I'm not denying that Atari has done sketchy things in the past (most video game companies have). I just don't think the successful copyright lawsuit was one of them. From the source I posted earlier: "Atari sued Philips for copyright infringement, arguing that Munchkin copied Pac-Man with its substantial similarities as evidence. In Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., the court noted twenty-two similarities, but also nine differences:[2][3]" Apparently, the similarities outweighed the differences enough to warrant the verdict to be in favor of Atari and Pac-Man. I agree with you that courts can get things wrong, but I feel like this particular "scummy" thing that Atari did wasn't really scummy.
Also, keep in mind that this was the very beginning of copyright law being used in regards to computer software / gaming, so I'm not at all surprised that it made sense to focus primarily on defending from the more popular copiers as opposed to trying to spend money everywhere, defending from everyone (even the most inconsequential rip-offs).
On March 13 2024 19:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Also, keep in mind that this was the very beginning of copyright law being used in regards to computer software / gaming, so I'm not at all surprised that it made sense to focus primarily on defending from the more popular copiers as opposed to trying to spend money everywhere, defending from everyone (even the most inconsequential rip-offs).
I agree to disagree with you on this matter
you keep constantly referring to it as a "copy". huh? by what standard?
What makes you think KC Munchkin was popular? O2 was the #3 console of the 1st generation. Mouse Trap made way way more money than KC Munchkin. Mouse Trap was Pacman with different sprites. Its clear you did not play any of these games. You're just googling. Atari did not want an open maze game SAND BOX.
Lock 'n' Chase and Lady Bug made way way more money than KC Munchkin. Again, you're just googling. Atari could not litigate against an entire genre of games where some big object consumes a tiny object on the screen.
Ok, onto Atari going after the maker of Demon Attack...
Atari also went after Imagic for making Demon Attack. Atari's claim was that Demon Attack was too similar to Atari Phoenix. Atari did not create Phoenix from scratch. They owned the home license to it. Atari's game was a pale imitation of the arcade game Phoenix.
It was just another bullshit lawsuit. Atari went after everybody. Spend some time playing Demon Attack and some time playing Phoenix. Ya, they're both gallery shooters.. that's about it. They are different games. The problem is.. Demon Attack .... was really fucking good. That is why Atari wanted to kill it. Imagic also had limited legal resources. So Imagic Demon Attack was a prime candidate for a legal attack by Atari.
Demon Attack went on to become Imagic's best selling game.
Atari had the exclusive rights to produce Phoenix for home consoles and filed suit against the company Imagic, believing that the Intellivision version of Demon Attack was too derivative of Phoenix.[30][22] A settlement was reached in January 1983, with Imagic still being allowed to release Demon Attack.[30] When asked about the legal issues between Atari and Imagic related for Demon Attack, Fulop responded that he "kept out of a lot of that. It was basically a silly hustling and political thing. I think I went to one deposition, that was it [...] No one really cared too much about it."[16] Demon Attack went on to became the best selling Imagic game.
Atari was a scummy company. There are many more examples of Atari trying to kill really good games.
It has a happy ending though. Atari's best people left and Atari got crushed.
So the guy that made Missile Command for the Atari 2600 and SPACE INVADERS for the Atari 400 got a turkey dinner for a Christmas bonus. LOL
These included ports of Night Driver and Missile Command for the Atari 2600 and Space Invaders for the Atari 400/800 home computer line.[9] He stated he expected a strong Christmas bonus from Atari, based on how well his games had done commercially, but only received a voucher for a free turkey dinner.
Then when he leaves and makes Demon Attack they go after him. What a bunch of scum buckets.
The more I learn about the dawn of the video game industry.. the more hilarious it gets.
A youtuber named "IntellivisionDude" sometimes plays Demon Attack. It is an impressive game for 1982.
So Atari can copy any one else's games any time they want. But if your game vaguely resembles any license they might hold... look out. Here come an army of Atari lawyers.
I could go into Atari trying to justify copying proprietary Nintendo stuff. Then fighting it in court forever as a stall tactic. Atari eventually lost the court case. So Atari is Copying Exidy's video games and copying Nintendo's video game code. Then, taking any one to court who makes a great game like Demon Attack or KC Munchkin. However, I think people get the idea. Atari was really scummy and lost a lot of court cases. They also lost the Activision v. Atari case as well. Atari spent more time in court than they did making video games.
After that serious topic its time for some comedy. Industry expert Matt Walsh is going to provide some deep insight into the world of video games.
Thanks for the laughs Matt!
I wanted the girl in the clown make up, after shooting Batman, to find "Uncle Ben" and kill him next. LOL.
Speaking of brutal executions what about Uncle Ben in Spiderman? there have been so many Spiderman cartoons, video games, movies, tv shows, etc etc. From this point forward we should dress Uncle Ben up in the Kenny McCormick orange hoodie and execute him at the beginning of every one of the 50 new Spiderman movies, video games, animated series coming out in the next 5 years.
From 6 to 16 I'd say Spiderman was by far my favourite super hero. Superman was too much of a Mary Sue. He could do anything. Anyhow, I'm tired and bored of Spiderman. Please, Sony, I beg you ... execute him next please.
I thought the Batman execution scene was very well done. 9/10. Unfortunately, good men die. Nothing wrong with introducing teenagers to that sad fact. This game was not intended for the 7 year olds playing Nintendo Switch games.
Western Studios and publishers need to stop doing personal video talks where they pretend they are the players friend. They are employees of a corporation selling a product. Acting like you are "the friend" of the player only makes players more volatile when things go bad. Bungie community managers were getting death threats. The fault lies with the individuals making the threats. However, when you put yourself out there in front of millions of people and present yourself as their "friend" you will always attract a few complete lunatics. The multibillion dollar corporation with many people aged 40+ in middle and upper management making 10s of millions of dollars know these dynamics.
BUngie trying to paint itself as an "innocent victim" of "horrible terrible violent threats" is BS. They set themselves up for it with the front line employees absorbing the fire.
Embracer bought Gearbox for $1.3 Billion and sold it for $0.45 Billion.
Relic made some great RTS games over the years. The creator of CoH2, their most successful game, is long gone.
For all those unhappy with Saudi money entering the video game industry... these events should give them a good laugh. A bunch of guys with a net worth of $100 million trusted a Saudi Oil Prince multibillionaire and got burned.
Im saddened for the people who lost their job. But on the other hand, I see a glimmer of hope on the horizon for video games as entertainment product. All it takes now, is for one of the big ones to go under. Like EA or Ubi, and maybe just maybe we get to see the return of quality deciding sales numbers, instead of marketing $
Apparently, Gen Z are embracing Retro games. I went to a Poker Tourney run by my wife's family. She is 1 of 4 kids and has a bunch of nieces and nephews. Along with the Poker tourney was a bunch of teenagers playing 2 player competitive Mario Brothers, a game from 1986. They were having a blast.
Is Gen Z embracing Retro games? One thing is for sure. Retro games respect your time in a way these bloated PC games never do. Many PC Games are designed to consume every free moment of your life.
Publishers specializing only in pumping out cartridges for long abandaned consoles have begun to flourish. I think that is amazing.
On May 04 2024 00:48 Branch.AUT wrote: Im saddened for the people who lost their job. But on the other hand, I see a glimmer of hope on the horizon for video games as entertainment product. All it takes now, is for one of the big ones to go under. Like EA or Ubi, and maybe just maybe we get to see the return of quality deciding sales numbers, instead of marketing $
Sales #s are an extremely reliable lagging indicator of game quality. They always have been. Thing is ... when the industry began there was no "past" to form people's vague fuzzy impressionistic memories.
The industry began to mature when the first ever business guy leveraged the warm fuzzy feelings of the past when Kotick bought the dead Activision brand for almost nothing. At that point the 12 year olds who remembered those amazing Atari 2600 games were now 24 and had lots of money to spend.
The Layoffs are in the US and Europe. No idea how any kind of big union push can occur in NA with California bleeding to death, Quebec cutting back government subsidies, and constant layoffs in the west.
Apparently, there are more layoffs expected from Microsoft's Gaming division.
Phoenix Labs makes the game Dauntless. Phoenix Labs is laying off staff.
They are located in British Columbia and Quebec in Canada. The studio receives substantial government subsidies and tax breaks... so if they had to lay off a lot of people and cancel everything except Dauntless and Fae Farm then things are prolly super bad.
So I assume licensing and upkeep was too complex to just leave it up for long term advertisement revenue. Hosting is expensive on top of that, so I guess it was losing too much money to keep alive even in a 0.1 employee situation.
One amusing consequence of that closure is that Game Informer was the exclusive outlet for all Dragon Age: The Veilguard news. Now that Game Informer deleted its Twitter account, all their tweets referenced by the official Dragon Age: The Veilguard account have also disappeared.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's declared during the company's Q1 2024 earnings report that Star Wars Outlaws would have the “biggest marketing campaign ever so far for a Ubisoft game”
This is how their marketing dollars are being spent...
Everything the "previewers" say is approved by an agent of Ubisoft. So when people note that 90% of the previews are positive.. it doesn't mean much.
The Star Wars license must be very expensive. So a big marketing budget for a Star Wars game makes sense. This is a big bet by Ubisoft. I think this game is going to bomb relative to Ubisoft's expected ROI.
I think more people will be playing Star Wars Bounty Hunter. The game runs on a potato and is also on the Switch, PS4/5, XBOX1, XBOX SERIES S/X.
I think we're looking at big layoffs at Ubisoft in about 6 months. I think every Canadian Ubisoft employee not located in Quebec should start looking for work ... tout suite.
Watched a few minutes of open world game play in it and felt like going back to play Cyberpunk. So it does something right when it creates that association. Looked worse, but that could be because of graphical settings on the user posting the content.
On August 08 2024 12:48 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's declared during the company's Q1 2024 earnings report that Star Wars Outlaws would have the “biggest marketing campaign ever so far for a Ubisoft game”
Everything the "previewers" say is approved by an agent of Ubisoft. So when people note that 90% of the previews are positive.. it doesn't mean much.
The Star Wars license must be very expensive. So a big marketing budget for a Star Wars game makes sense. This is a big bet by Ubisoft. I think this game is going to bomb relative to Ubisoft's expected ROI.
I think more people will be playing Star Wars Bounty Hunter. The game runs on a potato and is also on the Switch, PS4/5, XBOX1, XBOX SERIES S/X.
I think we're looking at big layoffs at Ubisoft in about 6 months. I think every Canadian Ubisoft employee not located in Quebec should start looking for work ... tout suite.
Always wait for the official release and then another ~ two weeks before buying anything. Gotta say I'm not surprised it has come to this
I don't want to hear about how people at Firewalk Studios are "shocked and stunned" that the studio is lowering the employee count. If I were working there I woulda been searching for work six months ago.
Corpo media outlets are playing blind and dumb. Asmongold is on it though.
I wonder how many Concord videos not done by Asmongold had more than 1 million views? Not many. The proper criticism starts at 1 minute. "Take your shopping cart and run around in Walmart and you are playing Concord"
Look for big layoffs at Firewalk Studios very soon... assuming the Studio survives this. As Asmongold remarked in his video: "How did this get greenlit?".
On August 08 2024 12:48 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's declared during the company's Q1 2024 earnings report that Star Wars Outlaws would have the “biggest marketing campaign ever so far for a Ubisoft game”
Everything the "previewers" say is approved by an agent of Ubisoft. So when people note that 90% of the previews are positive.. it doesn't mean much.
The Star Wars license must be very expensive. So a big marketing budget for a Star Wars game makes sense. This is a big bet by Ubisoft. I think this game is going to bomb relative to Ubisoft's expected ROI.
I think more people will be playing Star Wars Bounty Hunter. The game runs on a potato and is also on the Switch, PS4/5, XBOX1, XBOX SERIES S/X.
I think we're looking at big layoffs at Ubisoft in about 6 months. I think every Canadian Ubisoft employee not located in Quebec should start looking for work ... tout suite.
Always wait for the official release and then another ~ two weeks before buying anything. Gotta say I'm not surprised it has come to this
I'd say wait even longer. Two weeks are still in that initial hype video with lots of paid content and so forth. I'd wait another month or two at the least. That way, you are out of that hype and honeymoon window, and get more accurate information if the game is actually fun long-term, or just flashy for 10 hours before it gets boring.
Borderlands 3 was free on Epic 2.5 years after release. By then Mayhem Mode was tuned to perfection and an 8/10 game had been patched and refined into a 9.25/10 game. Waiting often means paying less for a substantially better product.
Star Wars Outlaws will be $20 on Black Friday. BM:W is going to Steam Roll right over this Star Wars game.
On August 24 2024 23:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I don't want to hear about how people at Firewalk Studios are "shocked and stunned" that the studio is lowering the employee count. If I were working there I woulda been searching for work six months ago.
I wonder how many Concord videos not done by Asmongold had more than 1 million views? Not many. The proper criticism starts at 1 minute. "Take your shopping cart and run around in Walmart and you are playing Concord"
Look for big layoffs at Firewalk Studios very soon... assuming the Studio survives this. As Asmongold remarked in his video: "How did this get greenlit?".
What I find truly hilarious about Concord is that it launched to a player count that was over 30 times lower than an unannounced Valve game in early development that spread its closed beta access through pure word-of-mouth. Valve didn't even lift their broadcasting embargo or set up a Steam store page for Deadlock until the literal same day that Concord released.
And to be honest, the problem isn't necessarily the $40 price tag. It's that the market is oversaturated with hero shooter MOBA hybrids, and Concord just seems really lame.
EPT
