The Third Doctrinal War -- Stardock, Reiche/Ford, and Star Control

Jason seems like he might like the feeling he gets from releasing to public domain, and the limited use of it by the community to support official releases, more than the actual legal status and consequences. It seems like this is the first time it’s been tested to this extent for him. I hope he figures out what he really wants to allow and disallow and does the work to develop a combination of licenses and marks to accomplish those things.

Yeah, it looks like he didn’t really consider what public domain entails.

Thankfully P&F had the good sense to use GPL and CCA licenses for UQM.

These are the items currently pending:

  1. The Judge still needs to rule on a dismissal motion by P&F against Stardock, and another by GOG against P&F. This is essentially the Judge deciding if their complaint even alleges the bare-bones minimum to pursue those particular claims.
  2. Once the Judge has so ruled, P&F and GOG will have a couple of weeks to file their formal responses to the final complaints. These are likely to consist mainly of perfunctory denials of the allegations, with as little detail as possible.
  3. At any time between now and July we could have motions filed relating to the Discovery disputes mentioned in the last status memo.
  4. There are still two dozen trademark filings slowly working their way through the trademark office. They will probably all get suspended by July or so, pending the outcome of the court case.
  5. October 2 is the next major event: That’s when Stardock has to put its cards on the table in its Summary Judgement motion. P&F follow a couple of weeks later.

is that date correct?

As near as I can tell, yes. See §IV.E of the Judge’s Order.

I have to admit, I was surprised they just bowled through and released it amid litigation. I wonder if this is going to set some kind of legal precedent going forward.
Are there other examples of a product going to market while in the midst of an IP legal battle?
Most examples I can think of happened AFTER it went to market
Though that was because you could mostly develop a game in relative secrecy… You would have thought after BC2K, people would realize that maybe you shouldn’t say shit about your game until it’s almost done…

Wow, I missed a lot since April of last year… I actually did pick up the game last night on Steam sale and figured “let me see what happened since i last checked in on this litigation…”

I didn’t even know it had gotten pulled off… This took FOREVER to catch up on.

I assume that big news from Derek never materialized?

The thing that stood out to me the most in this whole legal battle was how the judge seems like they just aren’t putting up with any shit. That was a very strongly worded ruling from the judge.

Googling for examples brings up of stories of games, movies, etc. delayed due to IP issues but I’m not finding much in the way of things released in the middle of a lawsuit.

Since the risk is so high most companies avoid exposing themselves in such a way. As is happening in this case the alleged infringer can end up liable for the full retail price of every unit sold, not just the revenue they themselves realized. That’s without even factoring in the potential multiple if the infringement is found to be willful. It’s rare a company would calculate that the potential cost of a delay would be greater than the risk of having all the revenue and then some stripped from them in a judgement.

(on a side note, please no summon)

I had to. Any chance to make a “BC2K took a long time to come out and then a longer time to be done” joke must happen.

does it tho

I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. For the last decade.

You guys never let me have any fun…

Um, “done”?

Seriously though, no summon. Sure, crack a joke if you must, but don’t @

fixed it… ;)

Just curious, have any of you guys actually purchased and played the game yet? It is/was on sale for half off on Steam the other day and I picked it up. It’s enjoyable if a bit derivative of SC2 (but to be honest, I was hoping for it to be derivative of SC2 because SC2 is a great game)
Though I wonder now if that is going to cause legal issues going forward due to the similarities.

I did and posted a critical review on Steam, which got almost immediately flagged by Stardock as abusive, since mine was among the first negative reviews to be published shortly after the game was released. Steam reinstated my review promptly, though.

Good lord.

I played 4 hours or so. I found the writing fun, but not engaging enough to deal with the very slow progression and uninspiring gameplay, both planet side and combat (although I only saw, well, the combat you can see in the first 4 hours).

With this pace I would have needed something more serious and crunchy. The light hearted narrative seems to demand springier controls and a more polished arcade feel and rythm. It felt disjointed, for lack of a better word. I can appreciate why it’s so, but it stays too close to the original and it proves the mechanics would have needed to be reimagined, I think.

oh, you can change the zoom… neat. I also hated that

I hate the limited arena for battle too because of the zoom. I was fuckin full-send in a battle last night and I had so much speed going that I just died in the void because of how fast I was going… didn’t know I was near the edge until I plowed through an asteroid belt and right into the deathly void.

I found you can confuse the AI by simply not moving in battle…

I agree with your critical review so far… but I’m going to give it more time… I just fired up CheatEngine to get some RU so I can stop spending time resource farming. It doesn’t add to the game for me at all… I hate resource grinds in any game and it generally stops me from playing anything like that.

There’s actually a thread for gameplay discussion separate from the legal wranglings.

ah, I’ll take this long ass post I just wrote and go find that.