] LOS ANGELES (AP) - Marvel Enterprises Inc. is suing two
] firms behind a computer superhero role-playing game it
] claims allows players to make virtual characters that are
] too similar to ``The Hulk,'' ``X-Men'' and other heroes
] in the comic book company's stable.
]
] The lawsuit claims South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. and San
] Jose-based Cryptic Studios Inc. violated Marvel's
] trademark characters in their game ``City of Heroes.''
] Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction
] against the two companies to stop using its characters.

As I understand it, NCSoft didn't create a Marvel character in the game, but they do give players the abilities to design their own characters, and a couple of those characters seem to be obvious copies of Marvel characters.

In my own products, the way we usually deal with this is that if someone creates something which is an obvious ripoff of someone else's work, we tell them to zap it and start over. But that requires a fair amount of manpower to chase after customers, follow up complaints, and make judgment calls about what is and is not copyrighted material. For a much larger game with powerful and easy to use creation tools, that gets much more difficult.

It'll be interesting to see how this works through the courts.

Marvel Sues NcSoft over Characters in 'City of Heroes' MMORPG

] Three Rings, developer and operator of Yohoho! Puzzle
] Pirates, the massively multi-player game of Puzzles and
] Piracy for the casual gamer, today announced a number of
] milestones for their hit online game.

This game deserves all the awards it has won. It's that rare beast, an *innovative* multiplayer online game. Graphics aside, it's one of the most creative things I've played in a long time, and I'm totally hooked.

In a nutshell, it's a combination of a multiplayer world, casual games, roleplaying, economics, exploring, and combat. I'm also delighted by a very intuitive interface, and an extremely low barrier to entry. No box needs to be bought in a store, no extensive form needs to be filled out to create a character. All you need is a character name, an email address, and a computer that can surf the web and run Java (there's about a 3 Meg initial download).

Once in the game, there's a smooth introductory tutorial that brings you right into the gameplay, and then you're right into the action. New players are hired aboard ships which sail the seas, fighting brigands and pillaging treasure: Gold, valuable commodities which can be sold at various islands, and charts which lead to new islands. As a player gains experience, they can be promoted to Pirate, Officer, or higher. If enough resources are gathered, players can acquire their own ships, form their own crews, ally together under various flags, and then battle it out in huge blockades for control and governorship of the various islands.

It's great fun, and I highly recommend it. :) The game can be played at:

http://www.puzzlepirates.com

Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates Tops 5,000 Subscribers

] Based on a careful evaluation of the competitive MMORPG
] landscape, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to cancel
] the Windows-based game "Mythica." As a result
] of this effort, job eliminations within Microsoft Game
] Studios will take place, and up to 40 employees may be
] impacted.

I wonder how much of this is related to Jacobs' lawsuit:
 http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid10156/

Microsoft Cans MMORPG 'Mythica'

Last summer (2003), Thailand passed legislation which banned all online gaming from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Starting in September, they amended the ban so that adults could still play, *if* they registered and paid a fee to the government:

] gamers aged 18 and above will have to
] register with a mandatory age-check system to be excluded
] from the gaming ban. Registration can be done at post
] offices for less than Bt30 (US$ 0.74), information and
] communication technology minister Surapong Suebwonglee
] said in the report.

The ban is issued against servers. Both local and overseas servers are blocked (or were as of November 2003). I'm trying now to find out the latest on this, so if anyone has any more recent information, please let me know?

Thailand bans online gaming after 10 p.m. -- unless you register as an adult

This is the blog of Greg Costikyan, one of my game industry friends and associates. He's a writer, consultant, game designer, exec, and organizer.

There are plenty of people in my industry who say they know things, but don't. Greg is one of the people who *does* know things. Plus he's just a nice guy. :)

Greg Costikyan's Blog

] Durham, NC - January 5th, 2004 -- Internet Gaming
] Entertainment Ltd. (IGE), the worldwide
] leader in the market for buying and selling virtual
] property, announced today that it has retained the Themis
] Group to develop and implement a worldwide marketing
] campaign for IGE's portfolio of MMORPG services.

Okay, I've never heard of IGE, so take this "worldwide leader" stuff with a grain of salt. Themis Group, however, has an excellent reputation, and I'm baffled. They signed to represent a company that sells characters and power-leveling utilities?? These are the kind of things that *unbalance* the games that Themis Group contracts to manage.

Color me confused . . .

Character-Selling Company Retains Themis Group for Marketing Campaign

] Mythic Entertainment, best known for its ultra popular
] online role-playing game, Dark Age of Camelot, today
] filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for using the name
] "Mythica" for an upcoming Norse god themed game for the
] PC.

Here's a GameSpy interview with Mark Jacobs, head of Mythic Entertainment, on the reasons for the lawsuit. IMHO, he's got a valid claim, and though he's one of my competitors, I wish him well on this one.

Mythic Entertainment Sues Microsoft

] BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court has ordered an online
] video game company to return hard-won virtual property,
] including a make-believe stockpile of bio-chemical
] weapons, to a player whose game account was looted by a
] hacker.

Ah, Pandora, hello. I was wondering when you were going to show up.

Court orders Chinese game company to return stolen virtual game property

My Memestream is going to be a bit quieter than usual over the next week, since I'm going to be very busy with my own convention, SimuCon, which runs from Thursday through Sunday.

As a note of explanation: SimuCon is a semi-private party where people who play our play.net online games fly in to St. Louis from all over the world for a real-life gathering. The festivities include seminars, banquets, dances, games, costume contests and all manner of parties from the chaste to the unmentionable. ;) This is our 8th year, and (IMHO) it just keeps getting better every year. :) (Granted, I'm biased, but I *still* think it's an amazing party)

This year we're going to be expanding on something we did last year, and doing a major live webcast from the con which will include live interviews with GameMasters, as well as a sneak peek at our next big release, the graphical MMORPG Hero's Journey.

I'll also be doing an hour-long "call in" show of my own on the history of Simutronics games, and fielding any questions that someone wants to IM with. I've been involved with the company since 1989, so have a wealth of stories about the growth of the online game industry (a timeline of Simu games in particular is here: http://elonka.com/SimuTimeline.html)

My "History of Simu Games" show will be on Saturday, June 7th, from 3-4 p.m. Central, at http://www.simuradio.com. Questions during the show can be sent in via AIM "RadioFreeSimu"

Heading back to the pre-con mayhem,

Elonka :)

Radio Free SimuCon

This page contains a chart displaying best-guess subscriber numbers (as of April 2003) for a dozen different massively multiplayer games. It's focused towards graphical MMOGs that are popular in the U.S. (it doesn't include text-based MMOGs or any of the monster Korean games), but is still some interesting data.

Related factoids that I acquired from E-3:

- Star Wars Galaxies, opening next month, has had about 500,000 people visit its website and apply to be beta-testers.

- Of those 500,000 visitors to the SWG site, 10% were female

- EverQuest reports that its own subscriber-base is 16% female

It'll be interesting to see how the SWG numbers convert into subscribers!

Massively Multiplayer Online Games - An Analysis of Subscription Growth