Night of the Living Trademark Infringement

A Night of the Living Dead Game Boy Post Mortem

In February 2022, I posted the image above with the caption, “I’m thinking 10 levels, 2 bosses. What do you think?” It became my second most popular tweet ever. I’d been inspired to make a movie mockup and chose Night of the Living Dead. It seemed like a good fit—after all, zombies are the #1 cliché enemy in gaming. But what didn’t make sense to me was why this movie had never gotten a game adaptation, and still hasn’t (foreshadowing… maybe).

As a game developer, it’s hard for me to ignore that level of engagement—it really excited people. I made a prototype and set up a Kickstarter. I even reached out to a few publishers. But I stopped myself from launching the campaign because something didn’t feel right. To better explain why, let me talk about how Night of the Living Dead ended up in the public domain.

A Grave Mistake

“Night of the Living Dead being public domain is the fault of the film’s distributor, who didn’t put the required copyright notice on the theatrical prints.”

Originally, the film was called Night of the Flesh Eaters. When the filmmakers discovered another movie with that title, they changed it but forgot to add the copyright notice to the film. To recoup the lost revenue, George Romero rewrote and remade the film as 1990’s Night of the Living Dead.

You can learn more about that here:

https://screenrant.com/night-living-dead-movie-public-domain-copyright-accident/

https://www.loudcoffeepress.com/post/cya-a-cautionary-tale-on-copyright-from-night-of-the-living-dead

Beating Down the Door

As a fellow creator, and out of respect, I decided to reach out to see about making a game. It seemed like nothing was happening with the IP outside of re-releases.

This part of the journey started with emailing GARF (the George A. Romero Foundation). To my surprise, Suzanne Romero replied and forwarded my message to Image Ten, the official “license” holder. This is where things got… a little icky.

After a week, I decided to reach out directly to Image Ten. Sometimes things get missed, and that’s okay. But it turns out they never intended to respond in the first place—they sent me a corporate template response.

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(Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t like being spoken to that way.) So, I pushed it a little further. Here was my response:

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Digital game stores aren’t real distributors—they’re social media platforms, and we should treat them that way.

I’m going to kick this off with a potentially controversial take: Digital game stores aren’t real distributors—they’re social media platforms, and we should treat them that way.

Now, I get it. This might feel like throwing rocks at a beehive, but sometimes, that’s the only way to get to the honey. Just to be clear, I’m talking strictly about PC game distribution here.

While researching “marketing” strategies for my game, I had a realization: nearly every article boils down to the same thing—gaming the algorithm. The choke point for success is either the number of plays or sales. Why? Because these platforms get bombarded with billions of uploads daily. And to manage that volume, they’ve adopted the easiest, albeit laziest, solution—an algorithm. This to me is the crux of why I’ve started seeing these platforms differently.

Back in the day, landing a distributor was like getting a stamp of approval. They provided shelf space, took on a lot of the marketing, and sometimes even bought your product upfront. It was a huge deal because the distributor took on financial risk. They were the handshake you couldn’t make to your future customers. As gatekeepers, they played a pivotal role in your product’s success, and the product had to be good to even get past them.

Now, take Steam. To me, it feels more like buying a bucket, filling it with water one drop at a time, and then trekking to Gabe’s house to pour it into his pool—hoping your splash is big enough to catch someone’s attention. “Going viral” isn’t a business strategy. The point of doing business is building relationships with customers, but these aren’t your customers—they’re Steam’s.

Even platforms like Itch or GameJolt, while free and flexible with revenue shares, still rely on the free content we upload to drive ad revenue. Discoverability is just as much of a problem there, with these sites feeling overcrowded.

Here’s the kicker: these platforms hurt you by driving traffic away from you and to them. It’s always a bad deal for the developer.

I keep asking myself, why is Steam the end goal? It functions like an upgraded X (formerly Twitter) premium account at best. If I’m being honest, not every game I make belongs on Steam. Some are better suited for Itch, but the choke point for success is the same across the board. What are my options?

I want to quote Bob Dole here: “The internet is a great way to get on the net.” At first glance, it sounds nonsensical, but think about it…

These storefronts don’t really exist. Steam? It’s just a browser inside an executable. Itch? It’s a website. The technology behind these platforms isn’t some unattainable thing. I’m a developer—why shouldn’t I have my own “platform,” especially if I’m the one driving traffic to begin with? With Epic battling Apple and Google—and winning—more options are opening up for developers. One solution that makes a lot of sense is launching my own web-based and progressive web app arcade.

…By this point, I’ve been sitting at my computer for five hours because, honestly, I hate writing. But there’s a Part 2 coming. I want to dive into HTML5 games and progressive web apps. I’m going to call it “How Indies Could Save the Mobile Market.” But that’s for later. Right now, I’m tired. Have a good day!

The Living Dead Genre: Brick Breaker Games

A quick Google search will yield a few definitions for the term “Dead Genre”:

– According to an AI overview: it’s a subgenre or trope that has died out due to oversaturation, where readers, editors, and agents grow tired of seeing the same books or tropes repeatedly.

– A Reddit user, u/Security_Man2k, describes it as “one that sees very few, if any, new publications.”

The notion of “Dead Genres” is debatable. When it comes to games, there’s one genre that constantly flirts with death but refuses to go quietly: Brick Breakers.

The brick breaker genre is a unique case. On one hand, it’s oversaturated (an understatement) with games. Right now, millions (a bit of sarcasm, bear with me) of first-time game developers are coding their first game—and chances are, it’s a brick breaker.

These games are joining the billions of brick breakers across websites, app stores, casinos, and even old BlackBerries scattered around the internet.

It’s also not known for innovation. I’ve been searching for a brick breaker that plays in all three dimensions, and as far as I know, my game Happy Corp. is the only one that does.

Yet, despite all this, brick breakers remain fun to play. The visuals could be as basic as a pile of Legos dumped on the floor, but I’m not having a bad experience. Sure, it might leave me wanting more, but to me, that just shows the genre is ripe for something new. But hey, that’s just a theory. A game… wait… my opinion.

So… Is anybody “Innovating”?

There are a few, brave, necromancer devs who have taken to laying hands on this dead genre and raising them to do their bidding.

The Trial of Kharzoid by Pascal Bélisle

Is an “ARKANOIDVANIA”… WTF! Ehhm.

The Trial of Kharzoid is an arkanoidvania. It combines classic brick-breaking games like Arkanoid with Castlevania’s classic elements like exploration, defeating huge bosses and eating chicken you find in walls! The goal is to navigate through the deadly levels and go back to Kharzoid’s tower to defeat this son of a witch. You will learn more about the lore by talking to NPCs.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pbelisle/the-trial-of-kharzoid/description

Cleaver Calibar by Cursed Bootleg Inc.

A Brick-Breaking, Rail-Shooting game trying to be a mixture of Silent Scope and Arkanoid. Get Powerups and use your best mental trigonometry to land Critical Shots!

https://hwilson.itch.io/cleaving-caliber

Happy Corp.

[Abort! Abort! Shameless plug!]

A brand new dystopian capitalist brick breaker that plays in 3 dimensions, where you destroy cities and battle kaiju.

Go wishlist that bad boy: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3184240/Happy_Corp_Demo/

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For SEO purposes, here’s a brief history of brick breaker games.

The history of brick breaker games, also known as “breakout” games, dates back several decades and showcases the evolution of video gaming itself. Here’s a brief overview: