As someone who grew up watching Medabots back in the day, I have always wondered why the Medarot games stopped being translated and brought to the U.S under the Medabots name. I hope that once this is worked out we can start getting games again!
@@fernandobanda5734 At least we got the fan-translation for the first game now. Rather have everything official localized and available but It'll do for now.
They stopped localizing the games because they didn’t capitalize on the success of the anime when it first aired on jetix in America it was one of the most popular anime they even made a really bad GameCube game specifically for the western crowd that’s how popular it was. The game was horrible and they should’ve just translated the superior handheld games but they refused and were ultimately to late by the time they should’ve.
@@kaisarr7632 The GameCube game did exist in Japan, it was a translation. They also did localize all the games that were coming out (2 CORE and G/AX). It was just bad timing because that's when Medabots in Japan also stopped for years. EDIT: In the case of G/AX they even went through the effort of changing the Medabots, characters and story to the ones the West was familiar with. They did everything well.
I was just directed to your video from a mutual of mine that also has been keeping up on new developments of the project, and boy oh boy does the Medarot/Medabots Community here Stateside have some developments for you! It was largely thanks to crait's thread that curbed a LOT of Kevin's attempts to reach out or establish any lasting business partners, and their crypto coin has done nothing but fall in value and now currently is not even worth 2 cents at last count. They also tried to make a whole new SECOND coin to try and step away from the pushback that came with their first coin, which also naturally (and fully expected) failed in a glorious dumpster fire. In further good news, currently Imagineer is winning the EU case, and it looks like this nightmare might hopefully be over soon once a final ruling has been declared. We as the Western Medarot/Medabots community, and our friends on the Eastern side of the globe, have been fighting hard to bring Medarot back to the West so we can enjoy it collectively together! From one Medarotter to another, many thanks for taking the time to even cover the issue and talk about it. If you ever decide to cover Medabots again in the future, whether it be the TM issue or even the series as a whole, I'm planning to do a segment on my channel talking about the History of the series, since it just this November celebrated 25 years of customizable fighting robots, and would love to have you with me to talk about it!
Yeah this situation is destroying their reach to the west. Hopefully they win this lawsuit and finally start releasing Medabots video games again to the west without any problem.
I hope so. I am willing to try games from this series because other than this NFT scam problem, they aren't what I call ''mainstream'' Most western players have no idea what Medab/rots is, and even I don't know quite a lot about it other than the anime I saw when I was in my mid teens and the GBA game I saw a few times.
I once almost got involved in a fan project where the organizer lied to all of us and said he TOTALLY had the legal rights to make this revival game. Said he represented the studio and wanted to hire us all. As it went on (a few days into talks) it was clear he was just some over-ambitious fan who didn’t understand basic copyright and trademark laws. Bullet dodged.
@@crait Nah, it was some mobile game with monsters. A few years ago now and I’ve forgotten what it was, but yeah it was a similar (yet smaller) story to all this craziness. Haha
I’m a Metabot fan. The show first appeared to me on Fox Kids Saturday morning cartoons, then it got moved to YTV and was either a Saturday morning cartoon or was part of the pre show for Bionix the Friday night anime slot. I only ever remember watching the first season on TV and had to search the internet for the rest. Those were the good days, lol.
Heya! Lots has happened since that thread! Some highlights: Kevin lost in the EU, then appealed, he defrauded investors by removing one crypto token in the game and replaced it with another after promising he wouldn't, then he removed the second token, he pulled money from the chart, he blacklisted many people from trading, and he failed to pay many many of his employees. If you send me a DM, I can fill you in with a huge update I typed out. Kevin Comadran should be in jail.
Your dang right he should Be in jail. I just hope we could get a proper medabots game in the future, This time with no crypto bullshit And also have metabee and rokusho.
Speaking as an artist with my own story and with my own characters and such its typically common sense to google the name of what you plan to create to make sure you aren't going to infringe upon someone else's work. Like there is absolutely no excuse for them deciding to use Medabots here so hopefully they do end up losing the lawsuit because otherwise that set a bad precedence that will definitely hurt way more than just Imagineer in the long run.
The guy who is behind all of this, Kevin Comadran, said that he specifically picked this name because he was a fan of the show and games when he was a kid. He knew what he was doing.
I'm in the same boat, and yeah the fact that people can just steal a already owned IP and sell crypto using it is scary, if it can happen to an established franchise it could definitely happen to us future up in comers!
I saw this game in 2 ads the last few days. I honestly thought this was legit, and so did most of the people that interacted with the ads (at facebook at least where we can see comments) - it was a localized ad so they were all from Brazil, and most of 90's 00's kids (so people around 20 and 30 yo now) here grew with Pokemon, Digimon, Medabots and Beyblade, so yeah they knew who they were targeting. I guess they either got some popularity because *maybe* the game is ok/fun to play or they just pulled out the massive paid publicity. The whole 'I didn't know about the original franchise/game' is a complete BS. The only reason for the original franchise having 'meda' on the name was the fact that they 'powered' the robots with the 'medals'. You can't say you magically pulled of a almost exact copy of the robot concept AND got the idea of using 'MEDA' on the name out of nowhere. C'mon. Any actual serious company will research the title of the product beforehand, not only to know if there are already products with the same/similar name, but also to make sure you aren't releasing a product with a name that is already associated with 'bad things' within the market
Medabots isn't that popular, that's why they haven't released any of the games in English. I wish they would release the collection they ported to Switch though especially since something like that would be a good way to get more people interested in the series.
It isn't popular because the marketing and development isn't there. I think there's a huge potential for a pvp based online game around medabots. It would have been way more popular back in the day if it wasn't restricted to a cable TV channel. Shows like pokemon, yugioh, and digimon were only popular because they were on public broadcast and they had great game tie-ins. Games like Beyblade didn't do as well on its initial run because it was on ABC family which is also where medabots was. Once Metal Fight Beyblade got picked up by Cartoon Network at a time where everyone had cable, it did much better but by then medabots had already ended.
This situation reeks of the situation that went on with Macross franchise with the conversion into Robotech until recently and Tsuburaya losing out on their international publishing of Ultraman for a long time thanks to forged documents from Chaiyo (until recently). Situations that make use of very old license handling to exploit the brand.
Geeze, this is very informative because I think someone, (maybe even the same company that made the medabot game you are talking about,) released a 5min, proof of concept movie for a Small Soldiers game using Unreal Engine 5.
10:36 On using bought assets, (obviously don't pretend they're your own) there are interesting ways to use them. Overall quality and theme between ingame assets should match. There are ways to abuse the fact that they don't though if you want to go for a very hand picked, creepy pasta sort of feel. Imagine the different 'art styles' of madoka magica and the contrast that has with the regular animation. This is obviously a best case scenario, but a cool edge case at that. (I know this is slightly off topic, but I think it's neat)
From what I've messed around with in RPG Maker, I know this much -- make sure the assets match each other. Even seeing shovelware from Steam could tell you that, and it's baffling how little some "devs" care about the clashing styles.
This is wild! I got the nostalgic bug about a month ago with Medabots. Got the blue ray of the first 2 seasons. Hope we can get more love here in the west. For now I'm stuck playing my Rokusho gba and Medabots Infinity on the gamecube
I Wish I Could Robattle You On Both Rokusho RPG And AX Versions!I Have All Medals Maxed In Both Games And 99 Of Every Medapart In Both Games!I'd Beat You In Both Games!ULTRA SHOT!BARRAGE!FUNCTION CEASED!I WIN!
Oh, I didn't know there was a Medabot game on the Gamecube. I'm not a super mega fan of Medabots because it wasn't big here at the time when it was aired on tv. It was always like 8 episodes or something. I did like it and a friend of mine had the Medabots game on the GBA.
My guess on them letting the trademark expire is that it simply slipped their minds. Like mentioned, the name of the IP is Medarot in japan and they didn't release anything new in the west for about 20 years. The already localized games _were_ ported to the Wii U, but there were *a lot* of GBA games that got to the console around the 2010s, like the MegaMan.EXE series and Castlevania. Under normal circunstances I would prefer they just rebranded in the west to have that same name everywhere, but now that they had to take legal action to prevent futher damage to the brand, it's not so simple anymore
They released Blu-Ray videos and, like you mentioned, ports of their games like a year before Kevin registered the TM, though. They didn't do much, but they did release things in the US from time-to-time.
It’s crazy that I was lead to this video by researching Comadran studios, the company that produced this game. They just dropped a Small Soldiers trailer about a week ago that’s generating some buzz. Turns out much like this Medabots game it is an NFT grift of sorts where they sniped an expired IP and stole assets from another game they plan to ripoff. Interesting to discover all this and that the company has a history in this. This video has been informative. It pays to be vigilant and research.
I’m late but now I’m heated. I downloaded this game and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it. The side characters in the story mode actually have good lines and the card mechanics are fun. Now I feel terrible because I’ve been unwittingly supporting someone who stole an ip. The animations are also really good. I’m mad at myself all the same.
Also, the trademark has been marked as cancellation pending since last year and Imagineer's has been suspended for the same amount of time. Another thing I remember hearing a while ago was that they also tried to sue Imagineer in Japan for the trademark (which I am 100 present certain that they lost or it was dismissed). What makes no sense to me is why publish the game when you don't have the trademark; While I am not a lawyer I don't think that is a good idea because Imagineer would have every right to turn around a sue them for releasing the game.
good video. i'm very glad you relied on @crait's thread because he's been on the pulse of this. i would advise you either get in touch with him or check his twitter because i think he's continued to stay up to date with this stuff so would be able to fill in everything that's happened post-oct 2021. only thing i'd say as a first time watcher is that you noted that you were being careful about not stating your opinion, but i think you should be careful when reading things word-for-word - maybe practice narrating or scripting them beforehand instead. there's some mistakes that i kept hearing when i was listening to it - just small errors but you can see how they totally flip the story, especially when they add up. one example being you kept misreading "alicante commercial court" as "alliance commercial court". the court is important because the whole scam originated from the fact that the TM was applied for specifically through a localized court (alicante in spain) which i think is part of why imagineer never responded and unfortunately let the TM lapse. another is at 12:31, crait's tweet says "not understanding TM/IP law are NOT the same thing" and you read it as "not understanding TM/IP WEREthe same thing." i apologize for sounding so nitpicky but hope you understand where i'm coming from.
Saw ads on FB for the game a few times. Loved Medabots as a kid so figured I'd check it out but when I read the comments there was a guy who mentioned the game was made by a team who stole the brand and so i Googled it and here i am lmao
also are they unable to just use there Medarot brand instead I know it would take a bit of a hit and time for the name change to be known to fans outside of Japan but Story Of Seasons went through this when they were originally called harvest Moon in the west
I've always been hoping for more translated releases to the west or even better, completely new games (especially RPG; the GBA RPGs were so much fun) to be made and come to the west as well. Not that I have much hope for any of that happening even if this situation resolves, but a man can hope. And I hope this resolves in a good way regardless, of course.
So... the EU is to stupid to realize that an older company that has multiple established products using this trademark almost 30 years prior... is the actual rights holder....
Word is that the devs are rebelling as a lot didn't get paid to make the scam game. Also a lot of the scammer frantically trying to lie about the crypto to keep victims. You can probably get crait on twitter and ask. I think he has the avatar with the guy and the chicken.
Plus we don't want a cheap Medabots game that any company could do. The GBA game that I remember from long ago was really cool, and it would be awesome to have a Medabots game that looks very identical to Pokemon Scarlet when you can walk around and fight other trainers/robot owners thar you could fight. Imagine the potential of that.
Oh I remember seeing a fan made medabot game like years ago they had videos on TH-cam. Might be the same game? But it looked fun but also looked like a fan animation than a real game. Hmm thought it was natsume who had the medabot rights they were the ones that published the games we got in the states I don't know if they did the gamecube one but I know they did the two Rpg we got. But I guess natsume did became something different now. Their also a medarots mobile game in Japan already.
just one to point to one thing, having the assets store open in unity doesnt mean shit, cause sometimes you just need a plugin or a shader you are not willing to waste 1 week on creating from nothing.
And the game itself isn't even a good game on its own. Its core gameplay is dull, lackluster, and the combat is ripped from Fate Grand Order. And there's only 3 families of parts, and never the three shall meet, so customization may as well not be there. The only reason I suspected for even an instant this might be on the level was on one of their gacha banners, there was a bot that looks kind of like Samurai, but when I looked again I think it skirts the "legally distinct" line. And this game has FOUR different in-game currencies, even in absence of their crypto nonsense. Most of them just are there to convert to the main gacha currency, but the exchange rate is abysmal, as is the fact that the parts are all kind of... dull and not interesting in the slightest. Full review coming on my channel next.
Yeah this mobile game situation is so weird but yeah I prefer a potentially mediocre mobile game that the Japanese Medabots rights holders have allowed than participating in on a literal scheme to gain digital currency. Even if I only know the Japanese mobile game from the Battle Network crossovers.
I just found out about all this cause I was playing the game myself for the last week, and found it slightly odd there were no recognisable medabots in the game, and just on a whim decided to check if it was official. I did see that the reddit post version of that tweet thread acknowledged that they made two different crypto coins (first their medacoins, then medamons), and both of them got pulled out of the game. And I think he also mentioned that the devs of the game aren't getting paid. The worst part is that I actually enjoyed the game. Also, to play devil's advocate for just a moment, you seemed to conflate not knowing there were _medabots games_ as not knowing _medabots._ I would assume he just knew the franchise and the anime, and was not aware that they released games specifically. And to be fair, I also didn't know that for a long time (probably in part due to how incredibly sparse their western releases are).
@@pokedude583 If you asked him what color the sky was, he'd probably tell you "purple with pink pokedots and the rain is made of chocolate." He seems to go in cycles, he's just in the "we won in Japan" phase again to lure more people.
You want a Medabots/Medarot game? Go play Medarot S: Unlimited Nova. That's the official mobile game. Most recent crossover was the second Megaman Battle Network event.
So I'll also say, games in English + original language, is always going to be a smart move, sure, many countries where we speak English we don't speak other languages, but that isn't the case in other countries, many times if your native language isn't English, you'll learn English as well. It's the international language.
The developments these shady people are up to is just putting a bad taste in my mouth. Your choice of Team Snaggem(or was it cypher?) base music was perfectly on-point though.
When this is all over and Imagineer drives this shady company into the dirt, maybe we could get some sort of Medabots and Robotch cross over type of game.
Personally i think medabots might fit more into a bit of a looter genre, you defeat enemies to loot them for a part Also, if they're trying to renew the copyrights in EU, does that mean we can finally look forward to new medabots stuff?
Also letting something fester is too late buddy. Gacha games are technically monster taming, instead of monster tho it's waifu. They monetize the shit out of them and are basically p2w, weather it has pvp or not. So saying we have to talk about festering bad things in our genre, yea i think it's too late nobody did or say anything about gachas and here we are today. One day we'll get gacha Disgaea (Already a thing), gacha digimon, gacha Monster Hunter (idk how this one would work compare to the other ones), gacha pokemon is already a thing with masters. And once those games start making more money than the regular "mainline games" in our beloved genre, it's GG, game over. Cuz' they're gonna start only making gacha games for those titles, and monetizing them heavily, and not making the games we love or we used to love. Heck i see gacha games as a general nuisance for every genre. Even if the devs continue to make the regular mainline games, gacha games still rub me a wrong way. Cuz' it just opens the gates to heavy monetization. And it has been for too long now...
So like is there something we can do? I feel like I have to do something as a long time fan. This is a cult classic here and I watch this with a long time buddy at least once a year. We gotta save medabots
It blows me away that Medabots doesn't have at least a digital only presence in the west, the cost of localization and publishing would pay for itself even if it flops. Especially in this more open minded gaming age where the hobby of playing smaller / niche titles is booming.
I just want a Medabots game as well as a Pokemon game that's built for to be a MMO you can still have all the main story stuff for each gen, it can be added via patches, but just make a cross platform MMO of these games why is it so hard for the game devs to make some that will obviously be successful
Trade Mark is something you have to actively defend and sue everything remotely close to your product or name, i.e. look at some apple lawsuits, where they are sueing Aunt Janines Apple Bakery because it has the name apple in it, it's a BAKERY not even remotely close to selling Mobile Phones, but that's just Apples aggressive defense of their Trademark.
Although it's long, the video made by folding ideas, or Dan Olson was it? Anyway, line goes up, will tell you all you need to know about this type of thing. And this is highly disgusting. I'm going to get medabots metabee and AX was it? Just so I can play medabots again. Also, a FUDder is some who spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Highly toxic things for insubstantial hype based products. Or more likely, scams.
Game is named Mybots now, and the site is down, so I guess the license is back on it's holders. Let's hope now they will give some love to us westernes if only to prevent grifters like this.
Hey, Ed! I don't if you're aware already (you probably are), but I just saw that a Brazilian mon game project is on the works. Not much indo besides the poster. It's called Bágdex. There is a dex app too, with the monsters and their inspiration. It's really good. Also, sorry it's not related to the video.
On the subject of the Monster Taming genre, _are Medabots and Digimon "Monster Taming" game series?_ Medabots is an affectionate parody of mon games sure, but you aren't catching or raising them. (Unless improving the medals counts as raising.) Digimon games NEVER have you catching them, and thanks to Fusion (Xros Wars) it never will.
This shouldn't even be a Thang that company made the medabots name and franchises first even if it's medarots over there and medabots over hear it's just translated that way thay made there's before he made his he should just cut his losses and make a new name for his game
It may be because once he finally loses, he'll most likely get sued for damages big time, as some people think his stuff is the legit medabots, and the nft stuff may have damaged the brand.
As someone who grew up watching Medabots back in the day, I have always wondered why the Medarot games stopped being translated and brought to the U.S under the Medabots name. I hope that once this is worked out we can start getting games again!
Unfortunately, the games stopped being localized a decade before this problem. There's always hope but chances are very very slim.
@@fernandobanda5734 At least we got the fan-translation for the first game now.
Rather have everything official localized and available but It'll do for now.
@@fernandobanda5734 in this era we have more hope than ever, if fucking bubsy and monster rancher can make a return so can metabots
They stopped localizing the games because they didn’t capitalize on the success of the anime when it first aired on jetix in America it was one of the most popular anime they even made a really bad GameCube game specifically for the western crowd that’s how popular it was. The game was horrible and they should’ve just translated the superior handheld games but they refused and were ultimately to late by the time they should’ve.
@@kaisarr7632 The GameCube game did exist in Japan, it was a translation. They also did localize all the games that were coming out (2 CORE and G/AX). It was just bad timing because that's when Medabots in Japan also stopped for years.
EDIT: In the case of G/AX they even went through the effort of changing the Medabots, characters and story to the ones the West was familiar with. They did everything well.
I was just directed to your video from a mutual of mine that also has been keeping up on new developments of the project, and boy oh boy does the Medarot/Medabots Community here Stateside have some developments for you! It was largely thanks to crait's thread that curbed a LOT of Kevin's attempts to reach out or establish any lasting business partners, and their crypto coin has done nothing but fall in value and now currently is not even worth 2 cents at last count. They also tried to make a whole new SECOND coin to try and step away from the pushback that came with their first coin, which also naturally (and fully expected) failed in a glorious dumpster fire.
In further good news, currently Imagineer is winning the EU case, and it looks like this nightmare might hopefully be over soon once a final ruling has been declared. We as the Western Medarot/Medabots community, and our friends on the Eastern side of the globe, have been fighting hard to bring Medarot back to the West so we can enjoy it collectively together! From one Medarotter to another, many thanks for taking the time to even cover the issue and talk about it. If you ever decide to cover Medabots again in the future, whether it be the TM issue or even the series as a whole, I'm planning to do a segment on my channel talking about the History of the series, since it just this November celebrated 25 years of customizable fighting robots, and would love to have you with me to talk about it!
Commenting to bump this
this whole thing has been a mess, im just glad its nearly over
@Mint Flav was he castrated?~😊
Are you sure about this? I have read that Comadran win the trial, but I don't know is the EU or the Japan
@@Medax7 A lot of their community have been spreading out that "they won" when really nothing is fully resolved yet and they don't have any evidence.
Of course an NFT bro is the one behind this. All they know how to do is steal and scam.
Yeah this situation is destroying their reach to the west. Hopefully they win this lawsuit and finally start releasing Medabots video games again to the west without any problem.
I hope so. I am willing to try games from this series because other than this NFT scam problem, they aren't what I call ''mainstream'' Most western players have no idea what Medab/rots is, and even I don't know quite a lot about it other than the anime I saw when I was in my mid teens and the GBA game I saw a few times.
@@GaiaLegendNL I like the Gameboy games starring Henry
Once that happens it’s gonna take over again.
Lol why am I not surprised the nft bros are the one taking advantage of the situations
I once almost got involved in a fan project where the organizer lied to all of us and said he TOTALLY had the legal rights to make this revival game. Said he represented the studio and wanted to hire us all. As it went on (a few days into talks) it was clear he was just some over-ambitious fan who didn’t understand basic copyright and trademark laws. Bullet dodged.
Which series was it for?? Medabots??
@@crait Nah, it was some mobile game with monsters. A few years ago now and I’ve forgotten what it was, but yeah it was a similar (yet smaller) story to all this craziness. Haha
That's so annoying, I loved Medabots and hate seeing greedy people ruin it.
I’m a Metabot fan. The show first appeared to me on Fox Kids Saturday morning cartoons, then it got moved to YTV and was either a Saturday morning cartoon or was part of the pre show for Bionix the Friday night anime slot. I only ever remember watching the first season on TV and had to search the internet for the rest. Those were the good days, lol.
If you think that you are late know that I didn't even know that this IP left Natsume hands lmao
Heya! Lots has happened since that thread! Some highlights: Kevin lost in the EU, then appealed, he defrauded investors by removing one crypto token in the game and replaced it with another after promising he wouldn't, then he removed the second token, he pulled money from the chart, he blacklisted many people from trading, and he failed to pay many many of his employees. If you send me a DM, I can fill you in with a huge update I typed out. Kevin Comadran should be in jail.
I’m glad the fraud was taken down
Your dang right he should Be in jail. I just hope we could get a proper medabots game in the future, This time with no crypto bullshit And also have metabee and rokusho.
Oh hey your the guy
Fool didn't even pay his employees, terrible move.
Thats crazy D:
Casual fans like me would never had idea this was the problem.
Speaking as an artist with my own story and with my own characters and such its typically common sense to google the name of what you plan to create to make sure you aren't going to infringe upon someone else's work. Like there is absolutely no excuse for them deciding to use Medabots here so hopefully they do end up losing the lawsuit because otherwise that set a bad precedence that will definitely hurt way more than just Imagineer in the long run.
The guy who is behind all of this, Kevin Comadran, said that he specifically picked this name because he was a fan of the show and games when he was a kid. He knew what he was doing.
@@crait gah, I hate pr!cks like that. IDK how he can say he's a fan in any capacity and then do something like this.
I'm in the same boat, and yeah the fact that people can just steal a already owned IP and sell crypto using it is scary, if it can happen to an established franchise it could definitely happen to us future up in comers!
@@timelink3315 it can always happen. thats why companies send out Cease and Desist Letters
@@sonic-bb True, even though some of those letters are bogus it's a necessary way of doing business.
I saw this game in 2 ads the last few days. I honestly thought this was legit, and so did most of the people that interacted with the ads (at facebook at least where we can see comments) - it was a localized ad so they were all from Brazil, and most of 90's 00's kids (so people around 20 and 30 yo now) here grew with Pokemon, Digimon, Medabots and Beyblade, so yeah they knew who they were targeting. I guess they either got some popularity because *maybe* the game is ok/fun to play or they just pulled out the massive paid publicity.
The whole 'I didn't know about the original franchise/game' is a complete BS. The only reason for the original franchise having 'meda' on the name was the fact that they 'powered' the robots with the 'medals'. You can't say you magically pulled of a almost exact copy of the robot concept AND got the idea of using 'MEDA' on the name out of nowhere. C'mon. Any actual serious company will research the title of the product beforehand, not only to know if there are already products with the same/similar name, but also to make sure you aren't releasing a product with a name that is already associated with 'bad things' within the market
Medabots isn't that popular, that's why they haven't released any of the games in English. I wish they would release the collection they ported to Switch though especially since something like that would be a good way to get more people interested in the series.
It isn't popular because the marketing and development isn't there. I think there's a huge potential for a pvp based online game around medabots. It would have been way more popular back in the day if it wasn't restricted to a cable TV channel. Shows like pokemon, yugioh, and digimon were only popular because they were on public broadcast and they had great game tie-ins. Games like Beyblade didn't do as well on its initial run because it was on ABC family which is also where medabots was. Once Metal Fight Beyblade got picked up by Cartoon Network at a time where everyone had cable, it did much better but by then medabots had already ended.
What is sad is the people behind this scandal is plan to do the same thing with small soldiers
that's super fucked... smh
I believe they are doing a legal battle in the United States (and many Canada too).
Man, that's crazy. Can't believe this is the first I'm hearing about this.
This situation reeks of the situation that went on with Macross franchise with the conversion into Robotech until recently and Tsuburaya losing out on their international publishing of Ultraman for a long time thanks to forged documents from Chaiyo (until recently). Situations that make use of very old license handling to exploit the brand.
I was thinking the same thing.
about time more people started talking about the copyright/trademark situation
Geeze, this is very informative because I think someone, (maybe even the same company that made the medabot game you are talking about,) released a 5min, proof of concept movie for a Small Soldiers game using Unreal Engine 5.
A pose is when the arms aren't perfectly horizontal
I really hope that we can someday celebrate a modern reboot of Medabots.
10:36 On using bought assets, (obviously don't pretend they're your own) there are interesting ways to use them. Overall quality and theme between ingame assets should match. There are ways to abuse the fact that they don't though if you want to go for a very hand picked, creepy pasta sort of feel. Imagine the different 'art styles' of madoka magica and the contrast that has with the regular animation. This is obviously a best case scenario, but a cool edge case at that. (I know this is slightly off topic, but I think it's neat)
From what I've messed around with in RPG Maker, I know this much -- make sure the assets match each other. Even seeing shovelware from Steam could tell you that, and it's baffling how little some "devs" care about the clashing styles.
This is wild! I got the nostalgic bug about a month ago with Medabots. Got the blue ray of the first 2 seasons. Hope we can get more love here in the west. For now I'm stuck playing my Rokusho gba and Medabots Infinity on the gamecube
I Wish I Could Robattle You On Both Rokusho RPG And AX Versions!I Have All Medals Maxed In Both Games And 99 Of Every Medapart In Both Games!I'd Beat You In Both Games!ULTRA SHOT!BARRAGE!FUNCTION CEASED!I WIN!
Oh, I didn't know there was a Medabot game on the Gamecube. I'm not a super mega fan of Medabots because it wasn't big here at the time when it was aired on tv. It was always like 8 episodes or something. I did like it and a friend of mine had the Medabots game on the GBA.
Medabots digital pets are on the vital bracelet that people are importing and the BE bracelets do digimon, mha, demon slayer etc as well
My guess on them letting the trademark expire is that it simply slipped their minds. Like mentioned, the name of the IP is Medarot in japan and they didn't release anything new in the west for about 20 years.
The already localized games _were_ ported to the Wii U, but there were *a lot* of GBA games that got to the console around the 2010s, like the MegaMan.EXE series and Castlevania.
Under normal circunstances I would prefer they just rebranded in the west to have that same name everywhere, but now that they had to take legal action to prevent futher damage to the brand, it's not so simple anymore
They released Blu-Ray videos and, like you mentioned, ports of their games like a year before Kevin registered the TM, though. They didn't do much, but they did release things in the US from time-to-time.
It’s crazy that I was lead to this video by researching Comadran studios, the company that produced this game. They just dropped a Small Soldiers trailer about a week ago that’s generating some buzz. Turns out much like this Medabots game it is an NFT grift of sorts where they sniped an expired IP and stole assets from another game they plan to ripoff. Interesting to discover all this and that the company has a history in this. This video has been informative. It pays to be vigilant and research.
Im honestly shocked you didnt' know anything about this, Ed. though im glad you made a video about it.
I’m late but now I’m heated. I downloaded this game and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it. The side characters in the story mode actually have good lines and the card mechanics are fun. Now I feel terrible because I’ve been unwittingly supporting someone who stole an ip. The animations are also really good. I’m mad at myself all the same.
Such a messy situation
Man i just started watching medabots again. Hopefully we get more games like medabots the show. Such a cool concept
Also, the trademark has been marked as cancellation pending since last year and Imagineer's has been suspended for the same amount of time. Another thing I remember hearing a while ago was that they also tried to sue Imagineer in Japan for the trademark (which I am 100 present certain that they lost or it was dismissed). What makes no sense to me is why publish the game when you don't have the trademark; While I am not a lawyer I don't think that is a good idea because Imagineer would have every right to turn around a sue them for releasing the game.
good video. i'm very glad you relied on @crait's thread because he's been on the pulse of this. i would advise you either get in touch with him or check his twitter because i think he's continued to stay up to date with this stuff so would be able to fill in everything that's happened post-oct 2021.
only thing i'd say as a first time watcher is that you noted that you were being careful about not stating your opinion, but i think you should be careful when reading things word-for-word - maybe practice narrating or scripting them beforehand instead. there's some mistakes that i kept hearing when i was listening to it - just small errors but you can see how they totally flip the story, especially when they add up.
one example being you kept misreading "alicante commercial court" as "alliance commercial court". the court is important because the whole scam originated from the fact that the TM was applied for specifically through a localized court (alicante in spain) which i think is part of why imagineer never responded and unfortunately let the TM lapse. another is at 12:31, crait's tweet says "not understanding TM/IP law are NOT the same thing" and you read it as "not understanding TM/IP WEREthe same thing." i apologize for sounding so nitpicky but hope you understand where i'm coming from.
is there an update to the shenanigan's about what's happening with Medabots/Medarot
Left a comment saying how medabots deserves more on their instagram ads. They blocked me and deleted my comments instantly.
This suuuuuuucks, Medabots is one of my favorite franchises and I really want them to come back somehow
Medafighter ready?
Medabots robattle!!
I always wondered what happened to this series. Been so long, I thought it failed or something
That's fucking wild. Getting back into medabots recently, and was not expecting a cryptoscam around the franchise.
Saw ads on FB for the game a few times. Loved Medabots as a kid so figured I'd check it out but when I read the comments there was a guy who mentioned the game was made by a team who stole the brand and so i Googled it and here i am lmao
also are they unable to just use there Medarot brand instead I know it would take a bit of a hit and time for the name change to be known to fans outside of Japan but Story Of Seasons went through this when they were originally called harvest Moon in the west
I've always been hoping for more translated releases to the west or even better, completely new games (especially RPG; the GBA RPGs were so much fun) to be made and come to the west as well. Not that I have much hope for any of that happening even if this situation resolves, but a man can hope. And I hope this resolves in a good way regardless, of course.
So... the EU is to stupid to realize that an older company that has multiple established products using this trademark almost 30 years prior... is the actual rights holder....
It's because Kevin continues to appeal his losses.
Medabots was my favorite show as a kid and I was excited about the mobile game until just now when I found out all of the behind the scenes stuff
Have there been any new developments?
I can only find articles talking about this from 2021, do you have any idea about the updates for 2023? I'm kinda worried...
Word is that the devs are rebelling as a lot didn't get paid to make the scam game. Also a lot of the scammer frantically trying to lie about the crypto to keep victims. You can probably get crait on twitter and ask. I think he has the avatar with the guy and the chicken.
Welp, time for a new name. Medamechs, Medadroids, Medagears ?
Story of Medas seems fitting
Medadroids sounds cool af!
I JUST WANT ANOTHER MEDABOT GAME FFS. I WANNA BUILD AND SWAP BOTS DAMNIT
Plus we don't want a cheap Medabots game that any company could do. The GBA game that I remember from long ago was really cool, and it would be awesome to have a Medabots game that looks very identical to Pokemon Scarlet when you can walk around and fight other trainers/robot owners thar you could fight. Imagine the potential of that.
Scrap Metal Heroes was great. I need to get a proper flash player emulator working so I can play it again
And shout out to us in the custom robo crowd...
Oh I remember seeing a fan made medabot game like years ago they had videos on TH-cam. Might be the same game? But it looked fun but also looked like a fan animation than a real game. Hmm thought it was natsume who had the medabot rights they were the ones that published the games we got in the states I don't know if they did the gamecube one but I know they did the two Rpg we got. But I guess natsume did became something different now. Their also a medarots mobile game in Japan already.
just one to point to one thing, having the assets store open in unity doesnt mean shit, cause sometimes you just need a plugin or a shader you are not willing to waste 1 week on creating from nothing.
And the game itself isn't even a good game on its own. Its core gameplay is dull, lackluster, and the combat is ripped from Fate Grand Order. And there's only 3 families of parts, and never the three shall meet, so customization may as well not be there. The only reason I suspected for even an instant this might be on the level was on one of their gacha banners, there was a bot that looks kind of like Samurai, but when I looked again I think it skirts the "legally distinct" line. And this game has FOUR different in-game currencies, even in absence of their crypto nonsense. Most of them just are there to convert to the main gacha currency, but the exchange rate is abysmal, as is the fact that the parts are all kind of... dull and not interesting in the slightest. Full review coming on my channel next.
I would play the shit out of Medabot S Unlimited Nova if it was localized.
Same!
Medabots is in a weird position, and im actually surprised their creators didn’t make new games or a new series to get new and old fans back
they did one example is a phone game? with cool crossover events
Yeah this mobile game situation is so weird but yeah I prefer a potentially mediocre mobile game that the Japanese Medabots rights holders have allowed than participating in on a literal scheme to gain digital currency. Even if I only know the Japanese mobile game from the Battle Network crossovers.
I'm disappointed that medabots met this fate.
I just found out about all this cause I was playing the game myself for the last week, and found it slightly odd there were no recognisable medabots in the game, and just on a whim decided to check if it was official. I did see that the reddit post version of that tweet thread acknowledged that they made two different crypto coins (first their medacoins, then medamons), and both of them got pulled out of the game. And I think he also mentioned that the devs of the game aren't getting paid. The worst part is that I actually enjoyed the game.
Also, to play devil's advocate for just a moment, you seemed to conflate not knowing there were _medabots games_ as not knowing _medabots._ I would assume he just knew the franchise and the anime, and was not aware that they released games specifically. And to be fair, I also didn't know that for a long time (probably in part due to how incredibly sparse their western releases are).
His original version not only copied medabots GBA exactly, but he stole the Infinity models and modded them. er... most of them.
@@ryanboyce4542 Ah so he's just a liar, cool
@@pokedude583 If you asked him what color the sky was, he'd probably tell you "purple with pink pokedots and the rain is made of chocolate." He seems to go in cycles, he's just in the "we won in Japan" phase again to lure more people.
Can you make an update for this?
You want a Medabots/Medarot game? Go play Medarot S: Unlimited Nova. That's the official mobile game. Most recent crossover was the second Megaman Battle Network event.
Please someone tell me how to get the third metabot in the game
So I'll also say, games in English + original language, is always going to be a smart move, sure, many countries where we speak English we don't speak other languages, but that isn't the case in other countries, many times if your native language isn't English, you'll learn English as well. It's the international language.
The developments these shady people are up to is just putting a bad taste in my mouth. Your choice of Team Snaggem(or was it cypher?) base music was perfectly on-point though.
When this is all over and Imagineer drives this shady company into the dirt, maybe we could get some sort of Medabots and Robotch cross over type of game.
Show still going? thought ended long ago!
Personally i think medabots might fit more into a bit of a looter genre, you defeat enemies to loot them for a part
Also, if they're trying to renew the copyrights in EU, does that mean we can finally look forward to new medabots stuff?
Kinda like hte Gundam Breaker games!
I think they will localize stuff for the West after these lawsuits.
@@crait I sure hope they will. I'm really interested in purchasing localized medabots stuff again.
Also letting something fester is too late buddy. Gacha games are technically monster taming, instead of monster tho it's waifu. They monetize the shit out of them and are basically p2w, weather it has pvp or not. So saying we have to talk about festering bad things in our genre, yea i think it's too late nobody did or say anything about gachas and here we are today. One day we'll get gacha Disgaea (Already a thing), gacha digimon, gacha Monster Hunter (idk how this one would work compare to the other ones), gacha pokemon is already a thing with masters. And once those games start making more money than the regular "mainline games" in our beloved genre, it's GG, game over. Cuz' they're gonna start only making gacha games for those titles, and monetizing them heavily, and not making the games we love or we used to love.
Heck i see gacha games as a general nuisance for every genre. Even if the devs continue to make the regular mainline games, gacha games still rub me a wrong way. Cuz' it just opens the gates to heavy monetization. And it has been for too long now...
I love how companies like wasting their time just to get a name. Bro just call it Metabot or any other bot name. It doesn't have to be Medabot.
Exactly. Kevin did this specifically to conflate the IP and confuse the consumer.
MedaBots is def monster-taming along with Zatch Bell you’re just taming robots and babies 🥰
Lol baby taming 😂
Zatch Bell isn't babies you idiot. It's Yokai
@@dynastygirl2912 lol chill he's joking
@@GymLeaderEdLol isn’t that what parenting basically is? It sure feels like that sometimes 😂😂🥰
@@Ookami20 hahahaha, especially when I make my kids shoot fire at eachother 😈
Speaking of the App, I downloaded yesterday and started playing it today, thought it was decent, tho I am planning on to get the JP 3DS games 🤔
Definitely US too I suppose considering there is no English translations for the medabots for the digimon vital bracelet collaboration at all
NFT should be sued for copyright. They basically stole the entire premise of the REAL Medabots, which has been in existence since 1997
Thanks for explaining all of this.
It has gotten worse over time
So like is there something we can do? I feel like I have to do something as a long time fan. This is a cult classic here and I watch this with a long time buddy at least once a year. We gotta save medabots
Sucks but at least grateful for the games we do have but man new content would be appreciated. These games are so much damn fun.
And people wonder why Gamefreak is so protective of their IPs. This is what happens if you don't protect your trademark.
It blows me away that Medabots doesn't have at least a digital only presence in the west, the cost of localization and publishing would pay for itself even if it flops. Especially in this more open minded gaming age where the hobby of playing smaller / niche titles is booming.
I remember diving down this weird weird rabbit hole after finding that NFT shit game on the App Store.
You did the thing :D
I just want a Medabots game as well as a Pokemon game that's built for to be a MMO you can still have all the main story stuff for each gen, it can be added via patches, but just make a cross platform MMO of these games why is it so hard for the game devs to make some that will obviously be successful
Temtem is doing good...
How that copyright doing these days?
Trade Mark is something you have to actively defend and sue everything remotely close to your product or name, i.e. look at some apple lawsuits, where they are sueing Aunt Janines Apple Bakery because it has the name apple in it, it's a BAKERY not even remotely close to selling Mobile Phones, but that's just Apples aggressive defense of their Trademark.
Although it's long, the video made by folding ideas, or Dan Olson was it? Anyway, line goes up, will tell you all you need to know about this type of thing. And this is highly disgusting. I'm going to get medabots metabee and AX was it? Just so I can play medabots again.
Also, a FUDder is some who spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Highly toxic things for insubstantial hype based products. Or more likely, scams.
Medabots would be a great fit for a gacha or an online mmorpg, i don't know why nobody has come with that idea yet!
There is a gacha, it's called Medarot S, but it's Japan only and we probably won't get Global version because of this trademark thing
@@TadeMGG I know the game! looks great but unfortunately i was never translated to other languages :/
This whole sitation reminds me of the south park episode about the football team
I'm here from playing the app, and hoping to find a physical TCG for Medabots. The app card battler is bad.
RIP to a franchise
Game is named Mybots now, and the site is down, so I guess the license is back on it's holders. Let's hope now they will give some love to us westernes if only to prevent grifters like this.
Didn't think I'd see this situation addressed on your channel
This whole thing is so silly lol
Yea its crazy lmao
We need a metabot game
Hey, Ed! I don't if you're aware already (you probably are), but I just saw that a Brazilian mon game project is on the works. Not much indo besides the poster. It's called Bágdex.
There is a dex app too, with the monsters and their inspiration. It's really good.
Also, sorry it's not related to the video.
Of course it's a crypto bro ruining things for people
On the subject of the Monster Taming genre, _are Medabots and Digimon "Monster Taming" game series?_
Medabots is an affectionate parody of mon games sure, but you aren't catching or raising them. (Unless improving the medals counts as raising.)
Digimon games NEVER have you catching them, and thanks to Fusion (Xros Wars) it never will.
and people wonder why nintendo shuts down fan projects so often.
Metabots would be amazing!!
I love the different robots games
cant bealive the spain guy got away with it.
So basically this guy is the bad guy... he's the reason we aren't getting stuff?
Nfts? Yuck
Como fã de robôs e máquinas isso é muito triste
This colleseum music is creepy
This shouldn't even be a Thang that company made the medabots name and franchises first even if it's medarots over there and medabots over hear it's just translated that way thay made there's before he made his he should just cut his losses and make a new name for his game
It may be because once he finally loses, he'll most likely get sued for damages big time, as some people think his stuff is the legit medabots, and the nft stuff may have damaged the brand.
I have this game on my phone. It's SO bad.