Ninja Pig Studios Accused Of Stealing Pixel Art

Ninja Pig Studios Accused of stealing pixel art for forthcoming Wii U release Jumpy Cat.

Posted Tue 20th Jan 2015 18:20 by Damien McFerran

This week is currently set to see the launch of Ninja Pig Studios' next Wii U eShop title, Jumpy Cat - but the developer behind the infamous Meme Run is already in hot water thanks to accusations that it has used stolen pixel art in its new game.

Jumpy Cat is slated for release on January 22nd in North America, but Richard Davey of UK-based Photon Storm has petitioned Nintendo of America to pull the game as it uses artwork taken from a pixel art tutorial featured on the Photon Storm's blog.

Davey has stated that the images shown in the tutorial are only allowed to appear in projects which are 100 percent free. Jumpy Cat will cost 99 cents when it launches on the eShop.

At the time of writing the Jumpy Cat page on the official Nintendo of America site is listed as "unavailable", but it's not known if it has been taken down or if the current surge of traffic directed towards Club Nintendo is to blame.

Needless to say, we'll be keeping a close eye on things and will update this post if any new information comes to light.

Posted by 8 Bit Dreams @ 2/18/2015 09:42 | 16

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, February 2015, 8 Bit Dreams Posts

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Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 2/24/2015 17:47

Wrong thread! Sorry!

ParkerBabyDiaperCompany (Level 2 King Checker) @ 2/24/2015 16:36

cyanmogue, or whatever his name is, was

Scarodactyl (Level 8 Ruby) @ 2/24/2015 15:50

I don't think anyone threatened to sue., and I don't think he was actually infringing on any copyrights or protected IP. I think it was more the collective disapproval of the community that made him reconsider charging for it.

Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 2/23/2015 17:02

Now, PR will never come back for sure.

ParkerBabyDiaperCompany (Level 2 King Checker) @ 2/23/2015 14:31

Some artists were threatening to sue, so he basically said he is only a college student who did it for a project and then apologized and refunded all the money.
Maybe the book is available for free now, idk.

Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 2/23/2015 14:27

What happened to that book anyway?

Scarodactyl (Level 8 Ruby) @ 2/23/2015 09:02

I don't think they are or ever were on OpenGameArt.org. I maintain a complete collection of all platformer assets there, and I feel like I would have seen them. But I'll take another look...

edit: yeah, no sign of them that I can find. The saddest part is that we really DO have a crapton of platformer assets on OGA. If they'd wanted to use something legitimate and free they did have a lot of options.

Erico (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/22/2015 21:10

All broken links to me now.

Te art book is ok for me, a direct copy is not.

ParkerBabyDiaperCompany (Level 2 King Checker) @ 2/22/2015 16:35

I agree, same with the guy who was trying to sell that pixel art book recently.

But when there's money involved, the gloves come off.

DawnBringer (Level 10 Pixel artist) @ 2/22/2015 15:04

I kinda feel sorry for the young kid who made this game... learn how to code one week, face an international shitstorm the next!

Cyangmou (Level 9 Federal Agent) @ 2/22/2015 13:55

yeah the art on the tutorial is from IlKke (as far as I know).

The guys who produced the tutorial obviously do care Skeddles

and even if it's ugly, it's all about how stuff gets handled.

"PhotonStorm said:

Due to the speed at which the page was removed I believe it was Ninja Pig who pulled it, and not Nintendo. After they lied to us on twitter about where they "found" the art of course.

The saddest thing of all is that had they bothered to ask, we would probably have let them use the art anyway! (had full credit been given). But it's always the same.. they take and act like jerks when challenged over it, rather than apologise. Just sad to see this happen on a console I love so much."

States pretty much everything.

Asking to use something is the least someone can do.

yrizoud (Level 6 Aquamarine) @ 2/22/2015 12:57

Zadaben : iLKke is part of Photon Storm team.

ParkerBabyDiaperCompany (Level 2 King Checker) @ 2/22/2015 12:12

I wonder who stole from whom

Zadaben (Level 1 Faerie) @ 2/22/2015 11:39

http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/20202.htm
It looks like those pixel artists in turn stole the designs from this.
Unless these are characters from something I hadn't heard of before.