No matter how hard our kindergarten teachers tried, some people never really wrapped their heads around the idea that stealing is bad. Take, for instance, the Quirk Ford dealership in Massachusetts and the Firewatch artwork it stole for a promotional event.
Firewatch is video game that garnered lots of press earlier this year because of its intriguing storyline and beautiful artwork—the same artwork Quirk Ford, um, acquired. Players take on the role of Wyoming firewatcher Henry who has to solve a back country mystery all on his own.
The game was a joint effort between Campo Santo and Panic, and both took to Twitter on Monday to call out Quirk Ford’s unfortunate artistic license. Panic called out the dealership with a reference to Firewatch’s characters.
😒 Ahh, remember when Henry and Delilah were excited about the Ford Freedom Sales Event? #ripoffexpress @camposanto pic.twitter.com/kF5wZnH1ZT
— Panic Inc (@panic) June 27, 2016
Campo Santo co-founder Sean Vanaman followed up with a tweet confirming Quirk Ford didn’t have permission to use any images from Firewatch. Game Informer called the dealership to find out why they used the art, but got hung up on in response.
Come on down to the Quirk Ford Freedom Sales event where ur free from such things as “copyright” and “infringement!” https://t.co/78HMQdyJqy
— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) June 27, 2016
Quirk Ford is a regional dealership and acted on its own, so don’t expect to see the Panic and Campo Santo teams brand new (and totally free) Ford trucks any time soon. What we can expect is that Quirk Ford’s advertising team is going to pay much closer attention to image licensing in the future.
There are plenty of stock image sites with graphics Quirk Ford could’ve licensed, and Google’s image search feature can find free to use commercially graphics. That comes in handy for companies without a budget to pay for images—you know, like a regional car dealership with its own advertising division.
What a terrible thing to do. I swear I will NEVER buy a car from them.
OK admittedly they are on the other side of the continent
And they’re in a different country
And the last time I owned a Ford, Reagan was president
So the chances would have been pretty low.
But nonetheless I feel confident in saying I will never buy a car from them.
Probably
I can vouch that it’s a great game. It was even playable on my older 2011 15-inch Macbook Pro despite having some serious specs. The visuals are awesome and the gameplay is great.
I haven’t yet purchased this game (due to past platform support concerns) but I’ve learned that for a limited time it’s on sale via Steam. Check it out!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/