Over a year ago, Anthony Burch debuted on the game development scene withRunner. Since that time, Anthony has gone on to achieve super-stardom with his video seriesHey Ash Whatcha Playin’,Rev Rant, andOnce Upon a Pixel. The former Destructoid editor now works for Gearbox, creator of the surprise hitBorderlands, and is currently hard at work on their next game.
Long afterRunnerwas released, upstart game developer Gaijin Games co-opted use of the Runner name for their auto-run platformer,Bit.Trip RUNNER.Legal battles ensued, withboth sides claiming rightsto the name and the characters associated withRunner. Long story short, Anthony was forced to either shutRunnerdown for good, or change the game’s name and graphics so that they’re no longer associated with theRunner-mythos. If Anthony refused to comply with this, he’d be forced to fork over all proceeds earned fromRunnerto Gaijin Games.
As the creator ofRunner‘s character graphics, that means thatIneeded to make all these changes, or else Anthony would hold me responsible and force me to make the appropriate payments to Gaijin Games myself. I was just informed of thislate this morning.Bit.Trip RUNNERwas released in the United States today. That didn’t leave me much time, but for better of worse, here it is, the new version ofRunner—Robocop 4. I did my best to make sure the original artistic messages ofRunnerremained intact, but now with characters and icons that I personally own, a few of which have been owned by my family for years. For instance, Roland McDoland, the hot dog loving clown, was created by my great-grandfather when he was just a budding art student in Munich. Good thing he had the foresight to have the character copyrighted and trademarked right quick.
Oh, and if any game developers, movie studios, comic book companies, or others in the media dare to use any of my family’s cherished characters without permission, they better get Johnny Cochrane on the phone pronto, because they’re about to get their asses burned by a hot lawsuit. I have my legal team on speed dial.
Oh, and you can download thegame here if you want. Hope you enjoy it!
