A few weeks ago we posted a news article about Seldon Crisis, an Isaac Asimov inspired MMO that the developers claimed would be “…the largest sandbox universe ever created.” For a mere £250,000 the developers were going to create an epic game that would put players in control of everything, including the economy, infrastructure, and politics. Sounds exciting!
Unfortunately, another aspect of the project seems to have brought them some unwanted attention. See, Seldon Crisis is inspired so heavily on the works of Asimov that the famed authors’ estate complained to Kickstarter. In a complaint dated September 17th the lawyers at Jaspan Schlesinger, who represent Asimov’s estate, state that “…the game that infringes upon Isaac Asimov’s works, to wit: The Foundation Series is a direct infringement and must be taken down.” And that’s exactly what Kickstarter did. You can read the complaint here, or in the image below; in it you’ll see that the developers seemed to have tied themselves a bit too closely to works they don’t own. Rather than creating something in the spirit of Asimov’s work, they appear to have been creating a continuation of it, which is a big no-no.
Searching the Seldon Crisis Facebook page, Twitter feed, and forums don’t shed any additional light on the situation, which may be intentional on the developer’s part. It’s likely they’re staying quiet at the moment due to related legal issues given that the game doesn’t appear to have changed just because the Kickstarter was taken down.
What should you do if you were a backer? Don’t worry, the most all of this will cost you is a broken heart. And developers? If you don’t have the rights, don’t do the game.
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Initially we were planning on basing Seldon Crisis on a novel by an italian author, and we referenced elements of Asimov’s foundation series as both us and the author are huge fans, We were / are speaking with the Asimov Estate re: a partnership but until those talks are concluded we were asked to not mention certain elements of his novels, this is completely understandable (copyright law demands holders actively protect their copyright or they can lose it)
we have taken the necessary measures to fully comply with what has been stated. All given to Professor Asimov and his works have been deleted from websites and social networks, ships and factions now have different names according to the logic of a new text written and originally published by us. any reference to a book that we wanted to write now no longer exists. We are also attempting to modify and / or delete the video and references as above on the major online magazine achieved by our news.
I hope this helps clarify ths situation.
Chaos Interactive