When it comes to the “relationship” between video game developers and those who play their titles, there’s a fine line between “imitation” and “stealing.” There’s a reason things like ROMs are a bit of a “touchy subject,” or why companies like Nintendo block certain videos on YouTube because they feature mods that go far beyond what the dev intended for the title. But in reverse, it’s not fair to the gamers when a dev takes something from them without permission and makes money off something they made for themselves. A situation that is apparently going on with Elder Scrolls Online.
The beloved MMORPG is not long from getting its next expansion, but developer Zenimax Studios has another situation to take care of before that. This is related to an artist named Relan Daevath, who posted on Tumblr that he made a special fan art three years ago featuring certain characters in the game. They were incredibly detailed images, and they were praised when he posted them in 2020. But, in a new post, he revealed that The Elder Scrolls Online had not only found his art, but had taken it and put it on one of their cosmetic skins in the game, showing off a screenshot that proves that the art from his piece was put onto this cosmetic skin. A skin that you can buy for real-world money. Money that Relan isn’t getting:
“Well I know that all rights to the characters belong to Zenimax etc. But using someone’s fanart through copy-paste without notifying the author is also not very nice,” Daevath said. “I would be flattered by such an assessment of my work if I were asked. But I wasn’t…”
Thankfully, there is some good news to say on this. Once it made the rounds that Relan’s art had been stolen and put into the game, Zenimax immediately went to work to try and find a resolution to the problem and posted about it online:
Relan himself confirmed that the company reached out to him about the art, and talks are ongoing.
This is a big deal because the community of gamers that love making fan art or mods of their favorite properties do it to have fun and sometimes get noticed. But now imagine their hard work getting stolen by the game dev they respected so that they can make money without even revealing who did the work for them. Not cool, so hopefully, this gets adjusted so it can never happen again.
