There is a new ruling in the impressive saga of NCSoft (City of Heroes fame) v Marvel (of Spider-man fame). For those unfamiliar with the case, Marvel Comics sued NCSoft, the makers of the popular City of Heroes MMORPG game because the game character-design engine allows users to create their Read more
So, Machinima has finally made it to the mainstream in a great article by games blogger chick Aleks Krotoski. Machinima, in case you are too bored to click on the Wikipedia article, is a new type of creative expression that uses 3D games engines to tell a story, produce a Read more
Browsing randomly on Google Scholar (as one does) I found an excellent article about social roles in electronic communities. It describes several types of personalities that can be found in online fora: Celebrities – Prolific posters who spend a good deal of time contributing to the community. Celebrities define what Read more
Sony is about to open Station Exchange, a shop for virtual goods in Everquest, one of its most popular online computer games. The idea behind the website is that users will have a sanctioned site where users can exchange their game goods. For example, if you buy a level 50 Read more
(N.Y. Times article, you know what to do). This article deals with the making of Tho Fan, a new language created specifically for the computer game Jade Empire. The language joins Klingon and Elvish (sorry, Quenya, Sindarin and Telarin) as one of the growing number of invented languages created to Read more
It seems like the story about virtual sweatshops is true after all. Romanian workers play computer games for 10 hours a day to produce virtual goods in MMORPGs which are later sold through eBay or through other websites such as Gamersloot. In those places you can buy powerful accounts, virtual Read more
In the last episode, our hero NCSoft, defender of City of Heroes, had been caught by the evil ploy of Marvel Comics Lawyer-Man. The evil Lawyer-Man caught NCSoft in the cave of The Judge, where he alleged that our hero was guilty of willful secondary infringement. Lawyer-Man has all the Read more
The papers from the ground-breaking conference State of Play are now online. This conference explores the interaction between the law and computer games. Readers may be tempted to think that this is just another excuse from academics to go to a city, have a conference and ingest large quantities of Read more
There is growing interest about the legal implications of MMORPGs. Terra Nova has a good post about the growing trend to emphasize the technology and ascertain the inherent difference of virtual worlds when compared to real life. The questions are generally centred around American freedom of speech arguments (as most Read more