People have been asking for a legitimate "Friday the 13th" video game for years. However, no one had the funds and tools to develop an interesting and innovative take on the genre.
Finally, 25 years after the last game, we learned that someone was turning the popular horror franchise into a game, which excited horror fans all over the country. However, the digital version of Jason Voorhees has already claimed his victim, according to Bloody Disgusting.
According to reports, the new "Friday the 13th" game is a multiplayer experience, where players have to play as a group of teens who are trapped and hunted by serial killer Jason Voorhees (controlled by another player). The game's mechanics sound similar to the recently beta-tested "Evolve," which has four players hunt a player-controlled monster.
However, it turns out that the studio wasn't the first one to imagine such a game. The Kickstarter campaign for horror/slasher game "Last Year" featured a similar gameplay system, where one player would control a serial killer while four others would control his victims. However, the makers behind the "Friday the 13th" game requested that Kickstarter pull the game from its site over issues of copyright infringement.
This isn't the first time that Kickstarter has pulled campaigns over issues of copyright. Last July, Kickstarter pulled the campaign for FPS shooter "Areal" after the creators declared it to be the "spiritual sequel to the STALKER series" without the approval of the STALKER creators.
Was "Last Year" an economic threat or clear copyright infringement when talking about "Friday the 13th?"
It's hard to say. While the 4-victims/one-killer gameplay concept is strangely similar, it's hard to say if that's enough to encroach on a copyright infringement. Many other games have used the same set of game mechanics to tell semi-similar stories before without getting in trouble.
