Bethesda Softworks' parent company, ZeniMax Media, has demanded an end to fan development of a remake of the original Doom.
ModDB user vasyan777 has been restoring a classic shooter with more modern technology and graphics. He called his project Doom Remake 4. But he had to abandon the idea after receiving a legal warning from the publisher. The letter released by the company says, "Despite your affection and enthusiasm for the Doom franchise and the original Doom game, we must protest any unlicensed use of ZeniMax Media Inc property."
"Vasyan" was given until June 20 to remove from their Internet pages everything that is somehow related to the intellectual property of ZeniMax Media, and also ordered to stop the development of the Doom remake and destroy all code and materials related to this project. He was also required to confirm in writing that he would not use the company's intellectual property in the creation of any future video games.
The user has already met the requirements of ZeniMax Media: cleared the remake page and even deleted his account from ModDB. Before that, he published a message in which he admitted that he expected a similar outcome. “I spoke with a lawyer and he said that we have a high chance of winning the court, since this is a modification, but the fight will most likely take a year (s) and will cost about 100 thousand,” added vasyan777.
PC Gamer points out that the issue was also that Doom Remake 4 was originally a standalone game under the intellectual property of ZeniMax Media. But even the development of a remake based on the original shooter did not solve the problem with the publisher.
Source: 3dnews.ru