Escapist Podcast: 123: Steam Early Access & Xbox One Youtube Promotion

[The Escapist Staff]

123: Steam Early Access & Xbox One Youtube Promotion

This week, we discuss Steam Early Access and the recent controversy on YouTube over Xbox One paid advertisements. We also briefly cover the Candy Saga trademark issues.

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[puff ball]

i have bought a second copy of a game i already owned from steam. the game in question was oblivion i wanted it on pc for the mods so worth it.

 

[Strazdas]

I would like to point out that King is NOT required to pursue any possible copycats. There is no law requiring them to do so. In fact, court practice prove the opposite. read more: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet

Therefore getting mad at them for being dicks just because they want to be dicks is perfectly reasonable.

the problem with "owning quick-time events" and the like is because copyright law as it is currently is broken. If you want to continue the early acess analogy - 7 days to die is a finished game in comparison.

 

[DrRockor]

You can actually patent game machanics. Sega has a patent for Crazy Taxi's pointing arrow.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6200138.PN.&OS=PN/6200138&RS=PN/6200138

Or just a picture

Spoiler

 

[JonB]

You can actually patent game machanics. Sega has a patent for Crazy Taxi's pointing arrow.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6200138.PN.&OS=PN/6200138&RS=PN/6200138

Or just a picture

Spoiler

You can patent game elements, but not mechanics. I cannot patent the "first person shooter" or "roll dice and advance that many spaces" - I agree that the line is thin, but it's there.

I would like to point out that King is NOT required to pursue any possible copycats. There is no law requiring them to do so. In fact, court practice prove the opposite. read more: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet

Therefore getting mad at them for being dicks just because they want to be dicks is perfectly reasonable.

the problem with "owning quick-time events" and the like is because copyright law as it is currently is broken. If you want to continue the early acess analogy - 7 days to die is a finished game in comparison.

Their alternative is to possibly lose their own trademarks. They're not required, but...

 

[Vie]

I have to say, I personally think Steam's early access program is great. But then I went in expecting it to be full of broken games, and instead found a couple that are actually rather good.

That said I actually like 7 Days to Die, even in its current state (it reminds me a lot of early Minecraft,) so apparently I'm a swivel eyed loon.

Who has cannibal rats about to land about... ..a mile away?

Oh, as for why nobody has sunk the boat: It's a major polution hazard.
Not only is it full of oil, fuel and lubricants but it also has rather a lot of asbestos in its structure. Gotta love Soviet era Russian engineering...

 

[Strazdas]

Their alternative is to possibly lose their own trademarks. They're not required, but...

Thats the point - its not. Trademark is not copyright. They do not loose trademark because they do not police the whole world. Trademark can be lost only in two, very defined occasions.
Abandonment
Generalization.

Abandonment requires you to not use or suport your trademark in any way for longer than 5 years.
Generalization is when the world becomes asociated with something in public more in general than with the company. For example elevator was a trademark however it is now a general word.

Both of those cases are very far from what they are claiming and they are just doing it either because:
A) they are bastards
B) their lawyers are incompetent
C) they want to trick other companies into settlements instead of court and thus earn money for being bastards

That said I actually like 7 Days to Die, even in its current state (it reminds me a lot of early Minecraft,) so apparently I'm a swivel eyed loon.

Yay im not alone in this!
To be honest 7 days to die for me is "what minecraft survival mode should have been".

 

[Vosgy]

All I'm going to say about minecraft is if anyone thinks that it is a well made game should... was going to say be shot, but thats too harsh, it is not a well made game if you look at how it works, it's very very poor.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

We do have a navy, airforce and army. We also have pollution problems in our major cities and drug trafficing.

We are on the same continent and we have shared history!

Also I do have to agree that Steam Early Access is just kickstarter in disguise. Also the whole xbox promotion thing would make me feel dirty if I agreed to it and its NDA...

All I'm going to say about minecraft is if anyone thinks that it is a well made game should... was going to say be shot, but thats too harsh, it is not a well made game if you look at how it works, it's very very poor.

Care to elaborate on that? I've yet to run into massive bugs or anything.

 

[Vosgy]

We do have a navy, airforce and army. We also have pollution problems in our major cities and drug trafficing.

We are on the same continent and we have shared history!

Also I do have to agree that Steam Early Access is just kickstarter in disguise. Also the whole xbox promotion thing would make me feel dirty if I agreed to it and its NDA...

All I'm going to say about minecraft is if anyone thinks that it is a well made game should... was going to say be shot, but thats too harsh, it is not a well made game if you look at how it works, it's very very poor.

Care to elaborate on that? I've yet to run into massive bugs or anything.

It's more to do with the way the game is programed, it should be used in text books to show people how not to program a game.
An example of this is you can get a launcher that allows the game to allocate more memory, I've had the stock game using 16 gigs of RAM, it should not be doing this.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I don't know if it's just me, but has the audio quality dropped in these past two episodes? I don't know the technical term, but there is more buzz when people talk. Like it's been over compressed. Has something changed in the recording/uploading pipeline?

 

[JonB]

That said I actually like 7 Days to Die, even in its current state (it reminds me a lot of early Minecraft,) so apparently I'm a swivel eyed loon.

Yay im not alone in this!
To be honest 7 days to die for me is "what minecraft survival mode should have been".

I actually think that as far as I can tell I am the exception on 7 Days to Die. I believe Jim thinks it shows a lot of promise.