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Law. Law always changes, and it's honestly a bit of a nightmare. Last Friday, Gearbox Software filed a suit against Apogee Software, the owners of Duke Nukem 3D developers* 3D Realms. Gearbox bought the Duke Nukem franchise off 'em back in 2010, and now they're accusing 3D Realms of failing to mention that they didn't own the copyright to some of the game's music. This…
Duke Nuke 3D composer taking Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, and Valve to court
With a back catalogue including Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D, Bobby Prince certainly helped define the sound of much of early 3D shooters. Like most folk, though, I reckon he's also a fan of getting paid for his work. Last week, the musician raised claims that 2016's expanded re-release Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour included his music without asking nicely beforehand.…
The future of ElDewrito, a Halo Online mod expanding and improving that cancelled spin-off into what Dominic Tarason called "the best PvP Halo experience you can find on PC today", looks grim after Microsoft's lawyers got involved. The problem, the Halo overlords say, is that ElDewrito violates Microsoft's rights by using Halo Online content. The ElDewrito team are uncertain about what this means, and while…
Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, the lead developers of the original Star Control games, have sent their lawyers into the fight Stardock started over the series and filed a counterclaim of their own. Stardock are currently making a reboot-o-prequel to the sci-fi RPG-o-adventure, named Star Control: Origins, after buying Star Control assets from Atari in 2013 and want to make quite clear who's in…
Fan remakes and reimaginings are labours of love living on a knife-edge, potentially blooming into a glorious monument to their adoration but knowing that one single letter from the owner could shut everything down at any moment. Sol Contingency has received that letter. It was to be a shiny "reimagining" of Parallax's splendid six-degrees-of-freedom space shooter Descent in the UDK, but owners Interplay have stopped…
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome to another legal goings on industry punch up. This time in the red corner, hailing from Seattle and weighing in at approximately several billion pounds, it's Valve. Meanwhile, in the blue corner, the challenger Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) seeks to do battle on the basis of "misleading consumer guarantee representations" under the 2011…
This was yesterday's news of course, but it seems too bleakly funny to neglect mentioning here. Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is suing Activision from his jail cell, claiming the use of his name and image as a CODBLOPS 2 baddie is unjust and misrepresentative. While his lawyers do note that "Plaintiff was portrayed as an antagonist and portrayed as the culprit of numerous fictional…
Feature: Magic's gathering anger
Uh-oh.It seems like only almost exactly a month since I was musing on the existence of Hex: Shards of Fate and its similarities to Magic: The Gathering. Well, it turns out that a month before that Wizards of the Coast (or, more accurately, their lawyers) were doing a little more than raising an eyebrow. They've gone whole hog, taking Cryptozoic and sub-company Hex Entertainment to…
Feature: The Law Won
In a perhaps not too surprising result, the case in Germany brought against Valve that attempted to demonstrate the right to resell Steam games was lost last week. Brought by German consumer group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv), this was a second attempt to see a court rule that consumers have the right to resell their Steam games. Like you can with any physical gaming product. And…
Feature: Stoic In The Face Of A Crushing
This afternoon King - owners of Candy Crush Saga and an ever-increasing percentage of the dictionary - issued a statement defending their actions regarding the news that they had filed an opposition to Stoic's attempts to trademark "The Banner Saga". A defence that seems odd in the face of what's actually happening. Especially as they're arguably attempting to assert a trademark they don't actually have.…
Feature: The Saga Saga
Yesterday the internet was alive with the news about King, owners of Candy Crush Saga, their trademarking of the word "Candy", and their ensuing threats to other developers who are using the word in their game titles. The response from King was to flap their eyelashes and protest innocence - they were only defending the Earth against evil, not liberally chasing anyone and everyone. About…
Feature: Ville Or Villeany?
Update: The memo we saw is now publicly posted here.EA have announced tonight they're planning to sue Zynga, over the similarities between the recently released The Ville, and Maxis' The Sims Social. It's not the first time that Zynga has released a game that looks astonishingly similar to another company's game, but it's the first time they've met an opponent big enough to fight back.…
Feature: A License That's Brill
Well here's some pretty huge news. The Court Of Justice of the European Union has just ruled that people should be able to resell downloaded games. In an environment where publishers are trying to destroy basic consumer rights like the ability to resell physical products you've paid for, this could be one heck of a turnaround for customers. And that's no matter what it might…
Feature: Property Is Theft?
What do you own? Looking through my possessions, I feel fairly comfortable that the food in my fridge belongs to me. And I have an odd confidence that the hardware in my PC is mine. But the books on my shelves? I seem to have very little rights over them. The CDs stacked up in a cupboard (remember CDs?) certainly aren't my property. And the…
A while back, on a slow news day, I wrote a spoof story about there being only one man left at Infinity Ward. I'm started to wonder if it was prophecy. The Modern Warfare developers are rapidly running out of employees as more leave, many to join Respawn Entertainment, the new studio started up by former Infinity Ward top dogs, Vince Zampella and Jason West.…
