contracts
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Verizon CEO confirms plans for tiered data pricing
We told you so. The Wall Street Journal has updated its recent article detailing disclosures from Verizon Wireless chief Ivan Seidenberg, and the latest news is as bad as it is predictable: VZW plans to consign unlimited data plans to the annals of history over the next four to six months, to be replaced by tiered, consumption-based pricing. Seidenberg says Verizon's prices will surely differ from what AT&T recently introduced, noting that his company values data differently to the competition -- though he wouldn't say whether that means costs will be higher or lower. Either way, Droidsters, enjoy your last few months in the unlimited sun. [Thanks, Tyler]
Tesco Mobile announces cheapest UK iPhone 4 tariffs yet
You're not going to believe this, but someone actually bothered to turn up to the iPhone 4 launch with a bit of competitive spirit. Tesco Mobile, an MVNA riding atop O2's network, has busted out its idea of what represents good value for iPhone lovers' money, and it has put everyone else to shame. 1GB of data and unlimited texts come as standard (seems like O2's network can handle the load after all). Two 12-month options are available, at £20 ($29) per month for 250 minutes and £35 ($52) per month for 750 minutes, accompanied by the big spender platter of unlimited minutes and an almost free 16GB iPhone 4 for those willing to spend £45 ($66) over two years. It's all great news for Brits, and you can see exactly how it compares to the big networks in our comprehensive, chart-intensive breakdown right here.
How-to: figure out the best value iPhone 4 contracts in the UK (updated)
Choices, choices. Do you get the 16GB or 32GB iPhone 4? The black one now or the white one a little later? We can't tell you which variant of Apple's next phone will hold its value best over the coming months, but we can try to clear up a bit of the fogginess surrounding price plans on offer from UK networks. Orange and O2 are the first to drop handset pricing and full contract details, but they haven't made it easy for the discerning buyer, with each carrier offering more than a dozen options. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Three, and even Tesco Mobile are set to follow suit in the coming days and weeks, but we thought we'd get the ball rolling with the pair we have now. Update: And just as we publish this, Voda has gone official with its tariffs. We've now broken them down into a more digestible format as well. Just for you. Update 2: Tesco Mobile has also outed its pricing and it's by far the best of the bunch. Check out the full chart inside the post. Update 3: Three's iPhone 4 pricing has now also been made known.
Vodafone UK details iPhone 4 plans a little early, we keep the screenshots
We don't know what shenanigans are going on over in Vodafone HQ, but the UK carrier gave the world a quick glimpse of its iPhone 4 pricing today, before promptly removing the data sheets from the ether. Thankfully, a fast-witted reader by the name of Liam Gladdy captured the incriminating data for us, and we can now sit and ruminate on what Voda has in store. As you might surmise from above, the vast majority of users won't be getting the handset for free, though that doesn't necessarily preclude the contracts from representing good value. We note with glee that Vodafone keeps its data limit at a robust 1GB, unlike a certain other network, and the £30 ($44) a month two-year contract is looking decent from where we're sitting. Prices over 18 months just jump by £5 in monthly outlay with handset costs remaining the same. Click past the break for the full breakdown, including details for the 32GB variety.
Poll: Would you recommend a contract-free iPhone
The iPhone 4 debuts on the 24th of June. I am one of the many users whose upgrade date falls after 1/1/11. Looking at the difference between no-commitment pricing and upgrade-date-after pricing, I've been considering the no-commitment option and coming up without many answers. The math is not particularly compelling. AT&T's new smartphone early termination fee (ETF) is now running at $325, reducing at $10 per month. If I re-up with AT&T, the math becomes a wash after just over 12 months of use. The ETF goes down to $200, the actual price difference between the after-1/1/11 versus the no-commitment. Either way, I'm still under contract for the next 12 months regardless, unless I pay my current $120 ETF -- and I don't particularly want to give up my $30 unlimited data.
O2 offers early iPhone 4 upgrade amnesty in bid to retain customers
Would you look at that. Following in the footsteps of AT&T, O2 has today announced it'll allow current customers to pay off the remainder of their contracts at a discounted rate when they re-up with the network for the iPhone 4. Irrespective of how much you're paying now, the UK carrier will charge you a flat rate of £20 ($29) for each leftover month. Considering most iPhone users rock out at £30 and above, that's a solid 30 percent discount (or contract amnesty, however you wanna view it) for the impatient types. Of course, you'll be trading away your usual 14-day cooling off period if you take them up on this deal, so you'd better make doubly sure you want the iPhone 4 on O2 before taking the plunge.
The Lawbringer: Kids and Contracts
Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly visit to the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I am a third year law student acting as your crossing guard and trying not to get run over myself. For this week, we'll turn to my mailbag: I've turned 18 and am on an account my father WAS paying for. Is there any way without having the Ban Hammer brought down on me for me to have exclusive rights to the account? Because I'm pretty sure my father does not play and never really has. Thanks- Tom Tom's situation is not that unusual, but before we get into his question, I feel the need to reiterate something: I am not a lawyer. While I do appreciate the fact that I'm likely the closest thing to a lawyer that many of y'all feel comfortable contacting, I can't help you with real legal problems. That's a little no-no known as practicing law without a license; doing so could make me ineligible for the bar exam. And let me tell you, I do not want to end up with a loan bill bigger than my parents' mortgage without the piece of paper necessary to pay that debt off. I can tell you what the EULA and TOU says, what the current law is, what policies Blizzard has in place, but I can't tell you what you should do. (I also feel compelled to note that I am female. For those wishing to accuse me of blind loyalty to Blizzard: if I were a fanboy, the byline would read Gregory Rummel.)
The Lawbringer: Euro-ver my head, contract law edition
Welcome to the Lawbringer, your weekly stop at the intersection of law and Warcraft. I am your crossing guard, trying desperately to not get run over myself. First, I want to apologize for being a day late, but my week was spent preparing for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. Unfortunately, the test was channeling Illidian. If I get a letter in a few weeks saying that I'm not yet responsible enough to be a lawyer, I will not be surprised. Anyway, on to this week's promised topic: European Contract Law. We'll be approaching the same topics we covered on my side of the pond: contract formation, contract termination, and unfairness. These concepts form the basis of players' relationship with Blizzard, just like they do in the US. Whether Blizzard has the right to publish information about your avatars, ban you from the game, delete your achievements, or force you to resolve disputes in a mediation are all affected by the laws of the country in which a player resides. The first challenge in this column is that there traditionally has been no "European" contract law; these issues were decided at a national level through the home country's common or civil law system. Trans-nationalism being all the rage, however, the politicos of the European Union have formed the Commision on European Contract Law which has drafted Principles of European Contract Law. A Common Frame of Reference "toolbox" to help various European legislatures standardize the various laws of contract across the continent to match these Principles. What this means, though, is that this law is in a state of flux -- and I am not a barrister, abogada, rechtsanwalt, advokat, or avocat. Take everything in this column with a big grain of salt. And possibly a margarita to wash it down.
Analysts: No cause for concern over reported unpaid Modern Warfare 2 bonuses
Following the departures of two Infinity Ward executives, a related story has gained significant traction and deserves some attention. BingeGamer reports that the development studio "has yet to be paid a single dime in royalties for Modern Warfare 2," ostensibly to be paid by publisher Activision. As Infinity Ward is a wholly-owned Activision studio, we turned to some leading industry analysts to explain what appears to be a private contractual matter. EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich tells Joystiq, "I couldn't speak to what the royalty agreement between Activision and Infinity Ward is. If royalties haven't been paid out yet, I wouldn't consider that too alarming. The game has only been out for a little over 90 days. Additionally, it is common to see royalty agreements based upon factors such as hitting release date, review scores (a.k.a. 'Metacritic Clauses') or revenue milestones. I think if you just replace the word 'royalties' with 'bonus' it should make some more sense." Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter explains, "I don't know the nature of [Infinity Ward's] contract, but my bonus is paid after year-end (in February), and theirs is likely the same. The idea that they haven't been paid 'yet' is not all that surprising. The year just closed, and the final SEC documents were filed yesterday." He continues, "IW sold itself to Activision back in 2004, Activision owns the [Call of Duty] IP, and the guys leaving were employees under some kind of contract. Activision appears to believe that they have breached this contract, and may or may not be justified in withholding bonuses." Check out Pachter and Divnich's full analyses after the break. [Editor's note: This post has been altered to reflect updates in the Infinity Ward leadership shakeup.]
The Lawbringer: Contracts and player bans
Welcome to The Lawbringer, where we investigate the intersection of law and Warcraft and answer such questions as what do you call a raid of lawyers in the Maelstrom. Answer? A good start. Last week, we looked at what is private about our armory profiles. Hint: not much. But, life has a funny way of providing a use for things we thought were annoying. Check out this email we received Saturday: "Two days ago I lost my wedding ring. Of course my wife of 4 years finds it odd and starts to question what I do at night while she is at work. After hours of arguing, I remember about the WoW Armory. I rush to the PC and show her almost minute by minute what I was doing at night. She knows my characters and knew it was my character, and the Armory showed her everything."So remember, guys and dolls, the Armory can convert your spouse's infidelity aggro to regular WoW aggro. Use at your own risk. Today, we're going to look at losing the ability to play WoW, such as with player bans like the one given to Ensidia a few weeks ago. However, just as understanding how one gets into a contract helps in understanding how that contract affects players, learning about how to get out of a contract helps in understanding how bans affect players.
The Lawbringer: Contracts and the achievement tracker
Welcome to this week's episode of the Lawbringer! Each week we'll dive into the intricacies of law and the World of Warcraft. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to slay demons of ignorance for the benefit of your fellow denizens of Azeroth. Demons of ignorance slain: 1/4782*. *Number of ignorant demons may be subject to nerfing. So last week I introduced y'all to a bit of legal theorizing about how law and WoW might mix if they got pugged together. (Hint: not very well.) Y'all also were clamoring for my dissertation on gold farming. I want to give a big thank you to commentator Arnold for his excellent suggestions for improvements to make, and I promise I will be making those corrections soon. This week we'll be moving into some more concrete topics, prompted by a email from my mailbag: The new armory prints out date and timestamps for every little move you make in game. Run a heroic, it will show the date and time for every boss you kill. I didn't mind when it printed a date for achievements. But such fine-grained detail being so publicly available is .. invasive of privacy. This is an excellent issue, Wendy, and a subject of much qq-ing on the forums. However, before we can look into what privacy Blizzard may be invading, we need to understand our relationship with Blizzard; to do that, we need to look at a bit of contract law.
Pricing the tablet: How high can they go?
With the Apple tablet due to be announced next Wednesday, we've been seeing a lot of possible price points thrown around. Will the tablet retail for $999? Or is a $699 or $799 unit in the cards? It's really hard to say because as with all retail, both price and value depend a good deal on supply and demand, as well as on any deals Apple has with potential data providers. Take the iPhone for example you can buy a contract-free 32GB iPhone 3GS at the Apple store, for a rather steep $699. Apple doesn't make this easy for you. I found you had to search by model number (namely 718LL/A, for the screen shot shown here) rather than by the 3GS model name. Apple isn't exactly pushing AT&T-free models at their store, and I think the price here reflects that. You can pick up a 64GB iPod touch for $399 shipped, today. What makes the 32GB iPhone with just half that memory worth $300? In my opinion, it's Apple's way of dissuading customers from purchase. Slap a premium on the price, keep customers away. What's the true value of a phone? An informal survey in the TUAW newsroom came up with a figure of $50, mostly by waving our hands in the air. Looking at standard phones in the market, we decided that $50 could easily cover a retail assessment including 3G data reception, built in GPS, and a built in magnetometer. That would make a "real" market price for the 32GB iPhone hover at about $349, namely the price of a current generation 32GB iPod plus $50 in phone extras, namely half the price of what the current unit sells (or, more likely, and quite deliberately, fails to sell) at. So what does it take to go from a phone to a tablet? And I say phone, because I think it's likely that the tablet will ship with some sort of data plan option. I think the same sort of math applies. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $999 tablet be announced next Wednesday with a $699 deal for anyone who signs up for a two year data plan at, say, $39.99/month. In other words, I think it could be likely that Apple will push high on their initial price, moving that price downwards as early adopters give way to regular consumers later this year during pre-Christmas Q4 sales. As much as I want my $699 contract-free tablet, I don't think Apple's is anywhere near being on board with that low number. So what's your take on this? What will be the contract-free price? What kind of discount do you anticipate if the tablet comes with a data plan, and what monthly charge do you think the market is willing to take on for that data access? Let us know in the comments.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Advanced trading
In the first part of this guide I covered the basics of trading in EVE Online and some of the jobs best suited to newer players. There's a lot more to trading than buying low and selling high and in this week's installment, I'll cover some of the more advanced trading and marketeering tactics that have proven themselves effective in EVE. From margin trading on the market to making a living off the contracts page, anyone with enough dedication can learn to rake in hundreds of millions of ISK per day without even leaving the station. For the gamblers and risk-takers among you, market speculation and price manipulation can produce incredible short-term profit but with significant risks attached. In this second part of my concise guide on trading, I look at margin trading on the market, playing the contract pages, market speculation around patches and the dirty art of market manipulation.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Advanced trading, part 2
A good example of market speculation is the recent issue of moon minerals and the Dominion expansion. It was predicted that the expansion would contain a revamp of the moon mineral distribution system. For those who felt the risk was worth the potential rewards, it was a no-brainer to buy up rare moon minerals now and wait for the expansion.
EVE Evolved: Trading: The basics, page 2
The two primary ways to make money off the items you get are reselling them for a profit and reprocessing them for minerals. Tech 1 items may be resold or reprocessed depending on which will give the most profit. Keep in mind that some named modules actually refine into fewer minerals than their standard Tech 1 counterparts.
EVE Evolved: Trading: The basics
Of all the moneymaking endeavours you can take in EVE Online, trading is perhaps the one with the highest potential for profit. While mission-running profit tops out at a few tens of millions per hour and the profit margin from production isn't that big, trading is limited only by the amount of effort you're willing to put in and is much improved by inherent business talent. At the low end of the trading spectrum, beginners can make a healthy income ferrying items from A to B. At the other extreme, a market-savvy individual can pull billions per week out of the players in EVE's great conglomerated marketplaces. In this first guide in a short series on trading, I look at the different types of trading options available to newer EVE players.
LGJ: Read the fine print!
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: CJ Sorg Well, after the incident with Courtney Love and Kurt, it looks like the whole issue of famous musicians in games is back in the press with No Doubt suing Activision over Band Hero. A one time event is an anomaly, but twice in just a few months suggests something else. Of course, both of these all tie back to the contract, and since I'm a transactional attorney who spends the majority of most days negotiating and drafting agreements like these, I'm hoping I can shed a little light on what might be causing the problems. Since I wasn't involved in these particular negotiations nor have I read these contracts, all of what I'm presenting is speculation.But before I begin, I suppose I should answer the simple question, "What is a contract?" I assume that most people reading this have at least some idea, but just in case, it's worth describing in detail. A contract is a legally binding agreement between two parties to perform certain promises in the future. In theory, to form a contract there are five elements: Offer and acceptance, consideration, intent, capacity, and formalities. In reality, it's fairly simple. The parties must have a meeting of the minds, that is agree to the same terms, which is often viewed as an offer by one party and acceptance by the other. Each party must put up something of value, called consideration, for the contract to be valid. The parties must intend to enter into a contract, and be of the appropriate mental capacity to enter into the agreement. And then the agreement is generally recorded in writing, as most jurisdictions have rules that require written agreements, which is then signed by the parties. And that is how a contract is born, in theory anyway.
THQ announces extension of WWE renewal notice; Pachter explains
THQ announced today that World Wrestling Entertainment has extended a deadline that allows the publisher to renew its licensing contract. The extension lasts until December 21, 2009 -- the original deadline was November 1. If signed, the agreement would be good through December 31, 2014. THQ is cool with the WWE, but it's not very chummy with JAKKS Pacific, its longtime partner in the WWE licensing venture. The wounds also run deep between JAKKS and the WWE. When asked for comment on the license renewal and further details regarding the three-way deal, a THQ representative told Joystiq that the publisher plans to renew its contract with the WWE, and then added, "Beyond that, I cannot comment."The business, politics and legal issues are certainly complicated. We spoke with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter who laid out multiple scenarios, but in the end he believes the most likely outcome is that the joint venture between THQ and JAKKS will be terminated. If JAKKS enforces its (believed to be one-year) non-compete clause, then no WWE games can be produced. Neither side would benefit from that, however.Pachter suggests that the WWE's renewal deadline was extended to give THQ and JAKKS time to settle their issues. What it sounds like to us: THQ and WWE want to move forward as a couple, and the previous arrangement, featuring JAKKS as the third wheel, has worn out its welcome. Check out Pachter's complete analysis after the break.
Alltel steps down to one-year contracts without changing phone prices
Here's a refreshing shocker: the industry-standard two-year contract is effectively going away -- at least temporarily. Starting tomorrow, the 91 markets of Alltel that Verizon is required to divest are now offering one-year contracts for all new and renewing customers, but there's no increase in phone pricing -- you'll pay exactly the same amount at the register as if you were signing a two-year deal. The move almost seems like a little "screw you" to whomever ends up acquiring the markets, since those companies will effectively have to deal with the lost revenue -- but on the record, anyhow, the divested trust's main sales guy says that they're "excited about the possibility of joining AT&T." We're not so sure that AT&T feels the same way, but in the meantime, this is a nice little win for customers.
EVE Online extended Thursday downtime to bring numerous fixes to game
CCP Games has announced that EVE Online will be patched to Apocrypha 1.2 on Thursday, May 14, and will require extended server downtime. Downtime is expected to last from 05:00 GMT to 12:00 GMT. The game's official forums will be unavailable for at least part of the downtime, CCP states. The sheer number of changes being made to EVE Online with this patch -- some minor, others major -- is beyond the scope of this post. However, there are a few significant aspects of Apocrypha 1.2 we'd like to point out for our readers:
