Anybody following this Jeff Minter story?

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Wow! That's a really shitty thing to do.

[qmish]

We're not idiots, we all know that Treasure developed Ikaruga. I was being sarcastic.

I know, i didn't mean exactly you, just the whole trend i've always seen and hated. People just buy game and see a shiny logo and remember it. They don't care who really created the game, no. And then they come to forums like gaf and start spending expressions of their youth talking about "wow cool game by X".

deserve credit for getting that stuff onto shelves

That's ok. Problem with people, not distributors.

[Marc]

Ah, the DC Test Drive was properly amazing. I wonder if Sony could throw Llamasoft a few quid to take the Katakis/Denaris route - change a few graphics and the title and tell 'Atari' to go FUCK themselves?

[Ed Oscuro]

We're not idiots, we all know that Treasure developed Ikaruga. I was being sarcastic.

I know, i didn't mean exactly you

Teachable moment: Quoting somebody without meaning to respond to them leads to pain and suffering and is best avoided.

[Mischief Maker]

I dunno, my first impulse is to take Minter's side, but my second impulse is to smack him upside the head because this whole mess could have been avoided so easily. If you're going to go into business for yourself, you are obligated to make sure you're on steady ground legally. I could see the argument that Space Giraffe was different enough from Tempest 2000 that it avoided being a copyright infringement but this new game?

1. Tempest 2000 was also called T2K. Tempest 3000 was called T3K. This new game is called TxK.
2. The ship in Space Giraffe looked wildly different from the tempest ship, the ship in TxK looks identical.
3. The gameplay in Space Giraffe was different from tempest, and the instruction screen explicitly states that. TxK plays like tempest. (And I bet if he didn't do the previous two, I bet he could have kept #3 without any legal hassle from Atari.)

What's more, I think Atari does have a leg to stand on to say that Minter was using their intellectual property to profit. Space Giraffe, as great as it was, bombed because it was a new IP and not too many people even know who Minter is. Tempest has name recognition and nostalgia value. I bet even Adam Sandler and Kevin James will give it at least passing mention in their upcoming awful movie. It's not too big a leap to say Minter was making TxK with the intention of banking on that name the way Space Giraffe didn't.

Minter says he wants no association with Atari, but that "Ataurus" splash screen from Minotaur rescue says different:

Spoiler

Whether or not Atari is doing anything with the tempest IP, if they don't take action to protect it, they will lose their ownership of it and all the money they spent on it will be lost. Minter should have either done the same game with an original IP, or he should have made a deal with Atari beforehand.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were actually some kind of precedent set that determined how different a game had to be to be considered a different game legally? Well, it just so happens there is, and it involves Tempest 2000 and Atari! Do you remember there was a Playstation port of Tempest 2000 called "Tempest X"? I always wondered why the name was changed, and other little aspects of the gameplay were altered. years later I managed to chat online with the guy who did the port, and he told me that the changes were made "to reduce the royalty burden".

How so? Well, my original arrangement with Atari was that I was to receive a royalty on any ports of Tempest 2000. "Tempest X" was made exactly enough different that it would be legally considered a different game, cutting me out of any royalties.

Now Tempest X:

- was derived from my source code;
- had exactly the same soundtrack;
- used the same kind of powerup progression as Tempest 2000;
- had a changed name, some extra background effects, and some different web shapes;
- but was close enough to Tempest 2000 that *Tempest 2000 was available as a hidden unlockable by entering a specific word into the highscore table*.

(Furry friends will be amused to hear that that word was "yiff").

Yet now "Atari" claim that TxK is in fact *closer* legally to Tempest 2000 than Tempest X was.

It's not legal precedent because there never was a judgment. "Different enough" was just Atari's untested claim. Minter probably could have sued Atari for breach of contract and at least gotten a decent settlement if he put the bong down and paid attention enough to realize he was being screwed. Maybe game developers need agents? I might have suggested a union, since a collective bargaining entity would be better able to afford a legal battle with a corporation than an individual, but unions are getting strangled to death to the sound of raucous applause as we speak.

[Ed Oscuro]

Excellent post. This is why "saving overhead on legal fees" seems like a good idea but can come back to bite you.

[Mischief Maker]

No, the REAL lesson of this thread is, DON'T TAKE ADVICE FROM THE OTHER GUY'S LAWYER!

"Hey, Jeff Minter, we've changed Tempest X just enough that you can't sue us for the money you're due!"

"Okay, other guy's lawyer, thanks for the free advice! The dude abides."

[Ed Oscuro]

Definitely, but he's clearly not able to make informed legal decisions and needs some help. If he tried to puzzle it out on his own he might have come to a wrong conclusion independently.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Stiil, It's kind of cruel to tell the mad genius of Tempest that he can't make Tempest.

This is almost like if Toaplan would have sued IKD after Cave started making games.

[BrianC]

Minter says he wants no association with Atari, but that "Ataurus" splash screen from Minotaur rescue says different:

Spoiler

I'm surprised "Atari" didn't go after that one considering the look of the game is based directly on the 2600 Asteroids.

[Mischief Maker]

Minter says he wants no association with Atari, but that "Ataurus" splash screen from Minotaur rescue says different:

Spoiler

I'm surprised "Atari" didn't go after that one considering the look of the game is based directly on the 2600 Asteroids.

Just like Minter didn't realize he had cause to sue Atari over Tempest X, someone was probably asleep at the wheel at Atari. I guess a console release makes bigger waves than an iphone app.

[brentsg]

I don't really care who's right. All I care about is that a game I really, really want to play has been blocked by an entity that has little to do with the Atari of old. They're not going to do anything with the IP anyways, which is what sucks. They need to license it and allow the game through. Sitting on it with no alternative plan is an emotional decision imo, not a business decision.

[gameoverDude]

Wasn't Data East USA v. Epyx in regard to World Karate Championship on 8-bit computers a similar case? WKC has some strong similarities to Karate Champ, right down to the guys in red & white gis fighting, several of the moves, a "dodge the flying objects" bonus stage- and of course, the name.

Data East sued Epyx over WKC's very strong resemblance to KC. DE won initially and got an injunction against Epyx, but the decision was overturned on appeal by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. WKC stayed on the market.

DEvE sounds an awful lot like what's going on now. I'd like to think that the current mess could be resolved similarly, or at least Denaris style.