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Lawsuit claims patent infringement by Turbine
Ever heard of Treehouse Avatar Technologies? Yeah, neither have we, but a lawsuit filed this week is aiming to get the Canadian-based web services company a little publicity. After being awarded a patent for the "Method And System For Presenting Data Over A Network Based On Network User Choices And Collecting Real-Time Data Related To Said Choices" on May 15th of this year, Treehouse is going after Turbine for what they consider infringement with both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. The lawyer-speak in the suit itself is not for the faint of heart, but a few of the claims include the fact that LotRO and DDO are "character-enabled" and "have character-attribute data linked with one or more character data." We can't help but be reminded of the Worlds.com vs. NCsoft lawsuit filed a few years ago claiming an infringement on "scalable chat," but it seems a bit far-fetched that a patent suit can be won over games that came out several years before the patent was even issued. But hey, that's why we write about video games and don't swing a gavel around.
The localization of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Gamasutra has an excellent interview up with Tim O'Leary, the man who heads Nintendo's North American localization team, and who helped prepare Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the U.S. market.O'Leary reveals how feedback from western gamers was a major influence on the new direction taken by Days of Ruin, and describes the various thought processes behind the game's art direction and characters. This leads into a wider discussion regarding the art of localizing games to match different cultural sensibilities, with O'Leary using the likes of Animal Crossing on the GameCube and the Pokémon games as examples.Finally, there's also quite a lot of talk about the inner workings of the Treehouse, the name given to the Nintendo U.S. localization division. Turns out that the localization of Nintendo games is one hell of an intricate process, with every last pixel scrutinized so that it makes perfect cultural sense. All in all, it's a fascinating read, so hit the link below!
DS Fanboy interviews Treehouse's Rich Amtower
Today, DS Fanboy has a nice little treat for all of our readers. We sit down and speak with Rich Amtower, who works in Nintendo's Treehouse division. Responsible for adapting Japanese titles to the English, French and Spanish markets, you can imagine he's got quite the difficult job to do. That doesn't stop us from bugging him for an interview, though.First of all, explain who you are and what your duties are with the company?My name is Rich Amtower, and I work in the localization department. Our job is to take games made in Japan and make them feel like they were made in America, basically -- that means recording English voices if there are Japanese voices in a game, translating and rewriting Japanese text into English (and now French and Spanish), and doing whatever sorts of alterations need to be made so that when gamers pick up a title, they feel like they're playing something tailor-made for them.
Off the Grid plays with Icehouse
Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor. Just so we're clear, Icehouse isn't a game. Well, technically that's not true. Icehouse was a game, designed by John Cooper of Looney Labs in the late 80s. Now, Looney Labs uses the term "Icehouse" to refer to unique pyramidal game pieces invented by Andrew Looney to play that game. So to call this a review of Icehouse wouldn't be inaccurate. Except we're not reviewing the game today; we're reviewing those pointy pieces. From the same people that brought us Fluxx, the Icehouse pyramids are small, plastic, stackable pawns grouped in sets of three from largest to smallest. Each set of three can be nested like russian dolls -- with one inside another inside another -- or they can be stacked in inverse order, making adorable little christmas tree formations. The pieces have a unique aesthetic for gaming, but looks can only get you so far. What really matters is how they play, and that depends on the game.
Super Paper Mario breaks 3rd dimension, fourth wall
MTV News sat back down with Nate Bihldorff, writer for Nintendo of America's Treehouse localization team, to talk about some of the more off-beat inclusions in Intelligent Systems' latest, Super Paper Mario, which he cowrote with Erik Peterson. The game not only breaks down the barrier between the second and third dimensions (that's kind of its whole shtick, really) but it playfully breaks down the fourth wall as well, self-referentially addressing its own video game-iness with in-jokes about games and game culture (see above). One joke that didn't come across so well was the DS Lite-shaped oven which appeared to promise DS connectivity. Bihldorff was contrite: "We were actually bummed out when we saw that reaction online ... We should have rewritten that line." With lines like "The mustard of your doom!" under his belt, we imagine there's plenty of redeeming lines in Super Paper Mario to make up for it. %Gallery-1586%
