Eurogamer: AC art used for Uncharted 4 trailer (Up: Naughty Dog responds)

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They didn't fix anything. Millions have already seen the trailer. You can't unring that bell. If they had any artistic integrity, they'd cancel uncharted 4 out of respect for ubisoft's vision.
 
Hey, at least they used the art of the best AC game.

Off-Kilter said:
I'm genuinely curious as to what the remaining upset/angry people in this thread actually want at this point.
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Probably expecting free Uncharted 4s now for the inconvenience caused by ND to other people. Lol
 
BlackFlip said:
Acknowledging this was a simple placeholder mistake isn't as interesting as the disgusting thieves and anyone who see's otherwise is a defense force angle tho
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Haha true, seems like some people want to get mad at developers for any perceived slight these days. Brings to mind the Firewatch, Brigador, and The Witness pricing complaints.

Glad I'm not alone in thinking it's just a placeholder mistake!
 
Ivan Amiibo said:
They didn't fix anything. Millions have already seen the trailer. You can't unring that bell. If they had any artistic integrity, they'd cancel uncharted 4 out of respect for ubisoft's vision.
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I know you're being sarcastic. Please tell me you're being sarcastic. It's gotta be sarcasm.

please let it be sarcasm
 
Lo_Fi said:
As a game developer, I can see how this accidentally happened. Making games and trailers, you put in placeholder art that doesn't really matter until you get the final work in, so that you can at least get started on something. With sound effects, for example, I've learned to get some sort of sound in as quickly as possible so that you have SOME feedback, and then as you playtest and iterate, you can create your own sound effects/assets as you get further away from prototyping. For example, with that painting, early on in the trailer process, they probably didn't know for sure that that shot would be in the final trailer, so instead of having an artist potentially waste a bunch of time making an art asset, you grab something off google as placeholder to see if the shot even works. Don't waste your time polishing a (potential) turd.
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BUT that's also why placeholder artwork is TERRIBLE and UGLY so it's obvious and doesn't slip through like this.
 
The Goat said:
I agree with most of you guys about it being a mistake. That it made it to Youtube, is the part that I can't believe. I'm sure this trailer was cut at least a couple days ago, so it had to have been shown around the office. You would have thought someone would have brought up the fact that there was "temp" art in the trailer.
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If this were an indie game/small team, sure. But as far as I can tell, Naughty Dog is pretty big nowadays. I can't say this for certain, but my guess is that the team is big enough that you may not know everyone by name, or if you do, you probably don't know every single asset they've created. There's no distinguishing features in that concept art, since the pirate was cropped out. So I can imagine it'd be easy to overlook it as "oh, one of the concept artists did that". And I can't imagine the concept artists are part of every trailer approval process.
 
Lo_Fi said:
As a game developer, I can see how this accidentally happened. Making games and trailers, you put in placeholder art that doesn't really matter until you get the final work in, so that you can at least get started on something. With sound effects, for example, I've learned to get some sort of sound in as quickly as possible so that you have SOME feedback, and then as you playtest and iterate, you can create your own sound effects/assets as you get further away from prototyping. For example, with that painting, early on in the trailer process, they probably didn't know for sure that that shot would be in the final trailer, so instead of having an artist potentially waste a bunch of time making an art asset, you grab something off google as placeholder to see if the shot even works. Don't waste your time polishing a (potential) turd.

Now, that said, they should have been aware of what was placeholder, so that they could replace it before actually launching the trailer. But I could see how things slip through the cracks. And they apologized and changed it, so good on them.



Yup, all the time. It's how you quickly iterate and prototype.

See: this tweet, showing an early version of Firewatch, with dialogue from the terrible movie The Room, as placeholder dialogue: https://twitter.com/Nelsormensch/status/701857597872173056
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While that's true, its only a possibility though. we have no idea what's the case here:

That they did this and forgot to replace it with the final artwork of their own
Or they didn't forget it but they were hoping nobody catches it

Lo_Fi said:
If this were an indie game/small team, sure. But as far as I can tell, Naughty Dog is pretty big nowadays. I can't say this for certain, but my guess is that the team is big enough that you may not know everyone by name, or if you do, you probably don't know every single asset they've created. There's no distinguishing features in that concept art, since the pirate was cropped out. So I can imagine it'd be easy to overlook it as "oh, one of the concept artists did that". And I can't imagine the concept artists are part of every trailer approval process.
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Perhaps they should do something to prevent such thing from happening yet again. They have been in this industry for years, and they are far from the only major AAA studios around, and there are numerous AAA titles released every year, but the chances of this case happening is extremely slim.

Perhaps like overlay ever placeholder images with a icon note that it should be replaced later with the final images or something. its a hassle but its something they should do.
 
Quadraphonic said:
BUT that's also why placeholder artwork is TERRIBLE and UGLY so it's obvious and doesn't slip through like this.
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Not necessarily all the time. Sometimes placeholder assets are there to convey the tone, mood, feeling, whatever, before you actually get the team to make something to replace it. Because you might be testing how that type of thing changes the game/trailer, rather than it existing being the thing you're testing. I agree, though, that in this case, the painting probably would've been less likely to slip through if they just put in an ms paint drawing or something.

ArtHands said:
While that's true, its only a possibility though. we have no idea what's the case here:

That they did this and forgot to replace it with the final artwork of their own
Or they didn't forget it but they were hoping nobody catches it
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If this were an early access game made with a ton of unity store assets cobbled together, sure. But this is Naughty Dog we're talking about. Why would they risk their reputation on something like this? That's ridiculous! It's not like they don't have artists to do that work.

We can't say for certain, but I'm pretty confident it wasn't intentionally left in.

Ever heard of the whole reason Too Human was pulled from store shelves? Silicon Knights stole source code from Epic. The penalty for that is that Too Human discs were literally pulled from store shelves everywhere, you can't buy it, and Silicon Knights got sued. While one piece of artworks is on a smaller scale, I don't think Naughty Dog is dumb enough to risk that for literally no reason. That studio is filled with some of the smartest people in the industry.

ArtHands said:
Perhaps like overlay ever placeholder images with a icon note that it should be replaced later with the final images or something. its a hassle but its something they should do.
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I agree, I'm not defending the mistake. I just think it's way more likely a mistake than intentionally done out of laziness/malice.
 
Class_A_Ninja said:
I've beat every Uncharted game to date. I beat The Last of Us. I don't feel particularly interested in tripping over myself to defend the company, as there does seem to be a problem culturally at ND.

Or, maybe I have my perception because people chose to beat up ND over likeness issues. And they get picked on for doing this where others dont because why?

A lot of reviewers commented on them making Jak 2 a GTA game out of the blue as well. Gameplay evolves as clones of games come out. Everything is a Doom clone! But the Jak 2 pivot seemed odd because people expected them trend set not follow someone else's lead.
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You should write this book of fiction you've been so busy peddling.
 
Whoa, this thread is 36 pages?

Good to see ND admit they made a mistake and credit the original artists. Is there a story here? I assumed so based on the length of this thread...
 
Lo_Fi said:
Not necessarily all the time. Sometimes placeholder assets are there to convey the tone, mood, feeling, whatever, before you actually get the team to make something to replace it. Because you might be testing how that type of thing changes the game/trailer, rather than it existing being the thing you're testing. I agree, though, that in this case, the painting probably would've been less likely to slip through if they just put in an ms paint drawing or something.



If this were an early access game made with a ton of unity store assets cobbled together, sure. But this is Naughty Dog we're talking about. Why would they risk their reputation on something like this? That's ridiculous! It's not like they don't have artists to do that work.

We can't say for certain, but I'm pretty confident it wasn't intentionally left in.

Ever heard of the whole reason Too Human was pulled from store shelves? Silicon Knights stole source code from Epic. The penalty for that is that Too Human discs were literally pulled from store shelves everywhere, you can't buy it, and Silicon Knights got sued. While one piece of artworks is on a smaller scale, I don't think Naughty Dog is dumb enough to risk that for literally no reason. That studio is filled with some of the smartest people in the industry.



I agree, I'm not defending the mistake. I just think it's way more likely a mistake than intentionally done out of laziness/malice.
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I am just exploring all possibilities without putting any emotion into them.
 
ProfessorMoran said:
What happened was wrong and unacceptable and I'm glad ND addressed this article, that said Ubisoft should just fuck off with all the fucking clunky games they make.
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Christ, it's like no one is safe from people lashing out their anger. Ubi didn't even do anything and people are shitting on them for no reason.

Like what in the fuck?
 
Ugh nothing worse than a politely worded and timely response from Naughty Dog.

I was really hoping for an FBI raid and some hard fucking arrests, if not a full closure of the studio.

It was well handled actually
 
Lo_Fi said:
As a game developer, I can see how this accidentally happened. Making games and trailers, you put in placeholder art that doesn't really matter until you get the final work in, so that you can at least get started on something. With sound effects, for example, I've learned to get some sort of sound in as quickly as possible so that you have SOME feedback, and then as you playtest and iterate, you can create your own sound effects/assets as you get further away from prototyping. For example, with that painting, early on in the trailer process, they probably didn't know for sure that that shot would be in the final trailer, so instead of having an artist potentially waste a bunch of time making an art asset, you grab something off google as placeholder to see if the shot even works. Don't waste your time polishing a (potential) turd.

Now, that said, they should have been aware of what was placeholder, so that they could replace it before actually launching the trailer. But I could see how things slip through the cracks. And they apologized and changed it, so good on them.



Yup, all the time. It's how you quickly iterate and prototype.

See: this tweet, showing an early version of Firewatch, with dialogue from the terrible movie The Room, as placeholder dialogue: https://twitter.com/Nelsormensch/status/701857597872173056
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable enough and logical to me. Thanks for the insight.
 
SlimySnake said:
BattleStar Gallectica Actress

Nadine_vs_Kandyce.gif~original



and now Ubisoft art.

When will they stop!!!!!
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You pretty much have to have never seen a black person for this to be remotely a problem.
 
RoboPlato said:
Members of the Assassin's Creed team called this to ND's attention. Eurogamer just reported it, which game news sites are supposed to do. AAA devs don't fling accusations at each other like this often.
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So a piece of placeholder was left in. So what?

There are thousands upon thousands of textures in a project that size, so for a single piece of set dressing to slip by without checking for copyright clearance -in a trailer- is not newsworthy.

It's minutia, that only has value for people desperate to try and find fault, or to benefit from manufacturing controversy.
 
Falchion said:
They apologized, seems like an honest mistake.
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I'm glad the fessed up, but stolen art is stolen art. Doesn't matter if they stole this from a AAA game, an indie, or just some random Deviant Art post. Uncharted 4 has a massive budget and millions of eyes on it; so it just seems weird that this happened.
 
How is it not hilarious that a AAA developer accidently used art made by another AAA developer as a set piece in their big trailer for their upcoming game?? I mean, c'mon people.
 
The Argus said:
I'm glad the fessed up, but stolen art is stolen art. Doesn't matter if they stole this from a AAA game, an indie, or just some random Deviant Art post. Uncharted 4 has a massive budget and millions of eyes on it; so it just seems weird that this happened.
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There's a "fair use act" that allows the public to use copyrighted material without permission under certain circumstances.

Taking the image for internal research would've been fine. It obviously ending up as part of promotional material is not fine.
 
Clear said:
It's minutia, that only has value for people desperate to try and find fault, or to benefit from manufacturing controversy.
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Literally the CD admitted to his team fucking up in this situation yet we still have people trying to downplay the issue which may or may not have been a mistake or a very blatant copyright issue caused by a member of the team who worked on that shot. It's good that ND was quick to change it.

travisbickle said:
There's a "fair use act" that allows the public to use copyrighted material without permission under certain circumstances.

Taking the image for internal research would've been fine. It obviously ending up as part of promotional material is not fine.
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That was kinda the issue. If game devs are displaying a private demo, technically they can put in copyrighted material, as long as it's not still in the game. And nothing about this would've been covered under fair use.
 
bitocoder said:
There are thousands of graphic designers and artists working for video game companies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what other company has had this issue three times now? There is some kind of managerial issue going on here where people are not being held accountable for their actions. If it was as easy as you claim, we'd see this much more often.
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This. They need to reevaluate their asset vetting protocol. Clearly something is wrong if shit like this can happen more than once.
 
Armchair project managers: The Official Thread.

Naughty Dog is one of the absolute highest profile developers in the entire industry, when they are spotted using copyrighted assets it's a far more attractive news story than if a five man indie team does something similar. Just because you don't hear about this happening with other dev's doesnt mean it's not happening. As a matter of fact, this is a reality of large projects that require contracted assets like this, this is a prevalent concern even in other areas of the software industry. You also don't hear much about this because it's largely not a big deal and is handled behind the scenes in private most times. What was different here is that the high profile reputation of the company coupled with the fact that it was used in an official trailer made for a nice juicy headline to slap on a story the day a new trailer drops.

I cannot, cannot, cannot stress enough how much this is being blown out of proportion. I spent pages of this thread wondering if there was some insane running joke I wasn't in on or something. Anyone who works in that industry or a similar one recognizes this incident with exactly the amount of concern necessary.

And that amount is zero.
 
Night Angel said:
TLOU map.
Ellie's original design.
This.

Not fucking Nadine's design unless you think all black people look the same.
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I'll give you TLoU map. As for Ellie, I'm fairly certain that was intentional and not an accident so you can't really blame the vetting process. They wanted an Ellen Page lookalike so they created one. Weather or not it's wrong is another topic that's been covered in the past.
 
Eeeehhhh. A very likely slip up. I imagine lots of placeholder art gets used in production and it's real easy to accidentally forget to flag an asset as being temporary.
 
I don't think most people here are really outraged at ND anymore since they already apologized. It was probably the act of one misguided employee that tried to cut corners.

The real problem was people trying to pass it of as it was nothing. That kind of stuff rubs people the wrong way.
 
FStop7 said:
I take it personally because I have had my photos stolen and I have friends and acquaintances who've had their own work stolen and plagiarized. People who do it are bottom feeders.
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It's probably just oversight where a placeholder was left in. I don't think they're stupid enough to steal something from within the industry and not expect to get caught.
 
Orin GA said:
I don't think most people here are really outraged at ND anymore since they already apologized. It was probably the act of one misguided employee that tried to cut corners.

The real problem was people trying to pass it of as it was nothing. That kind of stuff rubs people the wrong way.
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Because it is nothing?

I mean it's just a piece of art in a picture. Maybe they should have used the Mona Lisa instead.
 
Crossing Eden said:
Literally the CD admitted to his team fucking up in this situation yet we still have people trying to downplay the issue which may or may not have been a mistake or a very blatant copyright issue caused by a member of the team who worked on that shot. It's good that ND was quick to change it.
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It's a texture, not a "shot", and as I've already mentioned one among thousands,each of which is likely to have existed in multiple iterations over the course of development, going from placeholder to final.

The only thing blatant here is that there is a major and fundamental disconnect between how things actually work in large-scale project development, and how laypersons perceive that it works.
 
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