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Wizards And Pokemon Face Off Over CCG

Posted by simoniker on from the schoolyard-dustup-over-cards dept.

Thanks to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for their article discussing a lawsuit filed again The Pokemon Company by Wizards Of The Coast, following Pokemon USA's taking-over of the (formerly?) lucrative WOTC-helmed Pokemon collectible card game franchise. The suit "alleges patent infringement, breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortuous interference with a business relationship, unjust enrichment and other claims", and mentions that "at least nine employees" have defected to Pokemon USA, and that "...all of the employees had signed non-disclosure agreements in which they agreed not to reveal confidential information to competitors." MSNBC has more information on this story, and while a WOTC spokesperson "expressed confidence that the issue... would be resolved", Pikachu declined to comment at this time.

2 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Re:WOTC should have never had the rights by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "And naturally Nintendo is not at fault at all for releasing Sapphire and Ruby versions, which did not allow connectivity to the previous versions,"

    It's a hardware issue here, not software. The older versions were for older hardware that used older link cable protocols (including the physical layer) than the GBA now uses. If they enabled GBA link cable protocols to be backwards-compatible, I can almost guarantee you there wouldn't be multi-boot games (among other nice features) for the GBA.

    Besides, forcing players to start over in a video game is lost time. Forcing players to start over in a CCG means spending $100+ trying to play catch up.

  2. Re:WOTC should have never had the rights by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "they altered the game rules, took the foils out of every pack(Inspiring more purchases)"

    This right here is what has had me turned off to CCGs (and collectible minis) since I first tried M:TG. I don't like the "spend spend spend!" mentality that that makes these companies seem worse than GW in comparison. I want to collect things I have a reasonable chance of getting without having to tithe a percentage of my paycheck for several years. I feel like I'd get more satisfaction playing the lottery.

    Aside from my addiction to the GameCube game, I'm loving the Animal Crossing cards because they're easy to get. The hard part isn't trying to find this character or that design, it's trying to find a store (other than Nintendo's website) that still carries series 1 cards.