Linden Lab today announced two new products, along with a complete revamp of its Web-site. First up, the press-release.
All posts by Tateru Nino
Minecraft maker, Mojang, sued for patent infringement by plaintiff who can’t spell “Minecraft”
Uniloc USA Inc, and Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. have today filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of Texas against Minecraft maker Mojang, asserting patent infringement of US Patent 6857067.
The patent in question essentially appears to cover just about all forms of DRM and targets Minecraft on Android devices, as these devices call home to see if they’re authorised to run, and that’s a big no-no according to this patent.
Seshat and Feldspar visit The Secret World
In the wake of the release of Funcom’s new subscription-MMOG, The Secret World, my minions, Seshat and Feldspar delve into this new offering in the MMOG market and return with their impressions.
The Secret World drops players into a modern, yet magical world where most of the conspiracy theories are true. As the unexpected recipient of strange, magical energies, players align themselves with one of three vast, secret societies, to further their faction’s interests and thwart or avert whatever the apocalypse du jour may be.
Landmark EU ruling permits resale of digital downloads/licenses [updated]
So, here’s an interesting divide between USA law and EU law. In the USA, you almost never buy software or video games. No, the license says you’re only buying a license to use the software (which is conveniently being loaned to you free-of-charge on a disk or as a digital download or whatever) under limited circumstances as laid out by the license. Did you buy a copy of Windows or Call of Duty or whatever? No. The paperwork says you bought a right to use that software until the publisher says otherwise, and that the software remains the property of the publisher.
This arrangement has been upheld by US courts on a number of occasions, so no, you’re not buying those games. They’re just loaned to you under a limited set of circumstances. This holds doubly true for digital downloads, in the main.
What makes this a bit weird is that the USA’s Uniform Commercial Code (variations of which exist in most countries) has always maintained that once a purchase has been made, no further conditions can be imposed. That is, any license agreements and the like have to be agreed to before the purchase takes place and not (for example) once you open the box or start installing. US Court rulings on End-User-License-Agreements (EULAs) and shrink-wrap/click-through agreements say much the opposite, however, and it is what is ruled in court that matters.
And that brings us to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has basically ruled that all those EULAs, and click-through license agreements are basically bunk as far as this is concerned and that you actually did buy the software itself.
The final choice is the weakest choice
The release (and reaction to) Bioware’s Mass Effect 3 gave me an occasion to talk about game endings and the sorts of narrative cop-outs that arise from them. Now, Mass Effect 3 has had an “extended cut” of its endings, and I’m going to take that as a cue to do an extended cut of talking about narrative choices.
In short, of all of the choices presented in an interactive narrative, the final choice is almost always going to be the weakest choice.
I can’t tell you what piracy is doing, but it doesn’t seem to be killing the industry
The fact is that despite the movie and games industries bemoaning rampant and uncontrolled piracy of their products, both industries are burgeoning. The movie industry is “suffering” under record revenues, and the games industry revenues have grown more than 300% in the last decade (to more than double that of the movie industry).
And yes, rampant and uncontrolled piracy is happening – yet the industry is getting more money over the counter than ever before. It’s difficult, then, for the industries to show how much they’re being hurt. Would their record revenues be higher? By how much? Nobody knows the answer, but thanks to France, we can take a guess.
You see, back in 2010, France introduced stiff anti-piracy legislation that (after a bit of a rocky start in its early months) reduced online piracy by a whopping 66%. How, you might ask, did this affect sales?
DayZ 1.7.1.2 hotfix rolling update [updated]
Just in case you thought DayZ development was slow (due to the lack of updates during E3 and being that it is done for free), there’s another hotfix out today. For the impatient, just wanting to know what the key changes in DayZ 1.7.1.2, the summary is: Food and other generic loot is spawning again, animals are active and more numerous, night-time rendering has been altered, and there are some experimental melee weapons.
The hatchet and crowbar are experimental, and quite possibly underpowered as melee weapons. Rocket is planning to evaluate them to see whether to continue with them, or drop melee weapons again for the time being.
Want more detail?
R18+ classification for games passes Oz Federal houses for 2013
It’s been a rather long and shameful road for Australia’s media classification system. The system itself requires that most forms of media sold, rented, displayed or traded within Australia be properly classified and labelled, but the system has been … well, uneven, at best.
While all other media had six classifications, computer and video games had just four, restricting the allowable content for games to that which was deemed suitable for a fifteen year old audience of minors.
The lack of an R18+ classification led to some games being restricted from sale, while others wound up getting grouped into an overstretched MA15+ classification, which seemed to contain an increasing amount of inappropriate content.
It has been announced today that the new classifications category has finally (after many years of wrangling and obstacles) finally passed the Australian Federal Parliament and Senate – to commence on 1 January 2013 – but that’s not the whole story.
DayZ 1.7.1 rolling-update. Extra cruelty release [updated]
The new DayZ code is rolling out to servers now. There’s some great stuff in this release, like (for examples) zombies no longer able to see and attack you through walls and floors/ceilings. You can actually hide from them now.
However, new characters will spawn with just a bandage, painkillers and a flashlight. No ammo, no weapon, no food, no water. Also, the zombies can see better than they used to, and they see based on where they are looking, rather than what direction their bodies are facing in.
Additionally, as some of you have already noticed today, vehicles are being reset with server restarts. Full list of changes and fixes are below.
Finding your feet in DayZ, resources and tips for survivors [updated]
DayZ, the free-to-play zombie apocalypse survival mod for Arma 2: Combined Operations (Bohemia Interactive Studio, 2009), can be disorienting at first. Gameplay takes place on an open-world map covering 225 square kilometres, built from satellite data of a part of Czechoslovakia. Each time you begin anew, you start without a map, and with little idea about just where you are, and often less idea about where you can find equipment (and more importantly find water).
You’d think there would be some handy online resources to help you out. And you’d be right.
If you want the thrill of discovery, you might want to give the maps part a miss. Otherwise, let’s look at what resources are available to you.