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The History of Videogame Lawsuits

Posted by Zonk on from the litigious-industry dept.

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."

3 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't that what he wants? by User+956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  2. KC Munchkin by RobotWisdom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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'.

  3. kind of interesting by MORTAR_COMBAT! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!