Christian Allen's Kickstarter project: Takedown is a "realistic squad-based tactical shooter". He's asking the public to contribute $200,000 to get this project off the ground.
The problem is the method in which he is employing to solicit these funds.
He has posted the following visualizations what the envisioned "realistic" gameplay experience of Takedown. Note the use of Christian's company logo Serellan on the bottom of these images:
He has posted the following visualizations what the envisioned "realistic" gameplay experience of Takedown. Note the use of Christian's company logo Serellan on the bottom of these images:
Pretty realistic huh? Concept artist Charles Guan is credited as part of the Takedown team.
Christian Allen wants you to believe that his team is fully capable, with their ability to execute on high end original concept art.
Well look at these images pulled from a simple Google image search below:
Note the lack of credit cited to the copyright holders.
The second photograph was made by Dan Evans and was copyrighted by the Lodi News-Setinel with limited usage rights to Evans, chief photographer of the LNS.
When confronted, Christian Allen instead chose to discreetly remove the images from his Kickstarter page. There is a 3rd "concept art" which I feel is also suspect:
The second photograph was made by Dan Evans and was copyrighted by the Lodi News-Setinel with limited usage rights to Evans, chief photographer of the LNS.
When confronted, Christian Allen instead chose to discreetly remove the images from his Kickstarter page. There is a 3rd "concept art" which I feel is also suspect:
This is Christian's opportunity to cite the source before it is found.
Some may still feel what Christian did is fine. But his oversight of judgment shows how little value he gives to the original copyright holders in order to achieve his own goals: attain an easy free check for $200,000.
Here is a message to the gamers genuinely wanting a hardcore tactical shooter:
What guarantees are in place to ensure these funds would be allocated towards a "shipping" game?
Would you trust Christian Allen to properly invest your dollars into a game he is proclaiming to make?
What is the likelihood that Takedown will be done with a year?
The difference between the potential success of Christian Allen's Kickstarter and Tim Schafer's is that Tim and Ron Gilbert created the adventure game genre and have the demonstrable experience as a "team" to actually release this game.
If anyone can locate the copyright owners of the other two uncredited photographs, drop me a message. We need to give credit where credit is due. After all, those images are used to solicit $200,000.
If anyone can locate the copyright owners of the other two uncredited photographs, drop me a message. We need to give credit where credit is due. After all, those images are used to solicit $200,000.
