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Here's some legal mumbo jumbo http://www.scribd.com/doc/224144304/Wizards-of-the-Coast-v-Cryptozoic-Entertainment-et-al
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May 14, 2014 22:51
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Also I was wrong, it's WotC, but probably at Hasbro's behest.
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May 14, 2014 22:54
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gameday posted:I don't know poo poo about the law, but I know I'm enjoying this game and don't want WotC to gently caress it up because they can't make a decent online client.
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May 14, 2014 22:55
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Either way, gently caress 'em. I was planning on doing the occasional Magic draft with my friends because I discovered I like drafting Hex, but now there's no way I'm giving them any money.
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May 14, 2014 22:55
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I'm not going to panic just yet, but I'm a little wary. That said, I wish WotC would put the money going into the lawsuit to actually improve their online client instead so they could actually out compete it than just destroy it.
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May 14, 2014 22:56
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What a Judas posted:Please realize it's Hasbro, and not WotC, pushing this. Not sure that really matters from a customer-boycott standpoint. If Crypto has any sense at all they lawyered up fairly well beforehand, but Hasbro might still be able to bankrupt them with legal fees. I feel like there was some discussion of the legal dangers in this thread before and the upshot was that WotC's patent on MTG has recently expired and ideas aren't copyrightable. There are a fair number of similarities but there are also a lot of differences between MTG and Hex -- threshold, etc. -- and there are lots of differences in card design and illustration and wording and so forth I think ultimately this suit is about corporate pressure more than something they actually plan on winning.
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May 14, 2014 22:58
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Reading this complaint, I'm not super impressed with the document. They've already used the phrase "it wouldn't surprise me" twice. How is that official legalese in the slightest?
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May 14, 2014 23:03
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I think they were quoting a podcaster that compared Magic and Hex cards. They use it pretty directly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cards that look pretty similar: Murder in MTG and Murder in Hex and whatnot.
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May 14, 2014 23:04
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I'm wondering how this will affect Hex's drafting and money generation. I'm worried enough about losing my $600 i put into Hex initially that I'm not going to spend any money on plat...and this lawsuit could take months/years to resolve. It would be nice to get some kind of reassurance from Crypto but it's probably not wise to make any comments about the lawsuit.
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May 14, 2014 23:07
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Captain Capitalism posted:I think they were quoting a podcaster that compared Magic and Hex cards. They use it pretty directly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cards that look pretty similar: Murder in MTG and Murder in Hex and whatnot. That's another thing. Quoting forums and podcasters? Are you making GBS threads me? Also, they erroneously believe that Rage == Bushido. That said, I will acknowledge that the games are markedly similar. I'm biased; I want to enjoy them both.
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May 14, 2014 23:08
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Captain Capitalism posted:I think they were quoting a podcaster that compared Magic and Hex cards. They use it pretty directly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cards that look pretty similar: Murder in MTG and Murder in Hex and whatnot. Yeah, but on the other hand, in each case there are significant differences (white vs. black) and in some cases the commonalities are words in common useage like "murder" that it would be a hard sell to really claim copyright on. This has all been discussed before and I think personally that Hex is on the right side of thing legally due to the expiration of MTG's patent. The problem is that legal costs or an injunction could bankrupt them and kill the game regardless. This is WotC trying to sap a competitor. katkillad2 posted:It would be nice to get some kind of reassurance from Crypto but it's probably not wise to make any comments about the lawsuit. They'll have to file a formal Answer in, what, 30 days?
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May 14, 2014 23:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This has all been discussed before and I think personally that Hex is on the right side of thing legally due to the expiration of MTG's patent. The problem is that legal costs or an injunction could bankrupt them and kill the game regardless. This is WotC trying to sap a competitor. This is what is most worrying, you can't patent game rules/instructions which is why you see a thousand variants of Monopoly with slightly different names. This is kind of like if Activision tried to sue EA because Battlefield is similar to Call of Duty. Yes, the games are similar but they are also significantly different since Hex is online only and half the game is kind of maybe an "MMO" with all of the PVE stuff. So what I think you are left with is can Crypto afford this lawsuit.
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May 14, 2014 23:18
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If I recall correctly they already talked to a bunch of lawyers before they even started production and were given the go-ahead. So yes, it completely comes down to attempting to bankrupt them.
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May 14, 2014 23:21
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"Further, by its sales through the Kickstarter campaign, Cryptozoic has obtained in excess of two million dollars, a sum that constitutes one of a number of losses of related revenues Wizards could reasonably have expected to earn" <- gently caress you Wizards, you haven't had claim to my money since 2004
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May 14, 2014 23:26
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Grim posted:"Further, by its sales through the Kickstarter campaign, Cryptozoic has obtained in excess of two million dollars, a sum that constitutes one of a number of losses of related revenues Wizards could reasonably have expected to earn" <- gently caress you Wizards, you haven't had claim to my money since 2004 I would swear in court that none of the money I spent on Hex would have gone to them. Assholes.
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May 14, 2014 23:27
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They had to have seen this coming. They also rejected whatever (likely terrible) offer wizards made during negotiations knowing full well what would come next so they must be pretty sure of themselves.
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May 14, 2014 23:30
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I do play Magic and I did also kickstart Hex, but the money that went to Hex was not otherwise going to Magic. I'm a little irritated at that. There's people calling to boycott Magic right now, I dunno if that'll actually have any effect though. What I do hope is that Hex continues, gets a lot of publicity and when it goes Open Beta we get a lot of new players coming to check it out.
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May 14, 2014 23:31
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It was either this or an attempt by Hasbro to buy Cryptazoic. The PvP aspects of the game are a pretty blatant ripoff and MTG's online client is so godawful in comparison that this had to be expected by most people. WotC doesn't want to compete in the digital sphere, they just want MTGO to continue printing money without ever bothering to improve it. Every few months I'll forget how much I hate MTGO and then friends will have to listen to me spew forth my hate for 10 minutes each time I give it another try.
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May 15, 2014 02:02
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I've been interested in this game but this news makes me want to actively throw money at it.
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May 15, 2014 02:03
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Grim posted:"Further, by its sales through the Kickstarter campaign, Cryptozoic has obtained in excess of two million dollars, a sum that constitutes one of a number of losses of related revenues Wizards could reasonably have expected to earn" <- gently caress you Wizards, you haven't had claim to my money since 2004 Are kickstarter rewards considered sales? I'm sure there's some technical aspects that someone would have to explain the legal to me, but I've been under the impression that kickstarter fundings are donations of some sort. Spectral Werewolf fucked around with this message at 02:29 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 02:23
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Regardless of whether or not Cryptozoic comes out of this well, this is a huge downer; setting aside my frustration with the possibility of this game being shut down after I've invested in it, it's really depressing that Hasbro/WotC would rather use their money to make other games worse/go under than make their own game better by paying for decent programming. It would be much less upsetting if they were actually trying to compete and simply had a better product to offer than Cryptozoic.
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May 15, 2014 02:25
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All Nines posted:Regardless of whether or not Cryptozoic comes out of this well, this is a huge downer; setting aside my frustration with the possibility of this game being shut down after I've invested in it, it's really depressing that Hasbro/WotC would rather use their money to make other games worse/go under than make their own game better by paying for decent programming. It would be much less upsetting if they were actually trying to compete and simply had a better product to offer than Cryptozoic. This seems to be something that happens whenever a nerdgame company gets huge enough to be an up uP UP capitalist behemoth rather than an, um, game company. This sort of intimidation lawsuit is exactly the same thing as Games Workshop did.
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May 15, 2014 02:29
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This sort of makes me feel a little better that I sold all my Magic cards earlier this week. Seriously gently caress, WotC. I can't stand the notion that it's better to sue your way into an effective monopoly than actually release a quality product. As I and other have said this is 100% an attempt to bankrupt CZE or otherwise force them to lose the game through economic pressure. They probably won't win a law suit but if they can bleed CZE enough they win. I really hope this comes back to bite them in the rear end, and a substantive boycott of their products would be amazing.
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May 15, 2014 02:51
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Karnegal posted:This sort of makes me feel a little better that I sold all my Magic cards earlier this week. Seriously gently caress, WotC. Did you end making a good figure on that lot? Last I heard you were tending an offer that was like 40% retail.
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May 15, 2014 02:55
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Mikujin posted:Did you end making a good figure on that lot? Last I heard you were tending an offer that was like 40% retail. Got just shy of 25k, so 50% retail from a goon's friend. US copyright law posted:Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
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May 15, 2014 02:59
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The more I think about this, the madder I am. Hex has been very careful to have completely different terms for things, and a lot of it is completely different from magic, namely the resource system and the champion powers. The fact that this might compete with Magic isn't a good enough reason to try to destroy Hex, and this looks even worse for WotC because this was kickstarted by a bunch of people, not just put out by a company. All the backers are going to be actively angry at WotC, and some may lose substantial amounts of money that they used to back, not because the project failed but because of outside influences. I wonder what Cryptozoic is going to say about this.
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May 15, 2014 03:06
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I'm trying not to have a knee-jerk response to this yet, but part of me is totally on the "gently caress WotC" bandwagon. I could easily shift over to Netrunner at this point...
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May 15, 2014 03:10
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Pinwiz11 posted:I'm trying not to have a knee-jerk response to this yet, but part of me is totally on the "gently caress WotC" bandwagon. I could easily shift over to Netrunner at this point... That would still put a little money in WotC's pocket--the trademark is licensed from them.
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May 15, 2014 03:15
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Karnegal posted:US Copyright Law A friend who also backed Hex linked me to that earlier today. Based on the wording you'd think Cryptozoic was in the clear. I've also read that WOTC had a patent that expired a few years ago, although I'm not sure what exactly it was a patent for, because at the same time I've seen discussion that this lawsuit is about an entirely different patent. Edit: I've already seen more people curious about Hex because of this news. This evening it seemed like there was a decent amount more of people watching streams on Twitch than usual. Protip fucked around with this message at 03:34 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 03:27
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...annnnnnd that means I'm out of this thread until this is all resolved
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May 15, 2014 03:44
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Deceptive Thinker posted:...annnnnnd that means I'm out of this thread until this is all resolved What? Do you think WOTC's lawyers are going to come after you for posting here? Am I missing some context?
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May 15, 2014 03:47
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Deceptive Thinker posted:...annnnnnd that means I'm out of this thread until this is all resolved You're probably going to be waiting months, lawsuits take time. In the meantime, I'm going to continue playing like I was before, because I don't think this has a leg to stand on. I doubt CZE would have started on this game if they had thought that there was any risk of lawsuit. The main thing to worry about is CZE having the wallet to withstand the legal system, and as such, I've subscribed to the VIP Program, and once I run out of drafting plat, I'll drop another $10 in for more.
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May 15, 2014 03:48
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Deceptive Thinker posted:...annnnnnd that means I'm out of this thread until this is all resolved Do you work for Crypto or something? It doesn't seem like it from your posting history.
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May 15, 2014 03:50
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moravec posted:Do you work for Crypto or something? It doesn't seem like it from your posting history. Try again (edit: just to be clear, I'm not done playing the game, just talking about it) vvv - avoiding getting involved in any ancillary way or if it gets too far, deposed Deceptive Thinker fucked around with this message at 03:57 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 03:51
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^^^ care to say something not totally vague as to your rationale? Protip posted:A friend who also backed Hex linked me to that earlier today. Based on the wording you'd think Cryptozoic was in the clear. I've also read that WOTC had a patent that expired a few years ago, although I'm not sure what exactly it was a patent for, because at the same time I've seen discussion that this lawsuit is about an entirely different patent. This issue with the WotC patent is that it has never actually been used in court. The problem with it is that almost any card game could be argued to violate their patent, which means that the courts may strike the patent down as being too broad. Some of the arguments are pretty inane too, but WotC is just shotgunning and throwing as much as they can at Hex. The arguments about what users call things are absurd. If that held water Band Aid could try lock out the rest of the adhesive strip market because consumers use refer to other brands as Band Aids. The arguments that Hex has card mechanics that are similar or even the same as Magic doesn't matter because you can't copyright game mechanics. The arguments about story are sort of mindblowing because that's one of the areas where Hex is most different from Magic. This is 100% an issue of can Hasbro stack money high enough to snow CZ or will a judge tell Hasbro to get hosed. It depends a lot on the individual justice, and even then there are always appeals. This isn't a suit that actually has a strong basis this is Hasbro trying to leverage their resources to squash a competitor in a sector of their market that they have neglected for over a decade (online TCGs). I really hope that the courts give a prompt "gently caress you" to Hasbro, but if things get tied up they actually get an injunction that forces CZ to close down the Hex servers, then we might see CZ crumbled to legal fees. What's interesting here, and what I've said before is that this is a really by gamble by Hasbro that could backfire in two major ways. 1.) If their suit is dismissed promptly, they have just given Hex far more publicity than CZ could have bought with what they'd pay in legal fees. 2.) A lot of people who backed Hex ALSO play Magic. It may just be my perception, but gamers as a whole get pretty angry about corperate douchebaggery. While it might be hard to say "gently caress you" to EA games since they have such a huge market share in terms of the % of AAA games that are released. WotC is really represents only a small portion of the hobbyist games market in terms of indiivudal games (they have a large portion of the revenue from said market). I can very easily see myself not buying any more products from WotC. There are a lot of other companies in the board and card games market that I can give my money to.
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May 15, 2014 03:52
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Karnegal posted:^^^ care to say something not totally vague as to your rationale? Ah, maybe he works for the other side. If you're involved with any party in a lawsuit, you're generally advised to stay well away from places where it's being discussed so that you don't have your words dragged into discovery and made part of the suit. We're told all the time to avoid discussing patents or lawsuits at work.
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May 15, 2014 03:58
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moravec posted:Ah, maybe he works for the other side. If you're involved with any party in a lawsuit, you're generally advised to stay well away from places where it's being discussed so that you don't have your words dragged into discovery and made part of the suit. We're told all the time to avoid discussing patents or lawsuits at work. I think he would have just avoided posting in the thread at all instead of posting a vague, attention-seeking sentence.
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May 15, 2014 04:03
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Karnegal posted:The arguments about what users call things are absurd. If that held water Band Aid could try lock out the rest of the adhesive strip market because consumers use refer to other brands as Band Aids. This actually is A Thing, but only with respect to trademarks. A trademark can become "genericised" by using the trademark as the name for an entire category of products, such as Kleenex and Xerox. In the US, if a trademark can be shown to be generic, the trademark owner loses most of the benefits of the trademark. This has actually happened; aspirin, escalator, thermos, and zipper were all trademarks that eroded through insufficient protection by the trademark holder. That isn't the case here as none of WotC's trademarks are being used.
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May 15, 2014 04:07
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Zurai posted:This actually is A Thing, but only with respect to trademarks. A trademark can become "genericised" by using the trademark as the name for an entire category of products, such as Kleenex and Xerox. In the US, if a trademark can be shown to be generic, the trademark owner loses most of the benefits of the trademark. This has actually happened; aspirin, escalator, thermos, and zipper were all trademarks that eroded through insufficient protection by the trademark holder. I think we're saying the same thing, which is that WotC effectively has no grounds for suing HEX over the notion that players may say "mana" instead of "shard"
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May 15, 2014 04:15
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What do you guys generally do when your game freezes (no prompt but the timer keeps ticking)? I had the semi-finals pretty much locked down but then the game froze (or my opponent just afk-ragequit). Thought "Report bugged game" would give some options but it just immediately conceded the game  . Are we supposed to just wait it out?
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May 15, 2014 04:42
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