Capcom shuts down Ghosts 'N Goblins: Demon World Kickstarter

Capcom has terminated the Ghosts 'N Goblins: Demon World Kickstarter campaign, claiming it infringes copyright.

"The project acknowledges its goal is to create an update to the Ghosts 'N Goblins franchise based upon the characters, stories, music and other copyrightable elements of the Property," said Capcom's DMCA notice.

"Such unauthorized update would clearly violate Capcom's exclusive rights under copyright law to create derivative works of the Property. It would also violate Capcom's trademark rights in the Property. The project admits it will need Capcom's permission to proceed and has not received one. To its knowledge, Capcom has not been contacted by the project."

The campaign's Kickstarter page is now gone, with the DMCA notice in its place.

The news shouldn't come as a huge surprise to Phantasm Studios, which was well aware it did not have Capcom's permission.

"Capcom only promised to review our submission, and nothing more. We have only discussed a possibility of a developer's license if the game is up to their standards. We do not currently have one and may not get one," said CEO and founder Monty Singleton when the campaign launched.

"If we can't secure a developers license we will change King Arthur and the name of the game, but that is all. Thankfully werewolves, demons, skeletons, reapers, ghosts, goblins, etc. are all public domain. The modifications will be so minor, the changes will be easy and will not change our release schedule."

Phantasm Games has yet to publicly comment on the shut down.