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[1.Local]: The relative value of being "First!"
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Hang on, guys, while I reach back for my Drama Mamas hat ... Just a sec, turning on my helm display ... There. Ok, here's the score: I delete all "First!" comments on my posts, so readers don't have to wade through nonsense posts simply to get a shot at making relevant conversation. Those who persist get hit with the Hammer of Ban Justice. (Don't say you haven't been warned!) Off-topic comments are pointless and rude, and they achieve nothing but demonstrating how spectacularly clueless you are on how to comport yourself in public on the internet. Don't do it, please. /unequip [Drama Mama Helm] Ok, now that that's on the record -- shhh, c'mere. Peek around the corner with me, because this "First!" on a recent Around Azeroth turned out to be rather entertaining. (Just don't tell anyone it was me who told you so.)
China investigating potential World of Warcraft upset, may ban game
Blizzard and World of Warcraft have been having some trouble as of late in China, but this piece of news seems much more foreboding that anything that came before it. Apparently, an anonymous insider says China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has assigned Shanghai's News and Press Bureau to investigate a joint venture established by NetEase and Blizzard. Not too long ago, NetEase became the new benefactor of licensing rights for World of Warcraft, but GAPP thinks the deal aims to break Chinese law.China is very clear when it comes to foreign companies operating online games domestically through a joint venture or sole investment -- they do not tolerate it. Without argument, GAPP approval is required for any foreign online games. If they find that the NetEase and Blizzard deal aimed to operate as a joint venture, thus allowing Blizzard more control of their MMO in China, things could become bad for the two companies.Without GAPP approval, World of Warcraft cannot be displayed publicly, traded or promoted. If a company were to attempt such a thing without approval, GAPP has said they will shoulder legal responsiblities. Assuming that were to happen, it could become very difficult for Blizzard to find a Chinese distributor for World of Warcraft. Considering the massive amounts of players who live in China, 11 million subscribers could be easily halved in the worst case scenario.[Thanks, ScytheNoire!]
The9 is out, NetEase is in for Chinese World of Warcraft operator
Yesterday, we reported the rumor that it looked like Chinese World of Warcraft operator The9 might be losing the licensing rights to a competitor, and today we can confirm that rumor to be 100% true. Rival company NetEase has purchased the rights to operate World of Warcraft in China, starting once The9's current contract is up with Blizzard on June 8th.NetEase is already the operator of Battle.net in China, supporting Warcraft III and the to-be-released Starcraft II. They have been operating with Blizzard since last August, when they acquired all of the rights to the other Blizzard games. This acquisition only brings NetEase and Blizzard closer together in their business arrangement.What is still up in the air, however, is the fate of Wrath of the Lich King. DoNews, a Chinese news site, has reported that Wrath has been licensed by NetEase, although no formal announcement has yet been made.[Via JLM Pacific Epoch]
Rumor: The9 loses WoW license in China to Netease
The9 has been the target of persistent rumors over the last few months that they're on the verge of losing their license from Blizzard to operate World of Warcraft in China. First, we heard about their financial troubles, and then came rumors that Blizzard was going to ditch them. And now we've got WorldofWar.net reporting a rumor that Netease will be the company to take over the reins there. It makes sense -- Netease has been growing a lot during their history, and they successfully operate Fantasy Westward Journey, an MMO with a US value of $761 million, with 400,000 average concurrent users. They're already supposed to take over Blizzard's Warcraft III and Starcraft II in China, so Blizzard will actually be consolidating their properties.The rumor supposedly comes from a leaked internal memo to The9 employees, which says that an unnamed company (supposedly Netease) is trying to pick up the rights and hardware for the game for a cool $22 million. The9 reportedly paid $73 million for the same capability, so they're losing twice on the deal -- both the license and the money they spent on it.Not good news for The9 if it all turns out to be true, but maybe this means Chinese players will get their expansions a little sooner. Of course, a lot goes into releasing new content overseas (translation is definitely not a small part of it), but having a more capable operator probably won't hurt.Update: Confirmed. Thanks for playing, The9. Their stock is down big time since the announcement, and Netease's is up.
Rumor: China's The9 may lose licensing rights to World of Warcraft
The9 is the licensed operator for World of Warcraft in China, the most popular Western MMO running in Asia. However, The9 is facing new censorship and regulatory issues which have thus far prevented the Wrath of the Lich King expansion from launching in China. These restrictions imposed upon online games operating in mainland China by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) are not the only issue affecting World of Warcraft's success in the country. To make things worse, it's now rumored that their licensing deal with Blizzard may be shaky. Our sister site WoW Insider has mentioned (unverified) reports that The9 might be on the outs with Blizzard, citing a Xinhua news agency story. The9 declined to make a comment to WoW Insider, stating only that they're still in negotiations with Blizzard Entertainment. With their current licensing agreement due to expire this summer, we suspect it won't be long before the situation is resolved, one way or the other. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
More hints of a Fallout MMO?
We've alternately consulted both our Magic 8 Ball and a Ouija board for answers to the Fallout MMO question. As in, will there be one? We think we've got a handle on the licensing intricacies of Fallout between ZeniMax Media (parent company of Bethesda Softworks) and Interplay thanks to a stellar article written by Daedren for r1ft Gaming. Briefly stated, Bethesda owns the rights to the Fallout IP, but not a Fallout MMO. Interplay holds the Fallout MMO rights, but only if they could raise $30 million and begin development by April 2009. Interplay has mentioned an MMO project with a tongue-in-cheek codename Project V13 (a nod to Fallout) but we've heard little of this game beyond that 2008 announcement that a dev team was being formed. In addition, we reported just last week that ZeniMax Media is hiring for an MMO division, project(s) unknown. While it hints at the potential to bring Fallout into the MMO space, we're still chalking it up to rumor. That rumor got a bit juicier today though when we came across something of interest at our sister site Big Download. The original Fallout designer Jason Anderson, formerly the creative director for Project V13, has parted company with Interplay to work for inXile on a new RPG. We're still not certain if the various bits of news we've found in the last few weeks indicates a potential ZeniMax/Bethesda Fallout MMO or if Interplay's Project V13 will chug along just fine without Jason Anderson, so we're still firmly in the realm of "rumor," albeit an interesting one to fans of all things post-apocalytic.
What rights should we have to our virtual goods?
Are you aware of your property rights as they pertain to the virtual goods in your favorite MMO? Are you aware of the laws in your country as they pertain to virtual goods? Heck, do you even read the EULA?It seems like these lawyer-speak agreements are becoming more prevalent lately, as we impatiently click the 'agree' button in anticipation of playing the latest MMO. In fact, even older games are reinstating their EULA on the loading screens, forcing players to click through before entering their world. The reason for this basically boils down to inevitable litigation as gaming grows in popularity.
Fans create a petition for a live stream of BlizzCon
A Hungarian site about Starcraft has put together a petition that a lot of folks who weren't able to grab BlizzCon tickets will probably want to sign: they're asking for Blizzard to create a live Internet stream of BlizzCon. Of course, DirecTV will be streaming the whole show (for a price, of course) on television in the US, but Blizzard fans in Europe and elsewhere have no such luck.To tell the truth, we're not sure why Blizzard made this deal with DirecTV -- well, to be fair, we know why (to make more money), but they did provide a live stream of the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, and while sure, there were occasional problems, it worked far better than I ever expected it to. Why Blizzard didn't just upgrade the servers and send the stream of BlizzCon out into the world for free (as much as DirecTV wouldn't like it) is a good question.The petition has already 1800 signatures as of this writing (more, we'll note, than the actual number of tickets sold to BlizzCon of course Blizzard has sold thousands of tickets, not hundreds. Sorry about that.), and we're sure it'll be way more than that soon. It's likely that Blizzard has tied themselves down by selling the rights to stream the show to DirecTV, but you never know -- maybe a groundswell of public support for an internet stream will make them reconsider.[via BlizzPlanet]
ION 08: A five year forecast for MMOs
There's always a lot of discussion about what's going to be the next big thing in the MMOs industry. We all love to talk about the future and that's largely because it's a very interesting topic. So we just had to attend the "Online Games in 2013" panel at ION 08. This panel was actually introduced by Peter Freese, the ION Conference Director. It was easily one of the most packed panels I've been to thus far which is saying a lot since all the panels have been pretty well populated already.The panel consisted of Erik Bethke (GoPets Ltd), Scott Jennings (NCsoft), Bridiget Agabra (Metaverse Roadmap) and Damion Schubert (BioWare). With a group of people like this I was expecting some varied and compelling conversation on the topic of MMOs in 2013. In the end we got just that and a quite a bit more.%Gallery-22888%
Blizzard to Boll: Thanks, but no thanks
There is probably no name more reviled in the realm of film than Uwe Boll -- he's the man behind such horrible games-to-films as House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark (the latter of which, I am somewhat embarrassed to say, I tried to watch). And while it isn't really news that Uwe Boll isn't directing the World of Warcraft movie (we already knew, from back at Blizzcon, that Legendary Pictures is handling it, and Boll usually uses his own financing and production companies), but this is too great a story to pass up. Apparently when Boll heard that a Warcraft movie was being made, he actually went to Blizzard to try to get it done, and they told him straight up: no, never, not in a million years.Actually, Boll himself tells the story over on MTV Movies as "we will not sell the movie rights, not to you.... especially not to you." Which is pretty hilarious. He himself also says that "because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it." So yes, he pretty much guarantees that any movie he makes would be a bad movie anyway.So there's at least one great thing we can say about the Warcraft movie so far: Blizzard at least cares enough about the quality of the flick to not let Uwe Boll make it. This doesn't guarantee us a good movie, of course. But it's nice to know that the higher ups at Blizzard know to keep their property away from this nut.[via Worldofwar.net]
Realtime Worlds takes APB distribution rights from Webzen
It always seemed to us that MMO-maker Webzen had a bit too much on its plate, what with working on APB, Huxley and Soul of the Ultimate Nation year after year with no signs of any actual releases. Well, Webzen's plate got a little less full today, as developer Realtime Worlds announced it has regained the global distribution rights to APB. Realtime Worlds' announcement follows a an intriguing demo of APB at February's Game Developer's Conference and a $50 million cash infusion for the Crackdown developer in March. As for Webzen, maybe this disquisition will finally give it the focus it needs to finish up the long-dormant Huxley.
Ubisoft buys up Tom Clancy rights, announces Clancy MMO
Publisher Ubisoft sealed a mega-deal today for the rights to the Tom Clancy brand name to "use in video games and ancillary products including related books, movies and merchandising products." No price tag was affixed publicly to the deal, but Newsweek spoke with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter who guesses it was somewhere around $100 million.GameDaily reports that in a follow up conference call to the announcement, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated the company is looking to make a Tom Clancy MMO. Guillemot also guessed the MMO would cost around $50 million to make. Yes, but will it have the prerequisite elves and dwarves in there to become a phenomenon?Read -- Ubisoft Locks Up All Tom Clancy Rights, Plans for MMORead -- Newsweek talks to Pachter
Avatar rights: A person chooses, a tool obeys
There are any number of small avatar-rights movements going around, both in virtual worlds and even in some game-based MMOs. Does your avatar have rights? Is it a separate and distinct entity that can possess citizenship, rights, privileges and obligations in a different world (or virtual country)? The short answer is, no. The rather longer answer is also no.
Imagined, but not owned
Linden Lab has been overhauling its website and promotional material lately for the poorly understood virtual world Second Life. One of the key changes to be spotted is the alteration of the long-standing descriptor, "Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents", which now only reads, "Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined, and created by its residents", and there's signs that the wording is still evolving a little. The unannounced change has caused a fair bit of speculation, especially among those who were never all that certain as to what the ownership consisted of in the first place. In fact, that seems to be at the heart of the reason for the change.
MP3 player levy could be reinstated in Canada
Continuing to prove that music rights-holders just don't "get it" is the news that the Canadian Private Copying Collective is pursuing the reinstatement of levies on MP3 players in Canada. You may remember that the CPCC was the body that lobbied hard for the original enactment of a levy on MP3 players that was in effect from December 2003 until the following December: in the end the levy was overturned by Canadian courts, and various companies that passed on the tax to customers were forced to offer refunds. The reason for the overturning was the fact that the levy focused on hard drives, which, in the court's eyes, didn't fall into the category of "audio recording media." The CPCC is now calling for the Canadian Copyright Board to classify MP3 players as a whole under category of "audio recording media," as well as an increase in the levy range from CAD$5 to $75 depending on the capacity of the storage. Fortunately, several experts in the field of intellectual property have stated that it's unlikely the CPCC will get its way: David Fewer, a professor at the University of Ottawa, states that he thinks the CPCC is "really getting quite existential" regarding whether or not players like the iPod are "mediums" or "players." We love a debate on the existentialism of MP3 players as much as the next geek, and when the end result could be a tax that blames all consumers for a problem -- which is supposedly "contained" -- that could be addressed in oh-so-many other ways, you know which side we'd be on.
UK report predicts rights for robots; your AIBO wants a tax break
If you've got someone who loves you, holds down a steady job, helps you out, reads your mail to you, takes care of you, and even gives birth, it's only fair that they enjoy the same rights and liberties as everyone else, right? What if that individual is powered by an Intel processor? Concerns over the status of robots in our society around 2056 have emerged from "one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King," the UK government's chief scientist. Essentially, folks in favor of robotic rights suggest that if conscience bots are made to interact with humans, they should share a certain level of rights. Currently, the machines we know and love (and fear) are classed as "inanimate objects without rights or duties," but if rights were passed, somehow these creations would be forced to obey traffic lights and potentially pay taxes. Of course, a large concern is ethics towards these creatures, but some say that if robots in society are "correctly managed," it could lead to increased labor output and "greater prosperity." Although this stuff may seem pretty far-fetched right now, the logic behind it could actually grow legs in the (somewhat) distant future, but until there's a robotic candidate on the presidential ballot, we'll just keep on keepin' on.[Thanks, Fred R. and Laura O.]
Canon's EOS-1D an example of all-controlling IP?
There's no doubt that the matter of intellectual property has become more prominent in the age of the internet now that some products -- like music -- have begun to lose their physical properties entirely. This shift has led to an increase in use of licenses designed to protect the IP of certain goods; so when you buy a song from the majority of online music services, that purchase is often accompanied by an agreement between you and the creator of the music. Some argue that manufacturers of electronic products have gone too far with their licenses, an opinion aired over at an article in The New Republic. One particular example of outlandish licensing agreements is that of Canon's EOS-1D which includes a separate agreement related specifically to the software that runs on the camera -- effectively the consumer does not own the software that keeps the camera running; he or she is instead licensed the right to use it. One clause of the disclaimer actually removes Canon's obligation to service or repair the camera if the software fails. These kind of agreements aren't completely watertight: courts can invalidate licenses if the company tries to impose excessive limits, the problem is that often they choose to favor companies over the individuals because it is felt that protection is required for fast moving areas like software design. Ultimately though, the threat of aggressive IP will never overrule the consumer's killer wallet-closing combo move. If consumers are unfairly restricted by certain companies, isn't it logical to assume that people won't buy that company's products anymore?[Via Against Monopoly]
Blizzard apologises for GLBT blunder
We previously reported on Blizzard's run-in with Sara Andrews as she was recruiting for her GLBT-friendly guild; fortunately, there's a happy ending. Blizzard's decision has been reversed, and they are reviewing their policies (including their wording). Additionally, as the incident is being put down to a poorly trained GM, we'll be seeing GMs with added "sensitivity training" in future.According to In Newsweekly, another outcome of this is that a special "guild recruitment" channel is going to come into existence soon, making it easier to advertise and find guilds.Also, several academics have created and signed an "Open Letter to Blizzard" as a result of this issue, encouraging Blizzard to come forward and "make a public statement that the mention of homosexuality in general chat is not offensive. Beyond this, we also suggest that Blizzard investigate ways of making WoW more inclusive for GLBT guilds and players." It looks like this single GM reprimand has touched a very sensitive nerve.
