do what they do the way they want it. They can listen to
feedbacks and comments, or they can stick with what they chose to do.
But this is not a reason for a creator to get angry at relevant
feedback, either. For the sake of the community, simply aknowledging
that a person is pointing out a mistake you might have done is generally
the better course.
Those advices also apply for people who bring feedbacks. There can
be feedbacks and comments on coding problems, and there can be feedbacks
about gameplay choices. It may not be wise to try and force people to
create things only the way you want. Knowing what you are talking about
(about the code and/or about the game the character is based on) also
matters a lot when giving feedbacks. Different people have different
tastes, behaviors and habits, and if there is any feedback that really
matters, it is about the quality of the code ; deliberate choices on the
gameplay are secondary, as long as both sides can recognize and
aknowledge what the other says.
The above is an assessment of what the community has been at some
point of its history. Discussions have mostly been getting much more
quiet in the last few years than they were before, which is excellent ;
but let me still bring it up for the sake of not forgetting that
everyone has limits to respect. Over the years, the community around
Mugen has known disgraceful events and periods, usually because of
issues related to respect - from both sides of the community. There are
both creators and users in it, and aknowledging and respecting both
sides is critical for the community to work.
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The major guideline in the Mugen community is, quite simply,
respect. A majority of creators will gladly let you use their work if
you ask them, and won't say anything if you just credit the work you
used from them. Just don't take someone else's hard work and claim that
you made it yourself, because this will stick on your Internet
buttcheeks for several years if you are unable to just admit your error.
It's just so much simpler and nicer to give credit where due. Because that's the way the community works.
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