City of Heroes players, look out!!!

[tecnowraith]

From Superhero hype:
The lawsuit claims South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. and San Jose-based Cryptic Studios Inc. violated Marvel's trademark characters in their game "City of Heroes." Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters.

The personal computer game enables players to design superheroes' look and abilities and then battle against other players' characters in a virtual city. Like similar so-called massively multiplayer role-playing games where thousands of players can be playing simultaneously at any given time, "City of Heroes" claims to offer a myriad of combinations so that no two players' characters are exactly the same.

 

[EricNoah]

What characters does it think the game is duplicating? That's just weird.

 

[Truth Seeker]

From Superhero hype:
The lawsuit claims South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. and San Jose-based Cryptic Studios Inc. violated Marvel's trademark characters in their game "City of Heroes." Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters.

The personal computer game enables players to design superheroes' look and abilities and then battle against other players' characters in a virtual city. Like similar so-called massively multiplayer role-playing games where thousands of players can be playing simultaneously at any given time, "City of Heroes" claims to offer a myriad of combinations so that no two players' characters are exactly the same.

Wow, well...I can't say I didn't see this coming, although it is funny, both companies were at Gen Con.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Bah! Marvel was never intelligent enough to come up with the greatest superhero ever! The Human Popsicle!

But really, its no surprise...although it is interesting that they're doing this now and not earlier. Maybe it has something to do with Marvel working on thier own type of game?

 

[Fast Learner]

They also may have waited to see if the game was successful -- if it failed, there'd be no money to sue for.

 

[CrusaderX]

Marvel is going to shoot themselves in the foot with this one, since Marvel is creating their own superhero MMORPG. Assuming that Marvel's MMORPG will have a character generator, what happens when people start creating DC character lookalikes in Marvel's game?

 

[Wonko the Sane]

what happens when people start creating DC character lookalikes in Marvel's game?

I suppose Marvel gets sued then. Gotta love the litigious atmosphere of today.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

NCSoft should have no trouble meeting the 'substantial non-infringing uses' threshold. Just because something *can* be used a certain way doesn't automatically meet the burden of proof.

 

[stevelabny]

if marvel and dc were smart, they would make one together, the same way they share the copyright on the word superhero.

they let heroclix make one game using both universes. (although they sell the packs seperately)

maybe the mmorpg could have a starter pack and an expansion for each universe. which gives you not only all the superheroes and villians, but also all the landmarks (daily planet, daily bugle, avengers mansion, jla embassy, etc etc)

 

[devilish]

While playing it at GenCon, I saw a costume on-line that
looked almost exactly like Spider-man. It was close but not
exact -- isn't there a pastiche law or an allowance for something
close but not exact?