Comments on: Also, “Player vs. Player” Trademarked By Scott Kurtz

By: Innovation in Marketing pt 2: The Fast and the Furious « Broken Toys

Innovation in Marketing pt 2: The Fast and the Furious « Broken Toys — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:29:47 +0000

[...] threatend a Plucky Development Studio with the Forces of Lawyerly Darkness? No? Well, that’s why they have links and stuff. [...]

By: onlinegamers.org » Blog Archive » Metaplace Announced to Resounding Meh

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:45:13 +0000

[...] games that already exist, and we certainly know that some companies are so anal retentive that they trademark relatively generic gaming terms and get litigious over it. Sometimes even real companies get in on the action, though when you have [...]

By: Viz

Viz — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:52:49 +0000

But if you put the health and mana bars there you can’t then stuff them full of other bars that are more important when you mod the UI. Unless you move the health and mana bars. In which case, why didn’t you put them somewhere out of the way to begin with?

By: Chenghiz

Chenghiz — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:08:40 +0000

“These games consistently use them because they *work*.”

This may be true but they’re hardly optimal. It would, for example, make much more sense to place the character portrait with health and mana in the centre bottom of the screen, where the eye more naturally rests.

By: =j

=j — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:16:02 +0000

How about “Gaker vs. Carebear”?

By: tannenburg

tannenburg — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:06:00 +0000

I’m sorry, Citizen, that information is above your security clearance. Please report to a Voluntary Termination Center so that your clone can be activated.

The Computer is your Friend!

By: Please

Please — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:57:09 +0000

Greg was laying down his pen and paper RPG “Toon” in which characters were called: (wait for it) Toons. Just one of the many fantastic games he’s written (Pax Britannica or PARANOIA anybody?).

Abject love for Costikyan.

By: yunk

yunk — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:19:54 +0000

Blackblade I would not be surprised if everyone outside the legal department knew nothing about it. Legal departments love to create paper it seems, and I’m sure they don’t need to go for approval of anyone outside their own manager for stuff like this – “aggressively” defending copyright from some minor player.

At least, when a company is embarrassed they *say* they didn’t know what the lawyers were doing..

I was performing at Improv Olympic in Chicago when after about 12 years of harassment by the International Olympic Committee they were forced to change their name. So the theater Del Close built that trained so many great comedians from Mike Meyers to Bill Murray now goes by the name of “IO” because, you know, every 4 years people would show up wondering where the pole vault competition was.

By: Blackblade

Blackblade — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:46:46 +0000

I’m curious to know what you think, Lum, being someone that worked so closely with MJ. Now I know you may plead the fifth for the sake of not burning any industry bridges, but, do you think:

A) This type of high-level douchery typical of his conduct.
B) “EA made me do it!” © (I’m gonna put that on a T-Shirt)
C) His stance is justified.

By: Riprend

Riprend — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:36:17 +0000

To echo Liet, the absolute earliest I can remember the term “toon” was The Realm, in which it was godawful widespread. I can’t really think of a product before it that it might have popped up in, with the possible exception of INN’s chatrooms.