This week’s episode is full of industry news in the wake of The Game Awards. There wasn’t many news items but there was plenty to talk about with the Awards, especially with this week’s Gaming Flashback, Unlimited Adventures.
This week’s news items include:
Let us know what you think.
This week we’re looking at some crazy news articles, looking back at Jungle Hunt and covering our review of the casual game, Bejeweled Twist from Popcap. This weeks news includes:
This weeks soapbox tackles the question, “would gamers be interested in non-violent cooperative games?” This weeks podcast ends with a new contest to give away two copies of Bejeweled Twist on the gaming podcast and another two copies in our gaming podcast forums.
So this week we’re busting out a new flashback of an old game: Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II. We’re covering a bit about some gaming history and a few key news articles of the week including:
This weeks question of the week, what do you think is the top selling video game genre of all time, not just the last few years.
Apparently Konami just realized Harmonix, MTV Networks and Viacom have made some game called Rock Band and want to take legal action. Konami has created some Japanese games involving karaoke called Karaoke Revolution. Why take legal action now?
Probably because Konami is working towards Rock Revolution, a title which puts together drums, vocals and guitar. How odd, don’t we have a game called Rock Band which has done that for awhile now? It’s much easier to be competitive in the market if you can squeeze your opponent out of the market by telling them you hold a patent on the entire concept…which you let slide for a year.
It seems a bit convenient to force a lawsuit, now, after Rock Band is proven successful and before you launch your own “clone.”
Its suit claims that Rock Band violates a series of US Patents registered in 2002 and 2003 relating to “simulated musical instruments” and “musical rhythm-matching game.” (gamespot)
Although the developers of Rock Band should have gone through some patents on the topic prior to make it (or maybe they did?), it seems a bit out of place to patent such a generic concept. As far as I know, Musical Chairs is also a musical rhythm-matching game but nobody put up any stink when Konami filed a patent for the same concept…
