Maybe they aren't, but what about the company that is doing the remake? They might argue it will hamper their ability to meet estimated sales and overall profit.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

At the end of the day Virtuos are just a contractor - Bethesda are the ones with final say in the matter. Despite all their flaws they never really showed to be hostile towards these kind of projects (or at least I haven't seen them act that way) so there's no reason to automatically expect the worst. That's just my opinion though.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For all their faults, Bethesda may be the most mod-friendly AAA studio out there right now.

I can vaguely recall a single instance where they shut someone down, and that was over re-used audio assets from an older game. That was almost certainly about contractual licensing obligations to voice actors.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Did they even shut them down back then? I might be thinking about a different situation but I remember one of the other remake mods (was it New Vegas on Fallout 4 engine?) where they simply told the team they can't use the original audio. The cancellation of that mod happened months later and didn't even have anything to with that issue, I believe.

Either way, this kind of scenario is something I skipped over in my initial question since banning reuse of assets in different engines is a legal thing. I mostly meant them blocking/killing projects for no "serious" reason.

Still, it was a good idea to mention these kind of issues as well.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don't remember all the details myself, so you're probably right. I was basically trying to support your thesis that Bethesda getting nasty over mods would be something entirely new and out of character. The only example someone could even try to point to had a bunch of other (better) explanations than "mod bad, Bethesda mad."

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I actually thought about including this case in my original post but I have tendency to waffle way too much and in the end decided against it to keep things shorter. It is a useful example to mention so thanks for that.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They don't have any rights to Oblivion as an IP. They've been contracted to make this game and that's where their rights end.

[–] lath@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's not about IP rights, but about contractual obligations. If the mod affects those in some way, the company might ask Bethesda to make it go away.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

That's true. It's still on Bethesda, but yeah they could have an agreement. Skyblivion has been in development longer than this though I'm sure, and Bethesda was aware of it and said it was OK, so I'm assuming there's no agreement like that. If there were then Bethesda would have done something that will make them look really bad, which they do tend to do so it is a possibility.