Thanks, peacedog!
It’s also worth noting that this is a complex area of law (even for law). Even if you had in-house counsel, they’d probably be more generalists or specialized in other things (e.g. employment law). The ABCs and the like might have in-house IP lawyers, but no way a firm of Stardock’s size would.
I don’t know if I would call it complex - I would use the term specialized instead, as is with many other areas of Law.
From what I personally have observed and heard so far, I feel they do not appear to have a specialist advising them, which is one of the interesting aspects of this case. If they did, I do not think it would be in the state it is in today.
So, people on another forum have pointed out this new document, filed on the 15th of this month, which suggests that all of the contributors to SC2 have now gone on the record as saying that Paul & Fred are the legal copyright holders of that game’s content.
Possibly pertinent: this thread on Reddit.
Just FYI, that document was filed back in April, and discussed on UQM in June/July. It was mentioned at least briefly earlier on this thread.
Ah, I see the date in the document itself now. Confusing, but good to know; thanks!
One has to wonder if the dynamic of the lawsuit has changed now that SC:O has been released and, based on Stardock’s stated predictions in the lawsuit, has been a huge flop. Stardock’s statements in the legal filings state that they spent $10 million on development (not including marketing costs). Their stated predictions for sales in their filing state “We project sales of approximately $3.1 million in the first 60 days of Origins’ release with approximately $2 million of that being in the first 14 days”.
$2 million in the first 14 days is either 50k units, if we count the full retail price, or ~71k units if we count the revenue Stardock actually makes. It’s now been a month and according to steamspy it’s still in the 20k-50k range of owners. At best they have done no more than half of what they predicted. It’s no longer even in the top 100 sellers (153 when I checked just now). It has also just slipped into the dreaded “mixed” review designation on steam.
Given all that it would be hard to see Stardock being as willing to burn the cash required to continue the suit all the way to trial. I did see some mention that insurance is paying for it, but I have to be skeptical about that since I’ve never heard of insurance that pays for one to initiate a lawsuit. I have used my own umbrella coverage before to defend against a suit, and the insurance usually company gets their own lawyer involved at least in an advisory capacity and as they pay the bills they have a say when calling the shots. If there is an insurance company involved they would likely be pushing hard for a settlement.
If Stardock’s pushed line is correct and P&F and multi-millionaires who can easily afford this court fight Stardock seems pretty screwed now that SC:O has failed to even come close to their predictions.
Some guys who, on information and belief, may or may not have actually contributed to the making of Star Control 2 recount their “war stories” and share some concept art from that game:
More videos with Paul & Fred to come, apparently.
HE mentioned Blood Money!!! My inner nerd just went SQUEEEEEE!
Yeah, given how badly Star Control: Origins has underperformed, you’d think Stardock would be willing to bury the hatchet instead of sinking more money into this.
They’re planning “micro-expansions”, so they might think they can “Elemental” their way out of this and turn it into a franchise that makes some form of profit. No doubt they have plans for a sequel that they hope can improve on what most people like (e.g. the writing, which I was unimpressed by, but most other people seem to like) and change/remove elements that people don’t enjoy so much.
Though, of course, the situation is different here than with the original Elemental: Origins is clearly a functional product, reports of overheating on certain GPUs notwithstanding – it seems to me that people just don’t enjoy the SC2 gameplay any more (arcade-style resource collecting, simple top-down combat, moving from one place to the other at a snail’s pace), or find that other space games have (recently) done or are (presently) doing something similar better.
Anyway, it doesn’t seem like the lawsuit is worth it. P&F were never interested in the trademark, probably because they realized the name (or even the basic gameplay, which Origins has essentially copied) isn’t what people liked: it’s the writing. I’ve said it before, this game would have been fine if it had been Galactic Civilizations: Adventures…
Yeah the timing on this is interesting. It definitely has a late to the party feel to it, but I suppose they really want to publicly establish themselves as creators.
I’m sure that they were conscious of the signal this sends, but it’s part of a series where Ars Technica talk to many different game creators, so I don’t think it was created for its effect on the case.
F+P’s lawyer file a motion to dismiss two of the counts in Stardock’s suit:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6239751/76/stardock-systems-inc-v-paul-reiche-iii/
The logic behind a motion to dismiss is essentially “Even if we assume every fact alleged by the claimant is true, they haven’t actually stated a claim for which there is a remedy as a matter of law.” F+P argue that the state law claims of interference with prospective economic advantage and interference with contract are (a) pre-empted by their federal copyright claims and (b) not supported by an adequate basis in fact (in other words, the argument is not just “Stardock’s facts are wrong” but “If we accept everything Stardock says at face value, it’s still not adequate to support this claim as a matter of law.”)
I haven’t fully digested the whole motion but whoever drafted this had a hell of a good time writing this very good sentence:
To be sure, a “potential purchaser” is by its very definition not in a contractual relationship with Stardock and cannot form the basis of an interference with contractual relations claim.
I had seen this a few days ago, and it is a second video and carefully walks through “key people” to Star Control. It is another Ars production, but was posted a few days after the original video/article:
Wait he also worked on mail order monsters? Getting pretty stoked for what these guys come up with for their new game (whether its called Star control or not).
Archon, Mail Order Monsters, and Star Control are quite the resume.
No kidding! Amazing.
The thing I love about that list is that he did it in the era of old school C-64 programming. No IDEs, debuggers of note, industry-standard SDKs. Each one a labor of love.
And Skylanders. Only billion dollar franchise in the list.
I played all thosee classics on my C=64. I can’t articulate how disappointed I am by all this legal wrangling. Lost a lot of respect for these guys.
What do you think they did wrong, and what do you think they should have done instead?