Microsoft puts an end to Halo Fan-Game

Halogen, a fan-based game in the RTS genre has been banhammered by Microsoft due to Intellectual Property issues after three-years of development without a word from them.

This in-development RTS game Halogen, found (for now) at halogen.slipstreamproductions.net has been in serious progress for three-years without word from Microsoft.

Now, Microsoft has sent them the word saying "stop" and they have no other options but to comply. Their site will be signing off soon and the last message from the developers reads:

Friends,

For the last three years, we've worked incessantly to bring you the best Halo mod that we could. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but somehow Halogen has always managed to come out kicking. The problem with using copyrighted intellectual property as a base for a fan project is that you're very susceptible to legal action. We always figured that since Halogen was such a different take on the Halo franchise, we might manage to make it without incident. That changed today.

Hours ago, we finally recieved the words we've been dreading since the mod started to get noticed. Microsoft has decided that we are infringing on the intellectual property of Bungie Studios and has asked us to stop development on Halogen.

- The Halogen Team

This shouldn't be too surprising for the team of developers, after all, they are stealing a very successful franchise's intellection property. However, what caused Microsoft to wait three-years before putting a stop to it? Maybe they didn't think it would take off and become something fans were watching on a daily basis?



In my humble opinion, as a software developer, I would have thought to go to Microsoft first and ask for permissions before writing a single line of code. Perhaps the developers hoped Microsoft would be "take them under their win" and become rolled into the Microsoft team like Bungie Studios?

Well, unfortunately for them, the project has ended and its time to move on. Maybe they can change the artwork and script and continue a different path to its destination? Who knows...