Hey, so you know this "space marine" thing?

[Dannyalcatraz]

One pizza from Pizza Hut in Bangkok taught me about the cultural exceptions to uniform recipes.

Yeah, and I don't think I'd be interested in a McD's burger in Mumbai, either! There are ALWAYS outliers!

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, and I don't think I'd be interested in a McD's burger in Mumbai, either! There are ALWAYS outliers!

I've had one Big Mac in America. Never again!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

On the rare occasions when I visit McD's, I go for either the Quarter Piunder w/Cheese or the McNuggets.

I especially go for the latter if I'm doing take-out. Then I can use my special mix of honey and a particular Chinese hot oil* as a dipping sauce.







* there is a restaurant near me that, instead of simply using peppers to make their hot oil, adds pan-toasted ginger & garlic to the mix. Makes a UNIVERSE of difference.

 

[Nellisir]

Yeah, and I don't think I'd be interested in a McD's burger in Mumbai, either! There are ALWAYS outliers!

I should clarify - I didn't have any bad effects. They just use a completely different blend of spices in the sauce. It tastes NOTHING like U.S. pizza.

The degree to which taste buds differ constantly amazes me. I can't stand Thai/Asian candy. My wife, who grew up in Bangkok, regularly eats "fish ball soup", which smells nasty. (She won't touch durian, though, which I have tried.) A fellow student in my grad program from Belarus is really enthusiastic about beet-flavor (beets and ...cabbage soup? I don't know, it was something unbelievably cliched.) I grew up with some swedish influence, so pickled herring is yummy to me and nauseating to my wife.

And this is totally off-topic, so....

 

[billd91]

I should clarify - I didn't have any bad effects. They just use a completely different blend of spices in the sauce. It tastes NOTHING like U.S. pizza.

The degree to which taste buds differ constantly amazes me. I can't stand Thai/Asian candy. My wife, who grew up in Bangkok, regularly eats "fish ball soup", which smells nasty. (She won't touch durian, though, which I have tried.) A fellow student in my grad program from Belarus is really enthusiastic about beet-flavor (beets and ...cabbage soup? I don't know, it was something unbelievably cliched.) I grew up with some swedish influence, so pickled herring is yummy to me and nauseating to my wife.

And this is totally off-topic, so....

It's all about the cultural markers...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wasn't saying anything about bad effects either, but, as I recall, the burgers in McD's in the Hindu dominated culture of India are not beef at all.

For most people, that would be a bit of a taste surprise. But for me, for some reason, I don't handle veggie buglers well. While I have found some that taste good, some ingredient(s) in them makes me quite ill.

 

[Balesir]

Not necessarily new, actually, but possibly old. Back in the 1980s, a lot of software had code in it that destroyed functionality- crippling the program- if it were illegally copied. Some have talked about going back to that.

Others have discussed software and even hardware modeled after malware, destroying illegal copies of software.

Essentially, just like the old explosive dye packs that were sometimes attached to goods in stores- the tier got the goods, but they were no longer useful for most purposes.

Yeah, there's also the "you can use this only while connected to a verifying service on line", too - but it seems to me these will just accelerate things. As Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, pointed out, these things just inconvenience paying customers (by "going" off when they shouldn't or simply making hassle when you want to use what you paid for). That is exactly the kind of thing that will push the general public to regard the producers as "illegitimate opressors", and at that point your business model is screwed.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, there's also the "you can use this only while connected to a verifying service on line", too - but it seems to me these will just accelerate things. As Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, pointed out, these things just inconvenience paying customers (by "going" off when they shouldn't or simply making hassle when you want to use what you paid for). That is exactly the kind of thing that will push the general public to regard the producers as "illegitimate opressors", and at that point your business model is screwed.

Seen the gun culture in the USA? Very similar dynamic going on.

Frankly, the business model for software is somewhat screwed already. My game group includes computer industry professionals...who pirate other people's software.

But here's the thing: if software were sold rather than licensed, you'd pay more up front, but since the transfer of ownership would be total, many of the security measures that get discussed would not be as desired by IP creators. Still, I don't see that happening, as explained before.

The thing is, IP protection is still effective at increasing the wealth of IP creators, which is a good thing since it encourages others to create IP. Those protections make people feel like the risks and investments in creating IP have a chance at being rewarded. To date, nobody has really come up with a better model. Tweaks, to improve it, yes, but nothing to replace it.

(Of course, if people simply played by the rules, consumer costs would fall...but you know what they say about rotten apples.)

 

[jasper]

I may get pummeled for this ...

.., but, as a gamer, when I hear "Space Marine", I do think of Games Workshop.

There does get to be a point where a company has created an association with a term through their products and marketing. They've created a brand. What is the best vehicle for brand protection?

...
TomB

But then you get things like "Spike" is that "Spike" Lee the black director, "spike" from various Sunday Funnies, or something else like "Spike" the cable channel. Or the more recent "Stan the Man" Stan Lee or a dead baseball player.

 

[tomBitonti]

But then you get things like "Spike" is that "Spike" Lee the black director, "spike" from various Sunday Funnies, or something else like "Spike" the cable channel. Or the more recent "Stan the Man" Stan Lee or a dead baseball player.

Right. I don't know the best answer. I was acknowledging that Games Workshop has done work to create an association of "Space Marine" to their gaming product, which I immediately recognize when I hear the term.

My own answers to my question are:

*) Trademark, which takes domain into account, covers a lot of this. For miniature games, the trademark Space Marine seems to work fine.

*) Attempting to use a common term as more than a trademark seems to be a big mistake.

Where I can see a tension is when a term is stretched out of its original domain. Space Marine as a trademark for a miniatures / table-top game seems to be non-controversial. But, when Space Marine books are written (there are lots of those), that moves from trademark to copyright. The same happens when Space Marine computer games are made, and would happen if Space Marine movies were made.

Thx!

TomB