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January 20, 2005

Marvel vs. City of Heroes

NCSoft has filed for dismissal in the suit brought against them by Marvel, which suit claims that City of Heroes allows folks to generate clones of Marvel's trademarked and copyrighted characters. The horror!

Some choice bits:

Kids with wandering imaginations have long decorated school notebooks with pictures of fantastic and supernatural beings of their own design. The ingenuity of individuals, as expressed through the creation of characters incorporating timeless themes of mythology, patriotism, 'good,' and 'evil,' has been a source of entertainment in the form of role-playing games for ages. In the face of technology that enables individuals to engage in such activities in a virtual, on-line context, Marvel Enterprises, Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc. (collectively, 'Marvel') have taken the unprecedented step of attempting to appropriate for themselves the world of fantasy-based characters [...]

City of Heroes is a tool that encourages originality, not slavish copying. It allows young and old to exercise their imaginations to create super-powered beings and send them off to interact with the creations of other individuals in a virtual world called Paragon City. If it should be banned, then so should the #2 pencil, the Lego block, modeling clay, and anything else that allows one to give form to ideas ...

Hearing on the motion is scheduled for 7 Feb.

(via Thought Balloons)

Posted by Dave at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Media

January 12, 2005

I worry for Doyce

Surely, surely Jackie can talk him out of his City of Heroes addiction, maybe by using these tactics from good ol' Pat Robertson:

Q: My 18-year-old son is hooked on computer games that have magic spells in them. I'm concerned, but what can I do?

A: Once they are 18, it is tough. Nevertheless, as a mother, sit down with your son and say, 'We are Christians and love Jesus. This kind of conduct is hurtful to you and damaging. There are demons.' You need to explain to him the reality of demonic possession. You begin with one of those games and it draws you in. Remember the stuff that happened out there at that tragedy in that high school near Denver when those boys had played a computer game and acted it out to their classmates? These things are dangerous. You need to sit down and talk to him and say, 'I love you and this is the way it is.'

Bring the biblical verses that show him how these things are wrong. You can find a number of instances. Get a concordance and look up 'spirits' and 'demons' and look up the 'devil,' 'Lucifer,' and 'Satan' and show that they are not just fun and games. You need to show him the consequences and he will listen. And do a lot of praying that the spells he may be under may be broken, because it is possible for someone to get transfixed like they do with Dungeons & Dragons. They play those roles so much and it takes them over.

Hmmm. Maybe Jackie should talk to him about his addiction to D&D, too. Perhaps an intervention is in order ...

(via J-Walk)

Posted by Dave at 10:02 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay