Space Kitten?

To each their own, but really?

I'm not bothered by the goofiness. I like goofiness. Even kind of makes sense as a sort of flashy racer of sorts.
But it is the exact same style as the previous batch of "variants-that-are-not-actually-variants." Oversized logo, offset by 45 degrees. Do they only have one artist working on these skins? Not really a big deal, but not a lot of variety for variants...

The real [CONCERN] is the Hello Kitty Inquisitors.

Even if Space Kitten is different enough to beat a Hello Kitty copyright case, they've definitely got enough to try to push CIG into a settlement. Potentially, a very costly legal issue on the horizon. I hope the game doesn't get bogged down or flat out axed over this.

Best of luck to those participating in the referral contest. Hate being sour grapes, but I don't really see how this ends well.

McFurious said:

People were awfully assmad about it on the forums. I think it looks great even though it's not my thing. I want to see all kinds of wacky and unique paintjobs in this game.

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I'm not going to pretend to be particularly fashionably minded. I can see how it takes away from the gritty realism, but I can also see how it lets players express some measure of creativity.
The marketing and raising funds using nearly identical art belonging to some other brand is bad news though. Even if they somehow got permission, that permission would be in the form of a license, and that license wouldn't come cheap. Why would a crowdfunded game purchase a license to a cartoon cat? It wouldn't. They could have made it Space Iguana or Space Butterfly or Space Puppy and I wouldn't be [CONCERNED].

So, because I have too much free time on a Saturday morning, I took the 2 minutes it takes to look up that Hello Kitty belongs to a company called Sanrio. The brand is worth an estimated 7 billion dollars a year. They could spend CIG's entire budget on lawyers without blinking. They make cartoons, comics, music, and... duh, duh, duh, video games. This company could consume CIG like an appetizer if it wants to, and they would be in the right.


Pink, blue, orange or brown, CIG really needs to consider killing this promotion before it makes a penny.

Blind Owl said:

@Beerjerker, I completely understand your [CONCERN]. I wonder though, could the marketing team -or whomever designs these promos- be so idiotic to not realize that this could be a potential lawsuit?

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Well, not to overly be rude to them, yes, they could be. That's how all these things happen.
If they thought it looks different enough, why even take the chance? They could have made it's fur pink, made it an owl, done any number of things that people could still see it as a cutesy and corny animal cartoon. But they seem to have just put a blue stripe on the helmet of a white cat with dots for eyes and six stripes for whiskers.
If it was just in game somewhere, maybe they could say it was an homage or a parody. But it's part of a marketing campaign, their only leg to stand on is that it is not directly for sale, even though it is a reward for generating sales.
Then that Hello Kitty makes video games (I can only sarcastically imagine how great those are) means that Star Citizen is possibly selling a competing product with the competition's brand. Could be claimed Star Citizen is pretending to be Hello Kitty, or at least be endorsed by them. As absurd as it sounds to us, that could be a possible claim. It's really not that big of a stretch for those who do not play video games, like people who run multi-billion dollar international businesses and hire lawyers to protect their brands.
I find it hard to believe that CIG would spend from its crowdfunding to purchase a license to use Hello Kitty because of lolz. I find it harder to believe Hello Kitty purchased advertising, or owns some stake, in Star Citizen, because then it would just be Hello Kitty Dragonfly and not this Space Kitten nonsense.
I hope the Hello Kitty people do not see enough meat on the bone in Star Citizen, but they sure could if they wanted to. Surely they could force CIG to spend crowdfunded budget on a legal defense in order to squeeze a settlement out of them.
We might all be playing Hello Kitty Citizen soon (tm)...


Again, I don't care if it's cutesy or troll-ish. I like people having fun however it is they want to have fun.
GTA5 had some copyright cases made against it, but it wasn't being run on donation funding. I hope nothing comes of these [CONCERNS], but if it does, CIG could end up spending more getting out of this then they are spending making the game. Enough babbling from me...

Bruttle said:

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I hope it's different enough. It may not be though. I think the biggest mistake is underestimating how fiercely protective some of these companies are about their "brand". I don't know about Hello Kitty, but I have heard of others like Disney and Lucas arts (before they were bought by disney) that defend their material like a pack of rabid dogs... Hell, I just wrote the word disney in a thread. I'll probably get a cease and desist in the mail tomorrow.

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Yeah, I remember a few months back hearing about Star Trek putting a bunch of restrictions on how fan films could be made, despite them not even being made for profit. Hoping for the best, but it's treading through murky waters needlessly.