High-five! I started replaying Chrono Trigger just a few days ago, as well!

It sucks that the fan-made remake was canceled, though.

 I'm sure they're's greed involved and i'm sure its most of it. As it's business, But I remember a quote of something from one of them like "the sales of the game ds game don't tell me you want a sequal/remake". But then again, FF7 sold a hell of a lot, and so did Advent Children and Crisis core so it's kinda a contradiction there.

From an artistic perspective...  if I created somehting I wouldn't want anyone else touching it but that's just me. But, I'm not what this problem is aimed at as, I didn't like chrono trigger that much.

You can say, that it wouldn't hurt square-enix. But you couldn't say that it for sure wouldn't, it's there call. To think valve isn't greedy is ridiculous as well. you have to be greedy to some extent or you go out of business.

For example, they promised HL2 episodic content quickly but I think they'll just make what they promised into half life 3. But that's just me.

This was not a Square endorsed project; if it was, then there would be no trademark violation. They would have to seek prior consent in order for it to be so, they did not receive that. The legal boundary is fairly clear in this situation. It has nothing to do with greed, you just perceive it that way. It has to do with the intellectual rights of the creator, and the legal obligation to maintain those trademarks. No product stakeholder in their right minds would give up the trademarks of something even close to the level of a product like Chrono Trigger.

Just to make it clear. Square is legally obligated to protect their own intellectual property; or else they legally surrender rights they have. Then a company like Namco could legally release their own version of Chrono Trigger, and there would be nothing Square could do to stop them - since they would no longer hold the trademarks they filed for the game.

What happens? Shareholders will get angry, the company value declines because there will be less incentive to own stock. People on the legal staff might get fired over dropping the ball.

It's just not fair for people to accuse Square of being greedy or bullies for exercising their right to maintain their intellectual properties.

Neither is the Black Mesa mod an official endorsement in the legal terms, Valve just gave the go ahead for the developers of the project. 

They could bar it as easy as Square did for this project, instead they chose the other way. I'm not saying that what Square did was wrong, far from it, it's in their right, but, in my opinion (which this entire thread was based around), is that they took the way that gave them less trouble.

They could have easily took the project under their wing and give it proper legal support by making it an official Square project. The engine was there, the staff was there, the man power was there. They would have to throw even less money if they were making the project themselves. 

There's so much else they could do, and I'm pretty positive that this project would have garnered a good projection for Chrono Trigger, if Square had done things a bit better. 

uh. after watching the play through video...it doesn't seem to be a remake at all, since that scene never happened.

Well, that video showed some tidbits of the pre-alpha build, they just put together that scene to show how it would look like in gameplay. Look at the trailer and you'll see that the idea was indeed a remake.

why a remake for a game that works just fine the way it is?

why did those fans not try to make their own game but rip off creativity and ideas from someone else?

By that logic, then mods that enhance previous entries of a game to the most recent capacities are also rip off  

We don't know what they would add and how it would have been in the end. The remake could have been solely on the story side, while adding new functionalities. 

I always saw this project as a major mod project. It differs in nothing from one.

I dont play mods, thank you very much.