Archive for category IGE

Requiem For A Gold Farmer

Posted by Scott Jennings in IGE, RMT, _ on December 3rd, 2008

Julian Dibbell writes in Wired on the decline and fall of IGE.

At the same time, the so-called free-to-play model—no subscription fees, revenue derived entirely from direct sales of in-game items—has made inroads in the Asian MMO market and is being embraced by no less a gaming giant than Electronic Arts in the upcoming Battlefield Heroes. But both these models, in their blunt rejection of IGE’s third-party retail model, only underline what Pierce himself implicitly conceded when he sold out to Yantis: There is no future for his once-bright dream except in the dimness of what is plainly now a permanent gray market.

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All’s Well That Ends

Posted by Scott Jennings in IGE, RMT, _ on April 9th, 2008

Debonneville v. Pierce to, unsurprisingly, settle out of court. Not much to add beyond Duranske’s note:

From a virtual law perspective, I’d been hoping against hope that these two charming gentlemen would continue knocking their heads together for another couple of months, and that the judge would accidentally say something meaningful about virtual property while trying to sort out their nonsense, but that doesn’t appear likely now.

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Can You Actually Unring A Bell?

Posted by Scott Jennings in First Thing We Do Let's Kill All The Lawyers, IGE, RMT, _ on February 14th, 2008

I’ve just received this charming note from Brock Pierce’s lawyer regarding the Debonneville v. Pierce lawsuit.

It has come to our attention that you have made postings on the website www.brokentoys.org that violate the United States District Court’s Order sealing the Complaint in that case.

To avoid further harm resulting to our client from the violation of the Court’s sealing Order, we hereby demand that by no later than the close of business tomorrow (February 15, 2008) you: (1) take down your January 30, 2008 article discussing the allegations in the sealed document and (2) send our office all copies of the Complaint in your possession, custody or control.

Well, I certainly would not want to violate the spirit or letter of such a nice notice, even if their information on where I live is somewhat out of date and no other attempt was made to contact me before this. So, of course, late tomorrow afternoon, I’ll edit this post and remove the offending information. That should make everyone happy, right? It *is* what they asked for!

Just in the interest of openness, my response:

Although it is my understanding that I am under no legal obligation to comply with the court order you provided, I will comply fully with your first request and take down the blog article referenced by close of business on 2/15/08.

As I have no copies of the document you refer to, I cannot comply with the second request you have made.

I welcome your client’s renewed dedication to legal documentation and remind him that there are several outstanding end user licensing agreements attached to games I have assisted in operating in the past, regarding the explicitly forbidden trade of virtual items and characters in said games that he and his company have performed and expedited, that would benefit from his and his company’s attention.

So, once again, this article will be edited sometime later tomorrow afternoon. This article. Over here. Yeah, this one.

57 Comments

IGE: Less Money, Mo’ Problems

Posted by Scott Jennings in Affinity Media, IGE, RMT, _ on November 12th, 2007

Virtually Blind has posted paperwork and some commentary from the ongoing Hernandez v. IGE lawsuit.

Remember those vehement, constant insistances that Affinity Media and IGE were totally seperate, really, honest? From the motion to stay filed by IGE (obtained by Virtually Blind):

Defendant, IGE U.S., LLC n/k/a Affinity Media Holdings, LLC, (“IGE US”)

(n/k/a is legalese for “now known as”). I guess “really seperate” means “until you get us under oath”.

In related news, PlayNoEvil points out an article by MMObux, an RMT-friendly news site, cataloging what appears to be the hostile takeover of IGE’s Chinese arm from Affinity.

Atlas is part of IGE by former shareholders more than a year ago after leaving IGE, a corporation organized. IGE them because of their dissatisfaction with Affinity in the direction of development under the leadership chose to leave. These IGE former shareholders understand and are concerned about the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) market, and thus set up the Atlas, looking forward to this market for popular and urgent demand changes. In Atlas, we attach importance to suppliers and cooperative relationship, and that all suppliers should be given due respect, including by agreement obtain timely payments. Therefore, you are in arrears through the Affinity purchase price incident on our part is not accepted and acceptable.

(My apologies for the Google-generated engrish.)

12 Comments