I doubt there will be a letter... there's been an enthusiast-driven project to remake Lego Rock Raiders (Manic Miners if you're interested) for years now, and not only is Lego aware, they've actually provided some of the original assets for the game (the intro movie and some misc. graphics) to help the project along. As long as no one is monetizing it they don't seem to much care.
Which like... is the balanced view IMO? Like nobody is making money off this or the Manic Miners project, it's not detracting from any games Lego is actually releasing right now, and absent those factors, it's essentially free advertising and building community goodwill. I wish more companies would take this "it's not hurting us, just let it be" route for fan projects instead of guarding their IP like a dragon.
TL;DR: it's in a gray area, but nobody with power actually cares (at least for now), so it's effectively fine.
As I understand it, Lego is aware of the project (there's been a significant increase in interest in Lego Island in the past few years, with attempts to obtain the original source code) and simply does not care. It's an ancient IP and can't realistically compete with anything new, at least not in a way that would significantly affect Lego's revenue. This is not unlike the way several other companies have acted when their respective older games have been given the same treatment; if a fan project is not actively causing problems (reputational, financial, etc.), most companies will just leave it alone. For companies that actually seem to care about public opinion (as opposed to, say, Nintendo), I think it's fair to assume that the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project, however legally justified it might be, far outweigh any possible benefits.
> the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project
Just last month LEGO shut down Masks of Power, the Bionicle fan game. They were really close to a release and LEGO had allegedly met the team and given them permission in the past.
I'm increasingly convinced that fan projects should be developed quietly and announced right on release, so they at least exist somewhere on the internet if they get shut down immediately after.
I don't see where you've read that they accepted donations. Every article and Reddit post I find says they didn't? It was indeed releasing on Steam for free, but I don't know if they had contacted LEGO before doing so.
Also, this wasn't the only Bionicle game that LEGO had endorsed, Quest for Mata Nui too, which makes this even more of a heel-turn. They won't have to shut down that one, though: the team went silent and then the main dev passed away.
I did, actually, because on my phone it's in a burger menu hidden below the Internet Archive banner; thanks for pointing that out.
I see the project itself didn't accept donations but they pointed visitors at each dev's personal donation page, with no guarantee that it would go towards the project. I can see legal thinking that's bullshit, although I'd be surprised if most of those hadn't already been setup by the time LEGO originally gave them the ok.
Specifically, I would assume the calculus is about "how much damage does this do by existing" versus "how much risk is there that we attempt to shut it down and sue and set a precedent by losing", and because for most projects the first value is tiny and the second value is potentially enormous, companies leave them alone.
When either value changes drastically in scale (e.g. a project does something making it very cut and dry which side of legal precedent it falls on, or to massively increase the damage to The Brand(tm)), that's when you get worried.
Nintendo and Lego are on the same level when it comes to sue people for trademark violations. There are several cease-and-desist orders against YouTubers for calling no-name bricks legos.
This is how I feel when I hear or see people use the word “maths”, but I simply accept the cultural differences in language.
Though I don’t think throwing an “s” on a word to make it plural, even if technically incorrect, is on the same level as “basgetti”. Adding an “s” to words to make them plural, is generally a good rule, there are just some exceptions, and not that many people are deep enough into Lego to know it’s one of those exceptions.
From my experience they also have quality as a moat. No budget manufacturers seems to be getting the tolerances Lego is getting. There could be producers that are getting there though, but I don't know them.
Note that companies usually ignore fan projects like this and don't mention them at all. If they would mention and tolerate them, it weakens their intellectual property in a future lawsuit.
Once fan projects get too much traction, companies have to cease and desist them because that's the way intellectual properties work in the law. It usually has nothing to do with whether it was a cool project or not, it's just that there's way too much money at stake when not defending your IP.
Amusingly I actually have Video of Atari's Lead of Marketing playing OpenRCT2 on Stream, giving away RCT2 Keys to promote RCT World. To this day, Atari has left us alone though, so yeah it's pretty much not worth it to them to try anything.
If I recall correctly, somebody found out that the original creator of the game, Chris Sawyer, despises the OpenRCT2 project -- but he can't do anything about it, because the rights belong to Atari.