The LEGO Group has requested that the ‘BIONICLE: Masks of Power’ fan project be shut down in its entirety and removed from the public eye.
The LEGO Group has requested that the ‘BIONICLE: Masks of Power’ fan project be shut down in its entirety and removed from the public eye.
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This is a pretty big heel-turn from Lego, who had met with the dev team a few years ago and gave them permission to continue development. 8 years of work, halted just like that.
As for the dev team, they’re relaunching as a new indie studio called Unmasked Games, and they’re using what they learned from developing Masks of Power to make a game with a new original IP. Excited to see what they make.
Edit: corrected info
that suuuuuuuucks the game looked so good. lego should have hired them instead
LEGO Group are now Nintendo.
The public requests that The LEGO Group respectfully go fuck themselves.
Lego is determined to piss on Bionicle’s grave.
Lego products are a complete rip-off and now they want to shit on a fan game while not recently making a similar title.
Thats a very “Nintendo-esque” move. They should have been more like Bethesda
Just throwing this out there, if you feel strongly about this let Lego know. Customer service is easy to reach, and they’re generally good at listening. And shutting down this project is the least fan-friendly solution out there, and Lego cares about that.
So do companies just get off on pissing their fans off now?
Boooooo
Bad move LEGO – you’re supposed to be everything Nintendo is not.
Well, it’s confirmed, they’re making a Bionicle game
Publishing their game on Steam under the Bionicle branding is wild, no wonder Lego stepped in; this is why you should keep fan games small scale and make them difficult to come across accidentally. Sucks to hear that it sounds like Lego was jerking their chain for a while before ultimately shutting the project down.
I hope their new studio finds success.
I haven’t followed development very much, so please forgive me. But did they ever have permission to use the Bionicle IP in the first place? If not, why would anyone have expected this game to have a legitimate release?
Edit: Never mind. I just saw the most recent video they uploaded and the guy mentioned following Lego Group’s “Fair Play” guidelines. But apparently those guidelines changed. That’s upsetting.
This is, ironically, the biggest compliment the studio could have received. Sorry guys, we gotta force you to cancel your game because it’s TOO GOOD and it would steal our show. Sorry!
Whatever dude. They gonna make a new game, and it’s gonna be awesome and it’ll be lego’s loss.
Nintendo and now LEGO have been sniffing their own farts too long. They’re not as special as they think and have been riding on nostalgia for too long. Great reason to take a break.
Shutting down a fan game because it’s too good… Just hire them over like Sega did to make *Sonic Mania*.
And once again I feel the need to say maybe don’t pour your whole life into a project based around intellectual property you don’t own and haven’t gotten a license for.
I don’t understand why people don’t just invest in original ideas
Why would you waste your time making a game with someone else’s IP. Time to change a few assets around and release it unrelated to the IP.
I feel like the lesson these dev teams need to take away from this is get a binding contract when IP holders give permission. Too easy for some high and mighty C-Suite suit with something to prove to screw over the little guy.
Seems very shortsighted. They should’ve licensed out the IP, but maybe the developers didn’t want that or Lego never offered.
Companies have realized that people wont actually do anything about their terrible behavior, so why not shut down stuff like this.