Slashdot Mirror
The History of Videogame Lawsuits
AsiNisiMasa writes "1UP is running an interesting piece detailing the history of lawsuits in the gaming industry. It reveals a bit about Nintendo's old strong-arm tactics, the origin of the third party developer, Electronic Art's employee abuse, and of course plenty of violent games being 'linked' to violent behavior. Jack Thompson gets an entire page to himself." From the article: "To show their appreciation, Atari took Activision to court, claiming that the company didn't have the right to develop Atari games. Atari lost, and more companies decided to follow in Activision's footsteps, creating the concept of third-party developers. It was a defining moment for video games."
Let's capitalize on all these video game lawsuits and design an entirely new game based on them: You're playing as one of the major game companies, and you have to do as many sneaky under-handed things as you possibly can before the sharks – er, lawyers representing players, EA employees, and concerned parents – catch up with you!
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
It was not too terribly great, as the animations were lousy and the computer AI would gang up on you.
basiCreations Software
...Atari took Activision to court, claiming that the company didn't have the right to develop Atari games. Atari lost, and more companies decided to follow in Activision's footsteps, creating the concept of third-party developers.
But then Nintendo took Atari to court for creating third-party games for the NES and somehow got the opposite result. I do wish there were penalties for paying off judges in the United States.
This article is incomplete to the point of being misleading. It misses whole point of PC games. I played my first game on PC, it was huge IBM with reels and game I played was Space Invaders.
Jack Thompson gets an entire page to himself.
That's good. Just what the guy needs. More notoriety and attention.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Atari won a lawsuit against Sega in the mid-90s. I think it had to do with the fact that Atari had a copyright on certain types of scrolling backgrounds in games. Sega used a lot of scrolling backgrounds in their late 80s / early 90s games.
The Tramiels used the 90+ million dollars they won to keep Atari afloat until '96.
Sure, Windows PCs dominate the market. But so do cheap toupees.
They skim over the fact that when KC Munchkin lost to PacMan, there were dozens of other copycat games that were suddenly too risky to market, which contributed to the industrywide 'cold spell'.
as to how once nintendo beat off 3rd party developers with a stick, and now would love to see some 3rd party support, eh? eh? eh, nintendo?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Viddi Piddi Po Piddi...Actually, I do have something to say ontopic, I'm just seeing first if I get modded down by some idiot with mod points who won't even take the time to read my post before striking me down with all his hate.
To be blunt: you are a fucking nutter!
Also, the insane paragraph is less likely to get you modded down than the slashdot blasphemy with which you close.
Apart from that, the structure of your post points to some sort of substance abuse. Are you drunk? Anyway, good luck with all your financial endeavours and whatnot!
As someone who has personally been sued by a gaming company over intelectual property, i would say that gameing companies tend to be WAY overprotective of their intelectual property... http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/10/ 0347222&tid=211&tid=123
I owned and operated a website devoted to hacking and modding console games such as Soul Calibur 2 and Dead or Alive. These mods did nothing but add to the longevity of their games.
It doesn't take much to muscle someone around with our court system and ridiculous digital copyright laws... Chances are if you don't have enough money to fight back (like myself, being a college student) they will get their way regardless of weather or not they have a legitimate case against you.
-cypher35 [ninjazombie.net]
Scientology-Online:
Buy This and We'll Sue You
David Crane was on "The Screen Savers" when Tech TV existed and mentioned that Activision settled with Atari, and paid royalties to Atari on every cartridge.
Coleco also paid royalties on their VCS emulator / expansion module. Atari made tons of money off of the bad games since they got a royalty from everyone basically. The myth got started because the settlements were non-disclosed. Atari was the first collectors of licesenses and they didn't care how bad the games were as long as they got their cut. And Atari had some of the most tennacious lawyers in the business. A month wouldn't go by before some lawsuit was announced from Atari-Warner.
What - you think Atari became as large as they did so fast because of sales of Pac Man and ET?
He also attempted to link Rockstar's Manhunt and the killing of British teen Stefan Pakeerah by his 17-year-old friend, Warren LeBlanc. The courts denied that the game was a factor, seeing as the game was owned by the victim, not the killer. Thompson later told IGN that the British Tabloids fabricated his involvement with the case.
So was Thompson actually involved in the case or no?
If only something like this would happen to Konami, instead making their overly borad patent on the DDR game pad design less valid so that there can be some real competition in the dance simulation game genre instead of it being an unsteady (legal-wise) battle bwteeen In the Groove, Dance DanceRevolution, and Pump it Up.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
This whole article reads like a 6th grade book report on the Steven Kent book.
1 34956685/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3046164-8793630?n =507846&s=books&v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761536434/qid=1
Get the book, it's a better read and a lot more detailed.
That's because we're all too busy playing our DSes.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an operation to perform in Trauma Center.
It is rare to see an article devoted to decades of lawsuits seriously covering this subject matter in such an enjoyable, highly readable and appropriately tongue-in-cheek way.
Bear that bookmark in mind as one piece to submit on upcoming calls for contenders to the crown of "online journalism of the year" awards...
Jack Thompson
We never said Nintendo has never done evil, we just ask that if Sony and Microsoft are going to do evil they not set the carpet on fire in the process
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
An interesting article, but seems to be missing a ton of research.
That article completely reversed the actual story on the Nintendo vs. Blockbuster lawsuit. Nintendo won part of their case against Blockbuster for copyright infringement because Blockbuster was handing out photocopied manuals with the games. After the lawsuit, BBV could only either hand out the original manual (which were often never returned or damaged) or a short generic instruction sheet.
The article also completely skips some of the more important lawsuits. Atari v Coleco (the mother of all emulation lawsuits), Nintendo v Prima (game maps ruled not copyright infringment), Nintendo v Color Dreams (an interesting case of clean-room reverse engineering), Sega v Accolade (another case of working around a lockout), Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft vs. Lik Sang (mod chips and flash carts), Sony vs. Bleem! (more emulation fun), and doesn't even begin to address the huge effects the DMCA had on the whole industry.
/zing!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Nintendo lost the lawsuit, however; the only thing Blockbuster could be nailed for was including original, copyrighted instruction booklets with their rented games. Blockbuster simply switched over to photocopied booklets, or handed out a card that explained the game's basic premise and controls to the player. Despite threats to rental kiosks and retailers who sold multiple copies of certain games, video game rentals were free to prosper, and still do.
I'd like an explanation of this. How is the inclusion of the booklet a no-no while the game isn't? The booklet is just as copyrighted as the game.
"safe=off"
Yeah, like I am going to click on that link...
Hey, they very well could set the carpet on fire with the heat that thing is creating!!
"Now from MicroShaft!! It plays games! It sets flames!! XBox360!" - Board meeting foiled marketing pitch. (The guy who pitched this was immediately fired (bad pun), thrown into the street and chairs were tossed at him. Film at 11.)
"I love lamp."
Reminds me of the game 'The Great Giana Sisters'. The biggest selling game that was never officially released. :)
I seem to remember that the game was released for the C64 and the Amiga, then pulled back like a week later from the shelves since Nintendo threatend a lawsuit. If I'm not mistaked it was sold in some countries, not sure which though.
Was a blast to play though...
The article needs more fact checking. I'm not a video game historian, but some errors jumped out here -
Blockbuster wasn't sued for renting out manuals (don't libraries do that?) They were sued for photocopying the manuals and keeping the originals. Copyright violation.
"Data East's 1984 arcade game" was not "The Way of Karate" - it was "Karate Champ."
Obese individuals DIDN'T sue McDonalds and win - they sued Mcdonalds and lost. The author is confusing that lawsuit with the woman who was served a cup of lava; she sued and won.
The author made reference to the mythological "McDonald's Coffee" case as an example of a frivolous lawsuit. As hopefully more and more people know, the lawsuit was anything but frivolous:
/ articles.cfm?ID=785
8 8000/2688065.stm
http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths
He also incorrectly states that the plaintiffs won in their lawsuit against McDonald's for the fat content of their food. The fact is that the judge threw the case out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_26
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
"Lawsuit is the first word spit out after a car accident, or after someone burns themselves with boiling coffee that didn't include a flashing warning label." In the most famous coffee lawsuit case the woman in question didn't first sue. She first asked for compensation for medical bills. Only when McDonald's refused did she sue.
I notice the article also doesn't list the result of Esther Walker's lawsuit against Nintendo. That's a big deal. If Esther lost, it dramatically reduces the importance of her claims.
We are a litigious society, but the situation isn't as bad as the article suggests.
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oh silly. if this were some kind of respectable forum, then maybe the structure of my post would indicate drunkenness. You know, because then it would make sense for me to care what the hell people thought. But, as it is, this site is just for grins (for me), and it makes perfect sense that a clear-headed guy like me would post a rambling post to irritate the lesser minions.