I happened upon two interesting articles today:
What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting
Worlds.com Files Suit Against NCsoft – Every Other MMO Company To Follow?
Regarding the first, I’ve always believed that the $15 subscription fee in MMOs has little bearing on what it actually costs to provide the service. That’s especially true as time goes on and technology improves, making maintenance costs go down. Strong competitors, like upstart “RMT” or other F2P games could make the genre more honest.
Regarding the second, it seems like a bit of a frivolous case, but if it finds footing, I’d hate to see the genre smothered or costs go up (which would have the same effect, just delayed a bit). This is yet another squeeze on the MMO business. I do have to admire the audacity of Worlds.com, and their timing. NCSoft is over a barrel, at least Stateside, and makes for a much easier target than Blizzard. It will be interesting to see where this lawsuit winds up.
I hate lawyers and I hate firms that try to cash in by claiming something like having a patent for “The Wheel”.
I doubt they are succesful, and wonder why they try. Do they really believe such a broad and general patent can be applied to all MMOs?
I sometimes wonder what things are given patent status. Because this patent is so… general that it can hardly be protected at all.
The problem isn’t how general the patent is, but that the patent was given to them in the first place. Now the true tests apply.
Funny they went for NCsoft instead of Blizzard, obvious why. Blizzard has the cash to fight this tooth and nail, where NCsoft is a little more exposed. Blizzard would be hard pressed NOT to lend their legal team to this one – it would set a very terrible precedent.
As for the first, brilliant observation Tesh and great application to the sub model – although we have both agreed upon this for a while, the $15 a month isn’t rooted in any sort of cost/expense recovery and is just market “demand”. I am wholly curious how much the average subscription fee costs the company (data flow/management, etc) on a 10 hour a week account vs a 50 hour a week account – my guess would be both end up costing about the same with only a marginal difference.
Chris, I am also very curious as to what the actual “cost” is for the services. Likewise, I doubt that server migration or sex change operations are really “costing” Blizzard what they are charging. I can understand charging a bit, since that’s the nature of microtransactions, but I get the feeling that Blizzard is far overstating the cost. I do suspect that they are loathe to release such data, however. Lack of transparency is a businessweasel’s best friend. *coughCDOscough*
Openedge1 seems to think that the legal case might find some traction. I’m undecided on whether or not it will, since I haven’t perused the case file… but I’m wholly decided that it shouldn’t, just as a knee jerk reaction. Unfortunately, “should” is rarely a consideration when it comes to U.S. law.
Interesting thought on Blizzard lending their legal team. I can see arguments in either direction, but it would indeed raise the “anti Blizzard” hackles if they didn’t chip in.
They have a serious prior art problem.
MUDs, dating all the way back to MUD1 in the 1970s, have allowed “avatars to interact in a virtual space.”
This is yet another absurd patent lawsuit.
Not necessarily.
The patent defines “avatars” as strictly three-dimensional in all context it uses, although it make some allowance for two-dimensional lookup as well. That being said, the use of a hash table to store character data is absurd because virtually every other programmer wouldn’t use any other kind of data structure.
Furthermore the patent only applies to avatars interacting in a “three-dimensional, computer generated graphical space”, so they’re clear as for MUDs: the environment isn’t graphical.
If you look at worlds.com’s products, you can see why they’d try to get such a patent: however it’s application against NCSoft seems insipid at best, since it’s a pretty good bet that Tabula Rasa is not in competition with Aerosmith’s fansite.
The only prior invention problem I can call up off the top of my head is Everquest, which was in 1999 (patent was filed in 2000). But if Everquest doesn’t cull avatar download by distance function, it doesn’t really apply (I think?).
The patent isn’t about the idea of letting avatars interact in a virtual space, it’s about about “a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system.”