Bronies and Pegasisters may like this game but Hasbro might shut the dev down with an army of its lawayers unless the dev has licensed permission to make this commercial, fan-based MLP game. So, if you're a fan of MLP then you'd better download this quickly before it gets deleted fast (Damn deleters!) from the file hosters' servers!
Unlikely, unless Hasbro is really dedicated to getting those couple hundred 5$ purchases. The developer has already a free game with a similar enough art-style back in late 2022, to which this is a sequel.
Them's Fightin' Herds had a similar issue with Hasbro and was promptly taken down with a C&D, but it was a much larger project, with a proper studio, a publisher and of course advertising and an actual price. I doubt they're gonna take any action against this.
Hasbro seems to be sorta picky when it comes to it though. For example, "Friends with Benefits" managed to get away. Sure they changed the appearance significantly, but it's obvious that the world is basically the same, even with the ridiculous renames. Then again, it might have been a company image issue to try and C&D a porn game, but, I digress.
I don't think that Hasbro is concerned about getting those few "couple hundred $5 purchases" than they are more concerned about stopping an unlicensed ripoff of the intellectual property that they own. From Hasbro's point of view, if they don't have full control of the licenses which they sell then other devs will also just not bother paying Hasbro the big money for the rights to use the trademarked MLP intellectual property in their games. For Hasbro its more about control than about the few amounts of money from lost sales of unlicensed characters. After all, Hasbro makes millions or billions (I don't know the exact numbers) from sales of licensed toys (Of which video games are a part) annually.
I don't think Hasbro owns the concept of talking ponies/unicorns/pegasi. If they keep their designs plain with no flank marks and don't even try to make it sound like it's MLP they should be safe
That may be true about Hasbro not owning the concept but you must admit that the particular design of the characters in this game very closely resemble that of the MLP characters despite the fact that they do not have the flank marks.
It's like if someone took a Care Bear and removed its belly mark, gave it a different name and call it a different, unrelated character, people can still recognize it as being a Care Bear or Care Bear rip off (Most people are not that stupid). I'm not saying that is what the dev did with his characters but it's just an overly simplified example to emphasize my point.
It's a very "Grey" area that the lawyers on both sides will have to argue before a judge and jury in a copyright case. Such a case would be costly in legal fees and I doubt that the dev would have the financial resources to fight the case in court, so he or she would probably just cease and desist instead of continuing with the game's further development. However, if the dev did somehow licensed the rights from Hasbro to make the game then there should be no problem.
A "Care Bear" character named "Grumpy Bear".
A "MyBear" character named "Constipated Cub".
See the similarities? It can be concluded that "Constipated Cub" is a direct rip off of "Grumpy Bear". Case closed.
Thus my warning in my earlier post for those who follow MLP - Hurry up and download this before it's gone!
you can't register a drawing style, disney already tried it with astroboy and lost. As an example you have games with characters with a style similar to sonic the hedgehog.
And looking at the gameplay images, the drawing style itself is different and without cutie mark, unless they start complaining about the shape of the hair, using big eyes or because they have 4 legs I don't see what they could do.
Besides, the laws can be very different from country to country and they could lose a lot of money with it.
It may be true about what you said concerning drawing style but copyright laws specify that designs cannot legally be too similar so as to confuse the average person into not being able to distinguish an unlicensed product from a licensed one.
I'm not a lawyer but I can give you an example outside of animated cartoons. If the copyright laws did not exist, then people who make and sell counterfeit "Gucci" bags on the streets would no longer be committing crimes since without such laws, anyone can then legally make and sell a bag that looks dam close to a real "Gucci" bag in design but maybe perhaps with just a slightly different looking label that comes close to that of the famous and copyrighted "GC" logo all over their bags while calling it something else and then "Gucci" can't do a thing about it - Which is not the case IRL!
Copyright laws can go across multiple countries and there are multi-national police agencies like INTERPOL who can make arrests across borders regardless of a host country's copyright law (The copyright law of the country where the crime originated would prevail over that of the host country).
of course there are limits to plagiarism, but in this case it is easy to distinguish the products (basically I have looked at a picture of the series and the gameplay picture).
The case that they can be prosecuted internationally, yes and no, cases of piracy and plagiarism are usually made in the country where the offence is created, so it is usually prosecuted in the country itself. Countries don't like to be deprived of the opportunity to prosecute something and to scrape some money from taxes on penalties.
I'm speaking from vague memories I have of a case that happened, and I don't think the laws have changed that much since then.
I looked at the design of this game's characters and IMHO, they look very similar to the MLP characters. In fact, when I first saw this game's Steam page, I thought that it was just another MLP based game except that it was being sold on Steam rather than being free. To be fair though, I personally don't follow the MLP franchise. I have friends who are bronies and pegasisters who occasionally try to get me interested in it. BTW - Some of my friends who are ladies don't like being called "pegasisters" and rather prefer to be referred to as "female bronies" to keep things equal.
Of course, governments think along the lines of what the Barrett Strong song "Money" exclaims, "I need money. That's what I want!" as well as the publicity so that its people know how their tax dollars are being spent - To get even more money! Meanwhile, most of the people are thinking more along the lines of ABBA's song "Money, Money, Money"!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2184130/MareQuest/
Them's Fightin' Herds had a similar issue with Hasbro and was promptly taken down with a C&D, but it was a much larger project, with a proper studio, a publisher and of course advertising and an actual price. I doubt they're gonna take any action against this.
Hasbro seems to be sorta picky when it comes to it though. For example, "Friends with Benefits" managed to get away. Sure they changed the appearance significantly, but it's obvious that the world is basically the same, even with the ridiculous renames. Then again, it might have been a company image issue to try and C&D a porn game, but, I digress.
It's like if someone took a Care Bear and removed its belly mark, gave it a different name and call it a different, unrelated character, people can still recognize it as being a Care Bear or Care Bear rip off (Most people are not that stupid). I'm not saying that is what the dev did with his characters but it's just an overly simplified example to emphasize my point.
It's a very "Grey" area that the lawyers on both sides will have to argue before a judge and jury in a copyright case. Such a case would be costly in legal fees and I doubt that the dev would have the financial resources to fight the case in court, so he or she would probably just cease and desist instead of continuing with the game's further development. However, if the dev did somehow licensed the rights from Hasbro to make the game then there should be no problem.
A "Care Bear" character named "Grumpy Bear".
A "MyBear" character named "Constipated Cub".
See the similarities? It can be concluded that "Constipated Cub" is a direct rip off of "Grumpy Bear". Case closed.
Thus my warning in my earlier post for those who follow MLP - Hurry up and download this before it's gone!
And looking at the gameplay images, the drawing style itself is different and without cutie mark, unless they start complaining about the shape of the hair, using big eyes or because they have 4 legs I don't see what they could do.
Besides, the laws can be very different from country to country and they could lose a lot of money with it.
I'm not a lawyer but I can give you an example outside of animated cartoons. If the copyright laws did not exist, then people who make and sell counterfeit "Gucci" bags on the streets would no longer be committing crimes since without such laws, anyone can then legally make and sell a bag that looks dam close to a real "Gucci" bag in design but maybe perhaps with just a slightly different looking label that comes close to that of the famous and copyrighted "GC" logo all over their bags while calling it something else and then "Gucci" can't do a thing about it - Which is not the case IRL!
Copyright laws can go across multiple countries and there are multi-national police agencies like INTERPOL who can make arrests across borders regardless of a host country's copyright law (The copyright law of the country where the crime originated would prevail over that of the host country).
The case that they can be prosecuted internationally, yes and no, cases of piracy and plagiarism are usually made in the country where the offence is created, so it is usually prosecuted in the country itself. Countries don't like to be deprived of the opportunity to prosecute something and to scrape some money from taxes on penalties.
I'm speaking from vague memories I have of a case that happened, and I don't think the laws have changed that much since then.
Of course, governments think along the lines of what the Barrett Strong song "Money" exclaims, "I need money. That's what I want!" as well as the publicity so that its people know how their tax dollars are being spent - To get even more money! Meanwhile, most of the people are thinking more along the lines of ABBA's song "Money, Money, Money"!