Hey, everyone.

I wanted to make you aware of a change that’s going to be coming to Skullgirls in the Fukua patch.

Valentine’s default color scheme possibly violates the copyright for the Red Cross’ emblem, and thus Marvelous has asked us to change it.

In particular, any instances of red crosses on a white background must be changed. So in addition to Valentine’s default palette, Ileum in the Lab 8 background, Parasoul palettes 4 and 11, as well as any story art containing Valentine all have been changed.

A little background on this…

The Red Cross’ emblem is protected by the Geneva Conventions. As such, in the last few years, the Red Cross has moved to protect its copyright in various media, and in video games in particular. While they have not come after us, they have requested changes in numerous games both big and small. Whether or not the Red Cross would actually complain, two years after the game’s initial release, remains unknown.

This is one of the things Japanese platform holders checks for when approving games. For the original Japanese release, Cyberfront signed a legal letter saying they would take responsibility should the Red Cross ever take action. However, with Marvelous assuming publishing duties for PSN Japan, XBLA and PC, they have opted not to sign such a letter given the general uncertainty of the situation and their potential level of exposure.

We investigated other ways to proceed, such as transferring responsibility to Autumn. But Marvelous, as a publicly traded corporation, cannot knowingly violate the law, even if another company volunteers to assume responsibility.

We’re not particularly happy about this change, but we are going along with it because we think it’s the best thing for the game, and don’t want any further impediments to stand between us and the Japanese PSN re-release.

Here’s what Valentine will look like after this transition is complete:

Thanks for your understanding.