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On November 16 2010 05:24 TheGreatHegemon wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 04:57 Zechs wrote:
This football manufacturer metaphor getting thrown around lately is completely inaccurate. There are several major companies making footballs and hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller companies doing the same thing. Nobody owns the rights to "A Football." However, Blizzard does own the rights to "Starcraft." There is only one company making that game and they do own all the rights to it, legally. All rights to sell the game? Definitely. All rights to televising the game? You can't say they do own that right, legally. This is STILL vague.
That's the thing it isn't. IP doesn't say you own the rights to make money off certain aspect of your product, it says you have the rights all around and can choose to sell those rights however way they want... Like how 3d engines or software devs have a vast variety of licenses you can find. So when you consider that they are designing SC2 for instance
What's vague is how long you should or can hold the rights to how a particular piece of software is being used. (By the way this is likely ONE major reason SC2 doesn't have LAN and likely won't have LAN till they know they have the law on their side when it comes to these matters) What's vague is how much you should pay for these rights. What's vague is how much you can charge for those rights fully knowing that like taxes if you charge too much you will stunt growth.
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On November 16 2010 06:37 Ferago wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 04:51 buhhy wrote:On November 15 2010 23:43 Ferago wrote:On November 15 2010 19:44 Pippah wrote:
Blizzard should pay OGN/MBC for showing their game for a decade instead of suing them beacuse of greed. They have enough money stacked around their wow servers to feed the continent of Africa for 60 years, so wanting control of something they didnt create (the culture around one of their games) is just disgusting. I think Kespa and OGN/MBC are getting way too much credit for what they've done. Sure, they've done a great job of organizing this league and these tournaments, but that pales in comparison to the work Blizzard put into making the game from scratch. Tons of organizations could have pulled off what Kespa has accomplished, because the culture revolves around Starcraft, not something specifically done by Kespa or OGN/MBC. No other game could have filled the role of BroodWar in today's pro scene. Blizzard's revenue from WoW is irrelevent; they've earned every penny by making several of the best video games of all time. You assume other organizations could've pulled off what kespa, ogn, mbc have done. I don't see any other such organizations. It's also been established that BW became an esport game through pure luck. SCBW could have just be another popular game, and another random game could've become the main esport game. Also, developing a game from scratch is not as hard as you make it out to be. Maintaining a successful national esport model for 10 years is far far far harder than developing a 1998 game. Take this from a software engineer. Budgetwise, Kespa and the broadcasting stations have spent much more than Blizzard in developing SCBW. I disagree that another game could've gone as far as BroodWar did. The reason BroodWar is so popular is because Blizzard made it so evenly balanced between 3 races that function completely differently. If it was unbalanced, it wouldn't be a viable game competitively. If all the races were basically the same (like in Age of Empires for example) it would get boring very fast. Blizzard made a game so dynamic that the metagame is still evolving 12 years later, which is unprecedented. No other game company in the world has achieved such a feat. Again, I believe that the game itself, not Kespa or the broadcasting stations, has been the biggest factor in the success of today's pro scene. The budgets are irrelevent and impossible to gauge, and being a game designer myself, I think you're downplaying the amount of work Blizzard put into the game. The fact that it was made in 1998 has no bearing; the only difference is graphics and visuals really. The game logic is where the money is, and Blizzard has perfected that. Regardless of how much money or work was put into their respective efforts, Blizzard clearly brought more to the table by designing the game that started all of this.
Most balancing of BW was done though maps. Also I don't think Blizz put an exceptional effort into balance or dynamic gameplay, many other devs put more effort into their games.
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On November 16 2010 06:54 Furycrab wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 05:24 TheGreatHegemon wrote:On November 16 2010 04:57 Zechs wrote:
This football manufacturer metaphor getting thrown around lately is completely inaccurate. There are several major companies making footballs and hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller companies doing the same thing. Nobody owns the rights to "A Football." However, Blizzard does own the rights to "Starcraft." There is only one company making that game and they do own all the rights to it, legally. All rights to sell the game? Definitely. All rights to televising the game? You can't say they do own that right, legally. This is STILL vague. That's the thing it isn't. IP doesn't say you own the rights to make money off certain aspect of your product, it says you have the rights all around and can choose to sell those rights however way they want... Like how 3d engines or software devs have a vast variety of licenses you can find. So when you consider that they are designing SC2 for instance What's vague is how long you should or can hold the rights to how a particular piece of software is being used. (By the way this is likely ONE major reason SC2 doesn't have LAN and likely won't have LAN till they know they have the law on their side when it comes to these matters) What's vague is how much you should pay for these rights. What's vague is how much you can charge for those rights fully knowing that like taxes if you charge too much you will stunt growth.
[cite your source] for why it's so cleancut that a video game's developer, who is paid for the purchase of a physical good is 100% definitely absolutely allowed to charge for this? South Korea source, please. NA is a different ballgame.
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On November 15 2010 14:10 attackfighter wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 13:38 battarro wrote:
If you invent a square ball, and I create a game around it that is so popular, much more than your sales of the square ball. Am I entitled to just milk the square ball? Because that is what you are proposing,
your scenario makes no sense, am I making money from "inventing" the ball? are you making money from "creating" your game? and if so, how? your metaphor is insane and detached entirely from reality, so idk whether or not you're morally or legally entitled to "milk" the ball (w/e you think that means)
The scenario is simple. look,
You invent a square ball and patent it. It belongs to you. No one before you has created it. You sale it for everyone to play with. Kids love it. Your ball is so well made that it last for years, effectively it never breaks, or loses air. You are successful selling the ball,. you make millions, sellig millions of balls.
But after a certain point, where the market is saturated with your product, your sales sharply decline. Everyone who was going to buy it already bought it. Your product is successful, it is awesome, it is just that people don't need to replace their old balls, so they don't buy new products from you. So your revenue slowly declines with time. and in 10 years you can not sell any other square balls, because everyone has one at this point, or your sells are minimal people who lost their ball.
Now I come along and create a sport based on the ball, a sport that requires a square ball because the way it bounces. And since everyone already has the ball, they relate to the sport and they love watching people playing it.
I create a company broadcasting the games of square ball without giving you any money. Over time my product does not loses its value because people who likes watching them still watch them regardless of the age. In other word, my product does not depreciated, not it saturates the market.
Fast forward 10 year, your company is now broke, because no one buys the square balls, since almost everyone has one, or it is easy to get one the black market a "made in china" counterfeit.
My company is successful and still continues to be successful since people still watch the game. The older people get they still watch the games they like, not necessarily play them. Not to mention i can sell them advertisement over and over and over again to each individual, more so than the initial money you made from the sell of the ball.
If you can not see the analogy and why one company product has a limited shelllife vs the other company product, and how it affect their cash revenue. Then I have nothing more to say.
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On November 16 2010 04:51 buhhy wrote:
Also, developing a game from scratch is not as hard as you make it out to be. Maintaining a successful national esport model for 10 years is far far far harder than developing a 1998 game. Take this from a software engineer. Budgetwise, Kespa and the broadcasting stations have spent much more than Blizzard in developing SCBW.
Creating a piece of software is not hard. There are millions of "hello world" versions out there.
Creating a good piece of software is hard.
Creating a good piece of software that millions of people bought and continue to use to this day is really really hard.
Your budget comparison it is not fair, because you are aggregating, aka summing all the instances of the Proleague and OSl and MSL over 10 years.
How about this.
It is more Expensive to create the game from scratch, than to create any single tournament to this day.
Same way, if you were going to keep the developers/ Qa/ everyone who created the game employed, it will cost even more than the budget of all the tournaments running up to date.
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On November 16 2010 07:59 battarro wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 14:10 attackfighter wrote:On November 15 2010 13:38 battarro wrote:
If you invent a square ball, and I create a game around it that is so popular, much more than your sales of the square ball. Am I entitled to just milk the square ball? Because that is what you are proposing,
your scenario makes no sense, am I making money from "inventing" the ball? are you making money from "creating" your game? and if so, how? your metaphor is insane and detached entirely from reality, so idk whether or not you're morally or legally entitled to "milk" the ball (w/e you think that means) The scenario is simple. look, You invent a square ball and patent it. It belongs to you. No one before you has created it. You sale it for everyone to play with. Kids love it. Your ball is so well made that it last for years, effectively it never breaks, or loses air. You are successful selling the ball,. you make millions, sellig millions of balls. But after a certain point, where the market is saturated with your product, your sales sharply decline. Everyone who was going to buy it already bought it. Your product is successful, it is awesome, it is just that people don't need to replace their old balls, so they don't buy new products from you. So your revenue slowly declines with time. and in 10 years you can not sell any other square balls, because everyone has one at this point, or your sells are minimal people who lost their ball. Now I come along and create a sport based on the ball, a sport that requires a square ball because the way it bounces. And since everyone already has the ball, they relate to the sport and they love watching people playing it. I create a company broadcasting the games of square ball without giving you any money. Over time my product does not loses its value because people who likes watching them still watch them regardless of the age. In other word, my product does not depreciated, not it saturates the market. Fast forward 10 year, your company is now broke, because no one buys the square balls, since almost everyone has one, or it is easy to get one the black market a "made in china" counterfeit. My company is successful and still continues to be successful since people still watch the game. The older people get they still watch the games they like, not necessarily play them. Not to mention i can sell them advertisement over and over and over again to each individual, more so than the initial money you made from the sell of the ball. If you can not see the analogy and why one company product has a limited shelllife vs the other company product, and how it affect their cash revenue. Then I have nothing more to say.
So basically you argue your company should never have to develop a new product?
Not to mention conterfeits should be prosecuted, so you would still be the key seller of the square ball. In addition, new people enter markets all the time (People are born, etc). While not as applicable (but still somewhat), old balls will break and new ones will be purchased.
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Nothing guarantees that the new product will be sucesful. Even with a proven track record.
Time and time again software companies have one hit wonder series, and they can never reproduce the initial magic of earlier versions.
Look at this list and see how many great games manufactures are down the toilet, 3do Might and Magic. Rogue the makers of Quake., Acclaim, tons of games.
The list is huge, and it is not that they made a shitty product, it is that is REALLY REALLY hard to make top selling games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_video_game_companies
Look at the list, of how 10 years after, they are dead because the product the made deprecates really fast.
Second back to the analogy version with the balls. New people who enter the market do so in matter that it is not sustainable for the company. This is because it is easy to ask a friend for an old ball, or to get a counterfeit one.
Just look at how many people buy Starcraft1, vs how many people get ti off torrents for a analogy.
If blizzard will have to rely on Sc1 sales they would have gone broke long time ago. There is no questions about it.
IP laws exists to protect the creator of anything against this type of commercial derivative work.
The crux is one time revenue (sale of box), vs continuum revenue( tv viewership).
Lets assume that GSL is not affiliated with Blizzard. That they bought and modified the game to use Lan.
As of now I have paid GSL more money than what i paid for the game, without mentioning the money they get from advertising Sony to me.
I can not say morally that that is OK. That a company who did not made the game makes more money from it that the company that made the game in the first place, without giving anything to the creator. There has to be a symbiotic relationship between the two of them. And laws have to exists to protect the creators.
Because if the creators are not protected legally, then we have what we have today. A crappy no LAN support. Because yes, i would bet money that the reason LAN support is not out of the box, is because of the Korean Market and KESPA.
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So Blizzard is driven to develop new products to sustain itself?
I fail to see a problem here...
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Tell that to any of the companies i just listed.
LOL, make a new product silly.. companies... people will buy it!!!
3do just make a new Might and magic, people will buy it.
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On November 16 2010 08:37 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
So Blizzard is driven to develop new products to sustain itself?
I fail to see a problem here...
In all seriousness. I hope you see how hard this is to be maintained at a developer level.
You have to create best seller year after year in order to don't go broke.
What we are looking at is a new business model that works for developers. Not only they create a good product. But thanks to the continuing revenue/ marketting factor it helps eliminate the deprecation factor, or at least add 5 years to their product. Making it a lot more easier to come up with sequels once the time has come.
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On November 16 2010 08:38 battarro wrote:
Tell that to any of the companies i just listed.
LOL, make a new product silly.. companies... people will buy it!!!
3do just make a new Might and magic, people will buy it.
This is no different from any other company. If you keep making shitty products, you're going to go defunct, and I still see nothing wrong with this.
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On November 16 2010 08:41 battarro wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 08:37 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
So Blizzard is driven to develop new products to sustain itself?
I fail to see a problem here... In all seriousness. I hope you see how hard this is to be maintained at a developer level. You have to create best seller year after year in order to don't go broke. What we are looking at is a new business model that works for developers. Not only they create a good product. But thanks to the continuing revenue/ marketting factor it helps eliminate the deprecation factor, or at least add 5 years to their product. Making it a lot more easier to come up with sequels once the time has come.
It's not like Blizzard is some tiny indie house that has to make or break it on a single game; they're part of the largest video game company in existence right now, IIRC Blizzard-Activision surpassed EA games in size. If they have a bust game, chances are that they would survive. If they keep making crappy games, eventually they would suffer for it.
Continued sales is driven by expanding market share. Leaving the eSports arena open to massive growth encourages more sales of the game. If anything, eSports is the marketing factor that you're talking about.
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There is nothing wrong with going under if you make a shitty product.
What it is wrong is to go under, while another companies thrives on your products.
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On November 16 2010 10:02 battarro wrote:
There is nothing wrong with going under if you make a shitty product.
What it is wrong is to go under, while another companies thrives on your products.
If they purchased a copy of your product, then I see nothing wrong with it.
Edit:
And I should clarify, not only do I see nothing wrong with it morally, I'm not certain it'd be illegal either, especially since this case has no precedent (which i've found)
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Anyone arguing for KESPA is arguing against the development of ESports and any games of quality because of the many arguments listed above. The development of video games depends on the ability of the developers to profit from said development; in essence, why would anyone take it upon themselves to make something at their own cost for the world to use for free? And on the opposite end of the spectrum, if developing something is profitable, more people will be encouraged to develop and flesh out that market. More developer profit directly relates to more development; this is intuitive, but generally ignored by moralists, who argue that funds should be generally be divided between this this and that to foster growth, when in fact this often hinders growth.
A few key concepts to think on:
. If you feel you are being overcharged for a product, service, or license to use the above, you're free to not purchase it and use it. Nobody pays $5 for a McDouble.
. If two companies are profiting from the same service, this is mutually good for business and both companies should invest in the expansion of said business for so long as it shows a profit.
. If one company is providing a service and paying an exorbitant licensing fee, and fails to make a profit, then they will not continue to provide the service and pay the fee, resulting in a loss of revenue for the licensing company.
. Therefore, it is in the best interest of all involved to foster the development of profitable markets, to sustain all contributors the industry. The players, teams, sponsors, Blizzard, and KESPA all benefit heavily from this.
. However, if the company that provides the service chooses simply not to pay the licensing fee, and the licenser has no legal recourse against this, then the licenser no longer has any financial motivation to create and develop future products, and must simply rely on the original revenue stream from sales of the original product. This may still be profitable, but it may just be better to seek other avenues or create a competing service provider of its own, often doing something detrimental to the entire industry.
. Therefore it is important to create strict licensing restrictions when creating a licensed product, so that as a developer you maximize your profit, which is GOOD. Profit is GOOD because it enables development, profit for services providers is GOOD because it enables continuation of the service which both the developer and service provider can make revenue from, and all of these things are GOOD for us, the people that enjoy and use the service.
Therefore, developers take great legal pains to develop legal constraints on their product, usually in the form of License Agreements, so they can make more money because that's why they developed the god damn game in the first place; not to be awesome or so that you think that they're cool. And the best part is that greed - that desire to make money - is actually what's driving the action of making the game, of hosting the tournaments, of creating the StarLeagues. Everyone involved should make money off of it because that is their reward for doing this awesome thing for us. Why would you make shoes if people were just like "Hey I need that!" and took them. You wouldn't.
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On November 16 2010 09:59 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
It's not like Blizzard is some tiny indie house that has to make or break it on a single game; they're part of the largest video game company in existence right now, IIRC Blizzard-Activision surpassed EA games in size. If they have a bust game, chances are that they would survive. If they keep making crappy games, eventually they would suffer for it.
Continued sales is driven by expanding market share. Leaving the eSports arena open to massive growth encourages more sales of the game. If anything, eSports is the marketing factor that you're talking about.
So now the size of the maker matter? So small Indi guys deserve protection but big guys dont?
Without a revenue from the advertisement, the continuum branding of the company, the sales of the old product is not enough. Even the best game in the world, after time it reaches a point in where everyone who would be interested in buying it already bought it. While the revenues from the esport continues over a longer period of time
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Large devs like Blizzard rarely make flops. They play it safe, they advertise like crazy, they don't risk their necks with every game they release. I don't see any reason why Blizzard should be able to stifle an entire industry at a whim. It hurts competition, it costs thousands of people their jobs, and it gives a single bloated entity (Blizzard) more money and power than they need. The government should only intervene in the free market to foster the good parts, like competition, fair play, etc., it shouldn't support laws that allow huge business's like Blizz to walk all over fledgling industry.
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On November 16 2010 10:16 battarro wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 09:59 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
It's not like Blizzard is some tiny indie house that has to make or break it on a single game; they're part of the largest video game company in existence right now, IIRC Blizzard-Activision surpassed EA games in size. If they have a bust game, chances are that they would survive. If they keep making crappy games, eventually they would suffer for it.
Continued sales is driven by expanding market share. Leaving the eSports arena open to massive growth encourages more sales of the game. If anything, eSports is the marketing factor that you're talking about. So now the size of the maker matter? So small Indi guys deserve protection but big guys dont? Without a revenue from the advertisement, the continuum branding of the company, the sales of the old product is not enough. Even the best game in the world, after time it reaches a point in where everyone who would be interested in buying it already bought it. While the revenues from the esport continues over a longer period of time
While not the point of the argument, we consistently see variations in protection based on company size. For example, see limitations Microsoft must abide by versus Apple. This is not unusual, and makes a lot of sense.
That being said, most indie houses aren't going to be that small anymore if they pull off a blockbuster that brings it up to massive eSports revenues.
And there's nothing stopping the original company from making revenue from eSports; they just have to do a better job at it than their competitors (or lock out competitors, such as in SC2. If gaming/eSports was a more mature market could even be illegal - IE tying Windows to Internet Explorer).
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On November 16 2010 10:22 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
While not the point of the argument, we consistently see variations in protection based on company size. For example, see limitations Microsoft must abide by versus Apple. This is not unusual, and makes a lot of sense.
And there's nothing stopping the original company from making revenue from eSports; they just have to do a better job at it than their competitors (or lock out competitors, such as in SC2. If gaming/eSports was a more mature market could even be illegal - IE tying Windows to Internet Explorer).
You are comparing apples and oranges. To start, you are comparing Anti trust laws that exists on the USA that prevent the insertion of a free product that performs action B, on another product that perform action C, on detriment of a third party product that it is not free and also performs action B.
That was the heart of the Microsoft vs Netscape anti trust, issue.
Regarding apple, apple is not a small company by any means, even when compared to microsoft. In fact apple stock are worth 10 times more than Microsoft.
I'm not sure of any case where different levels of protections were issued based on the size of the plaintiff, specially on IP cases..Feel free to point them out.
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On November 16 2010 10:40 battarro wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 10:22 TheGreatHegemon wrote:
While not the point of the argument, we consistently see variations in protection based on company size. For example, see limitations Microsoft must abide by versus Apple. This is not unusual, and makes a lot of sense.
And there's nothing stopping the original company from making revenue from eSports; they just have to do a better job at it than their competitors (or lock out competitors, such as in SC2. If gaming/eSports was a more mature market could even be illegal - IE tying Windows to Internet Explorer).
You are comparing apples and oranges. To start, you are comparing Anti trust laws that exists on the USA that prevent the insertion of a free product that performs action B, on another product that perform action C, on detriment of a third party product that it is not free and also performs action B. That was the heart of the Microsoft vs Netscape anti trust, issue. Regarding apple, apple is not a small company by any means, even when compared to microsoft. In fact apple stock are worth 10 times more than Microsoft. I'm not sure of any case where different levels of protections were issued based on the size of the plaintiff, specially on IP cases..Feel free to point them out.
EU Decision on a browser selection screen for Windows 7 had nothing to do with Microsoft vs Netscape in the US. Apple (IIRC) bundles Safari and isn't required to have a browser selection screen. Microsoft, even after remove dependencies on IE within Windows, still had to provide a browser selection screen.
Apple can lock their OS to a given hardware & Vendor, last I checked there were grumblings in the EU about Windows being preinstalled at all.
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EPT
