Insult lightsaber duels!

Think about it- it's pretty much how they worked in the movie anyway!

"When I left you, I was but the learner; now *I* am the master."
"Only a master of evil, Darth."

EDIT: someone actually thought of that before :D

Seriously though, the Star Trek adventure games had space battles and phaser-ing klingons, so it can totally work.

Agreed. Stealing other peoples work/effort/labor is always wrong. The amount of time, money, energy that goes into creating a new product/IP, developing that product/IP and growing a product/IP is tremendous.

Also, for the creators who like those genres, ideas and play mechanics - they should just do so in their own IP. The benefits are numerous - it is yours so you control it, profit from it and have the ability to grow it as you so see fit. You aren't constrained by the rules, history of that series.

Like 16-bit JRPGs? Great, make Pier Solar
Like Metroid? Great, make Axiom Verge - which got picked up by Sony, so that worked out well (that whole being able to profit from it yourself).

Also, at this point, it is universally known that IP owners are going to defend their IP.

I don't accept fan fiction. All the Star Trek stuff people produce, Game of Thrones, etc. is taking another persons work and tarnishing it.

50 Shades being fan fiction of Twilight (I have never read either, but am familiar from those who have and know how the series started).

Ms. Pac-Man was originally a project by MIT students, then put out by Midway without approval from NAMCO, but eventually became the most successful fandom game ever.

If you're driving web hits and revenue off property that isn't yours and you have no license to use, you're trading off the back and work of others - excluding fair use (news stories, reviews, commentary, research, etc.).

We're not going to agree on the fan part, as to me there is a clear difference between fan work of painting a room or making a mural of Nintendo IP and wholesale ripping them off by making an entire game using their IP to distribute around the world.

There's nothing this forum can be positive about anymore, is there? The last thing I expected was to encounter this much hostility towards fan's efforts to keep beloved titles alive.

They are seemingly still alive & reporting progress here : https://www.facebook.com/indyfoy/
I'll believe it when I see it though. The demo from ages back was promising.

Oh, and in case anyone missed this : https://mixnmojo.com/features/sitefeatures/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Iron-Phoenix-The-Lost-Sequel-to-Fate-of-Atlantis

Does anyon remember <span class="bold">Nekro</span> ? One of many successfully funded but never finished and cancelled Kickstarter projects:

https://techraptor.net/content/nekro-ironically-dead

To be fair, it's a complicated issue. The attached picture is an attempt at simplifying it though.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming)]mod[/url] is a form of fangames.

Many GREAT games were mods initially, and mods helped the game industry to educate/train many newbies to become mature game developers.

Many Japanese game developers were dōjin game makers.

This thread wasn't about fan efforts, it's about fan games. There is a difference.

There are other kind fan contributions too. Like ScummVM, which has probably contributed a lot more to keeping titles alive than any fan game ever did.

If someone made a working Blade Runner patch to ScummVM that would be much more beneficial than trying to create "Blade Walker" fan game or something.

Even the best fan games are lacking. Broken Sword 2.5 is a very good effort, looks nice, has voice acting and everything. Maybe the best fan game ever. But basically the only thing it does is try to recycle characters from the official BS games to the point of boredom. All official BS games had this flaw as well, but the fan sequel made it even worse.

Of course most fan games are simply embarassing. The best tribute is to create something original with a nod towards the original material.
As for preserving the original masterpieces, fan sequels and remakes are completely useless for that. Even the official remakes are completely unnecessary most of the time.

Thanks! :)