Blackhawk wrote:Not everything is so black and white. Not everybody using their favorite characters in a game of make-believe (like all PC games really are) is some vile, dark, nefarious thief come to rob the glorious, shining, starving artists of their hard-earned wealth. They are fans loving a character, and being able to indulge in those fantasies makes them more likely to purchase official products in those lines.
Marvel isn't suing the fans. It's suing the competitor company for designing a game that allows those fans to infringe on their trademarks. Regardless of how happy it makes the fans, allowing a competitor to do that is pretty easily argued as bad business, no matter how much you might wish otherwise. Moreover, any time you can sue a competitor and win, it puts money in your coffers and takes money from theirs, which is a pretty mercenary approach but it's far from uncommon in today's business world. Playing nice is naive.
Other companies have realized this. Marvel sees it as someone treading on their toes, and responds with threats and lawsuits where other companies have successfully retained their rights and increased their profits by supporting these same fans.
You have data to support this, or does it just sound good because it supports your position?
Using a 30-year-old lawsuit against Gary Gygax to counter a Morrowind example is meaningless.
There may or may not be more recent examples - I'm pretty sure there are, as the Tolkein estate has historically always been very aggressive. I just don't feel like looking them up. Also, we're talking about a lawsuit primarily over characters with VERY SPECIFIC appearances and abilities. So your example is equally as meaningless by comparing the Marvel suit to the Morrowind mods. I simply responded in kind.
Saying it isn't about skins is inaccurate; this is just the latest instance in a years-long rampage on Marvel's part that has included skins, fan sites, and all sorts of other things. It may not have been part of the original topic, but it is most certainly part of the issue behind it.
Change that "may not" to a "was not" and you'll see that I'm just trying to stay focused here on a particular issue.
City of Heroes doesn't allow you to create " create Marvel-owned characters in-game (in an environment uniquely suited to their appearance and abilities)", they create an environment and character options based on the huge mythology that has surrounded comic books for the last 80 years. I seriously doubt that there is a single element in City of Heroes that wasn't in some comic somewhere long before Marvel implemented them in their own comics. For Marvel to claim ownership, not of a character named 'Spiderman' with a specific costume and powers, but of entire concepts of comic book characters is ludicrous and arrogant. Marvel isn't being infringed upon; they are a single influence in a game that draws upon hundreds of influences to create something reminicsent of all of them.
Did you read the article at all?
The Article wrote: Marvel claims that the game’s character-creation engine allows players to create characters which are virtually identical to its characters, such as a giant, green ‘tanker’ style character whose powers are science based, which would be similar to the Hulk; or a mutant-based characters whose powers and costume could be seen as being nearly identical to Wolverine.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds a whole lot more concrete and less philisophical than "they create an environment and character options based on the huge mythology that has surrounded comic books for the last 80 years."
According to their site, Marvel has over 5,000 characters. It would be literally impossible to create a game with designable super hero characters that didn't make it possible to mimic at least hundreds of these characters. By the logic above, that means the Marvel is, quite literally, the only company with any right to make any super hero game, ever. Any combination of powers or appearance you can possibly imagine is similar to something Marvel has done.
Yes, that does pose a serious challenge to the design of games like these - and a challenge that the designers were obligated to overcome or face legal action. Marvel argues that they failed to overcome the challenge adequately, so they're taking legal action.
The absolute closest thing that they can claim being a direct copy from Marvel would be the claws, and I can think of at least two historical weapons that functioned very similarly (the wagnuk and the katar).
That's certainly a cogent argument and I'd expect the defense attorneys to make it. Just as I'd expect a counter argument from Marvel that they aren't taking issue with characters who wear those weapons, so much as with characters who are capable of causing such weapons to erupt from their knuckles they way Wolverine's do. There's hardly a historical precedent for that. And I'd be interested to see a historical precedent for The Incredible Hulk.
For Marvel to claim to own all of those concepts is idiotic. It is comparable to the Tolkien estate suing Everquest because they can make elves with blonde hair and bows.
Tolkien didn't invent elves or elves with bows or elves with blonde hair. Marvel did, however, invent a huge green man with incredible strength named Hulk, and they are defending the use of that likeness so they can protect what they own and profit from it. At first it seemed as if your argument was that they COULD do it but SHOULD NOT do it, but the more we debate the more it sounds like you think the suit is without merit. Maybe you're right and it will get thrown out of court, but I doubt it.
Sith
