Here’s a story that hit during our week off – it’s one you probably already know about, but as it’s potentially something that’s very bad news for PC gaming, it’s only fair and right to give you fine folks a convenient place to discuss it. Massively (thanks, Larington) has one of the better summations and explorations of what’s going, as they seem to have clever people with some grasp of law on their staff. RPS, by contrast, has a philosopher, a youth worker, a biologist and a literature graduate. We’re no good at this stuff.
The crux of the story, though, concerns patents 6,219,045 and 7,181,690. In (something like) English, those refer to “scalable virtual world client-server chat system” and “system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space”. There’s space for a lot of give and take in those descriptions, but you get the point – two fundaments of pretty much every MMO past, present, and probably future.
Read the rest of this entry »
