NationStates Jolt Archive


new rant: licencsing and patents effects on the game industry

[NS]Ihatevacations
15-07-2005, 17:40
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html

The excerpt I am referring to

15. Stop the Short-Sighted Business Bullshit

Patents. Did you know there's a patent held by some microscopic software company on spherical camera controls in realtime 3D, and they're starting to level lawsuits against EVERYONE? Did you ever wonder what happened to force feedback, controllers that push your hands around so you can feel the action in the game as well as see it (we're talking real force feedback, not controllers that vibrate like pagers)? Somebody has a patent, that's what. Did you know you can't have mini-games during a loading screen because of patent law?

Exclusive sports licenses. Say goodbye to NFL football anywhere but with EA. That's right, they signed a deal with the NFL saying nobody could make games but them. So every other pro football game, including Sega's, will be back to using fictional teams so get ready to play as the Dallas Zombies with all-star QB Cletus Fuckhat.

The rest is good too, but this is what I wanted to comment on

Patents keep ruining the game industry, and incidentally all patents to anything worthwhile are held by piss-ant companies that don't even produce things I have seen in any store, much less bought. They all seems to earn their income by suing big name companies that decide to do something that turns out very similar to their patent or licensing their shit out to them. Like Immersion corp, I went to their website to see what they sell, they are apparently just a software company and license out their force feedback stuff to different companies, not make their own controller.

And now EA, on the books as making the gayest games I have ever had the disprivilege of playing, signed a contract with the NFL so only they are allowed to produce those games. What's next? Vivendi going to try and patent FPS play or something? Business "ethics" keps screwing up gaming. Thoguh without innovation gaming is doomed anyway, the only thing being improved on now is shadows and reflections and gun smoke. Until we get 3d immersion in video games we are pretty much out of real graphical innovation
Alien Born
15-07-2005, 17:50
Ihatevacations'] Though without innovation gaming is doomed anyway, the only thing being improved on now is shadows and reflections and gun smoke. Until we get 3d immersion in video games we are pretty much out of real graphical innovation

Perhaps then we can get back to gaming innovation being about the game itself, not about the bells and whistles attached to it. Can we have some real gameplay again now?
[NS]Ihatevacations
15-07-2005, 18:53
Perhaps then we can get back to gaming innovation being about the game itself, not about the bells and whistles attached to it. Can we have some real gameplay again now?
Really, thats what made katari damacy a favorite and i have heard..things.. about psychonauts, because they are strange innovative games, not games about how shiny they can make the metal on your sig or how realstic the blood pools look after being spilled from your opponents side