In this episode, the guys discuss Riot Games reportedly canceled an unannounced platform fighter, Fallout getting nominated for 16 Emmy Awards, and a player coming back after a 11 year, 5 month ban to continue the same argument from 2013.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week is a special episode as Jonah Falcon cooks up a true videogame roundtable and is giving away three Steam codes for the latest third person shooter, Spec Ops: The Line, while Paul Nowak reads this week’s gaming flashback Wally Bear and the NO! Gang.
The videogame roundtable has the crew discussing two topics: videogame violence and “play to win” premium game portals.
All that plus Reader Feedback.
To find out how to win a copy of Spec Ops: The Line, listen to the podcast and find out how!
This week has a new recording date, Wednesday, so the crew can have more timely discussions about newly released games and more of the week’s news. Thanks to the Star Trek Convention, the podcast is still delayed a little.
This week’s news includes:
All this and Listener Feedback. We also have a new Question of the Week: “What is your favorite fan convention?”
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…
