When Bungie and Hasbro decided to create a real-life, dart-equipped Nerf version of one of the most famous Fate 2 Weapons, someone was lazy and stole a fan artist's nine-year-old work instead of recreating the Ace of Spades from scratch.
On Bungie's most commendable side, after a quick investigation, the gaming company just announced that it will “ensure” that Tofu Rabbit is compensated and appropriately recognized “for her incredible artwork.”
As you can see from Tofu's examples below, this is an incredibly clear case of copying, despite the changes the artists at Bungie or Hasbro made to the blaster.
While one would assume that Bungie owns the original blaster design, Tofu was able to show that details were copied from her fanart, right down to the brush strokes. Bungie did not provide a statement The edgeHasbro did not immediately respond.
But yesterday Tofu said The edge Bungie has already been “polite and encouraging” in private messages and expressed hope that the situation could be resolved soon, as Bungie has dealt with similar problems in the past.
In fact, this is not the first or even the second time that Bungie or a contractor has plagiarized Determination Fan art, but it has compensated and honored some previous fan artists after it was denounced.
“If you're an existing player, you probably have many of the requirements to earn the title, but for new players, it requires an almost ridiculous amount of time,” my colleague Nick Statt tells me.
That's a shame, because I would have loved to own this blaster. It looks like one of the best licensed blasters Hasbro has ever made, a six-shot revolver with two removable cylinders and battery-powered motors for firing. Years ago, when Nerf released a licensed Watch Revolver, it didn't really spin.