Cryptic's Retort to Marvel

Voodoo Extreme has a short blurb with links to the players in the Marvel vs. Cryptic legal battle. The short response from Cryptic says it all: "As reported by The Associated Press, Marvel Enterprises Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc. have sued NCsoft Corporation and Cryptic Studios. The complaint is meritless. Cryptic Studios is confident that the District Court will reject all of Marvel's claims and fully vindicate Cryptic Studios in all respects."

Comments

Marvel may have one minor point...

[LordZardoz]

If Marvel is suing because I can play City of Heros and create a character that is modeled after, say, the Incredible Hulk, that is a large green superstrong hero, then they are in the wrong.

But if cryptic is puting out advertisements with characters that look to have the same powers and appearance of various Marvel Superheroes, like the Hulk, or Cyclops, or Spiderman, then Marvel has a point.

My opinion regardless of written law:

I think that Cryptic has the right to make a game where i can design a superhero of my choosing, regardless of what I used as inspiration.

I think that Cryptic cannot market their game by trading on the popularity of characters created by Marvel without Marvels permission.

END COMMUNICATION

People can't help it.

[lasmith05]

I think most of us are super unoriginal and like to make our characters like our favorites.

A question

[Moby Cock]

I have not played the game, so I ask this. Is the character generator very generic or are there specific character models available?

The discussions on this game to date have never been entirely clear on this. I ask because, it seems to me, that if the character generator is generic and players choose to model their avatar after Superman or the Hulk then that can hardly be the fault of the game maker. If they are premade charcter types that borrow heavily from Marvel or DC property then this is a whole different kettle of fish.

So gamers, I ask of you, which is it?

Re:A question

[Piscine Disputant]

I played until recently. There are no premade characters per se, but there are things like the "bulky" character model, and individual items like a visor that resembles cyclop's, a haircut that resembles wolverine's, things like that.

My own personal view is that since the character creation options run into the billions, Marvel is making an ass out of itself with this lawsuit. Perhaps next they will sue Bic or HB for making drawing implements with no safeguards to prevent the user from sketching Marvel characters.

P.S. I am never buying or paying for another Marvel product ever again.

they can't help it

[Julian Morrison]

How could they avoid "market[ing] their game by trading on the popularity of characters created by Marvel without Marvels permission"? If it hadn't been for Marvel and DC, who would have thought of "guy who flies while wearing his underpants on the outside" etc etc as a game topic?

Re:they can't help it

[LordZardoz]

They can avoid it the same way that the new movie, "The Incredibles" avoided completely ripping off the Fantastic 4.

Even though 3 of the 4 main characters had literal power matches to the Fantastic 4, they werent direct ripoffs.

An indirect ripoff is to be expected. But its not too hard to throw a cape and tights on someone and have it not be a Superman ripoff. Just make the guy blond, and dont use blue tights and a red cape.

END COMMUNICATION

Re:Maybe cryptic, but...

[over_exposed]

Isn't that the basis of the story?

Slippery slope this one

[Attaturk]

After all anyone that plays MMORPG's has bumped into more than their fair share of characters named Legolas, Gandalf, Drizzt etc. Is every MMORPG developer going to have to censor player characters in case they bear a resemblance to a character portrayed somewhere in popular fiction? IMHO Marvel should shut up - CoH has helped feed the ongoing superhero zeitgeist, which is much more help than hindrance.