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The Classification Board of Australia has refused to classify F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin FPS, which will prevent it from being sold in Australia. The Board hasn't given an explanation for its refusal, but it likely stems from the fact that the highest rating currently available in Australia is MA15+, and the Board likely concluded that the MA15+ rating was not appropriate for the game.
Coverage here (Gamasutra).
Harmonix, MTV, EA and Viacom, the creators of the game Rock Band, are the defendants in a class action lawsuit for having allegedly shipped defective drum pedals in a scheme to cheat consumers. According to plaintiff Monte Morgan from Kansas, the drum pedal has a design defect which causes the pedal to fracture under ordinary usage. Once it fractures, the pedal becomes inoperative and the Rock Band game cannot be played in the manner it is marketed and advertised by defendants to consumers.
Plaintiffs also allege that the defendants acknowledged that the pedals were defective and that they attempted to use the defective nature of the hardware to drive the existing consumers to purchase Rock Band 2 which was released in October and which has been advertised as having an improved drum pedal.
As for warranty on the hardware, on June 26, 2008, Harmonix and EA extended Rock Band's warranty until October 1, 2008. Any new customer now has a sixty day warranty on the game's hardware.
Plaintiffs are seeking damages and an injunction.
Coverage at:
Amy Taylor, a 28-yeard old British woman, was shocked and distressed when she walked in on David Pollard, her husband of three years, having sex with another woman. This was not the first time she'd caught him in the act, but it was the final straw. Ms. Taylor filed for divorce.
The novel spin on this age-old scenario is that the sex in question was all virtual, carried on by Mr. Pollard through his online avatar in Second Life.
Mr. Pollard is now engaged to be married (in real life) to his online lover.
Coverage at: Yahoo News
Davis LLP is pleased to announce that Chris Bennett, a partner in the Vancouver office, was selected as one of the Lexpert® Rising Stars: Leading Lawyers Under 40 at a gala event in Toronto last night.
"Chris Bennett is incredibly deserving of this honour," says Robert Seidel Q.C., National Managing Partner with Davis LLP. "Davis prides itself on having exceptional lawyers and Chris is a shining example. Few lawyers have the distinction of being responsible for a new niche in the legal profession, and Chris is one of them."
Three years ago, when he was an associate with Davis LLP, Chris spearheaded Canada's first Video Game Law Department. Having recognized that no Canadian law firms focussed on providing legal services to the industry, Chris drew together a group of Davis LLP associates with expertise in taxation, employment, immigration, commercial law, litigation, and other areas of specialization required by video game companies. Today, Davis is a legal leader in the Video Game Industry.
Chris is head of the firm's Trade-marks, Technology & Outsourcing, and Video Games & Interactive Entertainment Law Practice Groups. He is also a member of the firm's Intellectual Property Law and Franchise & Distribution Law Groups and is chair of the firm's Environmental Sustainability Task Force.
Chris was one of the lawyers chosen as Rising Stars from a pool of hundreds of Canadian nominees. Finalists were selected by an advisory board of 30 lawyers who lead some of Canada's largest law firms and corporations.
Submitted by Karine Bellavance
Sony has been ordered to pay $18.5 million to Agere Systems following a successful patent infringement lawsuit filed in 2006. Agere Systems alleged that Sony violated its "wireless local area network apparatus" patent. Agere's patent covers the storing of headers in music files on a memory chip. It is reported that a Texas jury found that Sony wilfully infringed on the patent and that it unlawfully used the technology in the PlayStation Portable and certain other Sony products.
Coverage at GameDaily.com
United States Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg granted Capcom's Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit instituted by The MKR Group, which claimed that Capcom's mall-zombie-game Dead Rising infringed on its Dawn of the Dead IP rights.
In dismissing the lawsuit Judge Seeborg reportedly found that "To the extent that Dead Rising may be deemed to posses a theme, it is confined to the killing of zombies in the process of attempting to unlock the cause of the zombie infestation. The social commentary MKR draws from Dawn of the Dead, in other words, appears totally absent from the combat focus found in Dead Rising."
Coverage at: GameSpot
In an earlier posting, we reported that Take Two sued the Chicago Transit Authority after the CTA removed ads for Grand Theft Auto IV. The CTA's actions appear to have been a response to a Fox News reporter's on-air question about why the CTA was carrying the ads.
Take Two and the CTA have now settled the lawsuit. Part of the settlement apparently involves the CTA displaying the ads again for 6 weeks.
Coverage here (kotaku.com)
It was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle that a federal jury awarded $28.1 million dollars to over 2000 retired NFL players as the result of a lawsuit against the NFLPA. The players claimed that the NFLPA had not properly compensated them for videogames as well as other merchandise.
The jury found that the union had not only failed in its responsibility to represent the retired players but that it had also failed to respect agreements which stipulated that the retired players would receive an equal share when half a dozen NFL players' name or images were used.
Coverage at: Gamedaily.com
Mexico's Procuraduria General de la Republica and Agencia Federal de Investigacion recently seized 20 tons of pirated materials including approximately 91,200 copies of video games, 130,000 video game cover inserts and 3,200 empty video game boxes in a Guadalajara Market. It is reported that the government agencies worked with local ESA representatives to conduct the raid.
ESA has stated that they "commend Mexican law enforcement officials for their actions in this raid and are committed to fully supporting authorities around the world who conduct these kinds of enforcement actions".
Coverage at: GameDaily.com
The Entertainment Consumers' Association (ECA) promotes gamers' rights and wishes to ensure that First Amendment rights are upheld for videogames as they are for other forms of entertainment.
The ECA has formed a new retail partnership with Wal-Mart, Amazon and K2 Network in order to promote videogame advocacy. Walmart.com and Amazon.com will also begin selling ECA membership cards.
Additional retail partners will be announced at a later date.
Coverage at:
Submitted by Karine Bellavance
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is praising publisher Sega for pulling adds it was running on its website to promote its Samba de Amigo game available on Wii. The adds featured a real chimpanzee shaking maracas and reacting to music. The publisher's decision to remove the adds follows an explanation by PETA about the horrible methods used to train chimp 'actors' and their cruel treatment. PETA is greatly appreciative of the publisher's decision, who 'promised to keep all great apes out of its ads' according to PETA's blog. (coverage at: GameDaily.com)
Nonetheless, some adds can still be viewed here.
Reports came out earlier this week of a study of Japanese and American kids testing whether exposure to violent video games led to more "violent dispositions" (coverage at: GameDaily.com). The study by Dr. Craig A. Anderson of Iowa State University suggested that children who were exposed to violent games tended to be more aggressive.
Today a reported academic rebuttal from Christopher Ferguson, Psychologist from Texas A&M University challenges Dr. Anderson's study, stating that "there are numerous flaws in the literature review, methodology and conclusions that greatly reduce my enthusiasm for it, and call into question the meaningfulness of the study" (coverage at: GamePolitics.com).
Who is right? I'm no scientist but I know that after facing a losing campaign in Rise of Legends (at the allegedly "medium" difficulty setting, which I say is not properly calibrated, but that is another story), my wife reports that I get grumpy. But the failure effects are short-lived and far from violent and, more importantly, I argue in my defence, video games for me are an efficient stress reliever. Mind you, Rise of Legends is far from being a truly violent game.
For what is worth, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), the non-profit organization which represents the rights of video and computer gamers, has also rebuked the Anderson study. Hal Halpin, president of the ECA, has reportedly stated that "For the better part of the past decade we - game consumers, makers, sellers and creators - have been waiting for the results of an unbiased, longitudinal and comprehensive study to be done which will inform us about the potential harmful effects of entertainment products on our children. Unfortunately, with the report published in the latest issue of Pediatrics, we remain wanting [...] The problem has been, and apparently continues to be, that the agenda of the researchers supersedes our want and need for inclusiveness of all media... not just games" (coverage at: GameDaily.com).
I guess this will continue to fuel (help?) the debate between the balance of parenting -vs.- legislation of video game content.
Australia is the only developed country without an R18+ rating for games.
The Australian public's opinion was polled about the introduction of an R18+ rating for games and a subsequent report was prepared, however, the South-Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson refused to make it public, consequently rendering it null. Atkinson has long been opposed to any type of R18+ rating.
However, at a meeting held on Friday, November 7, 2008 of the Attorneys-General, the Australian censorship ministers agreed to push through a proposal introducing an R18+ rating for videogames. The finalized proposal shall be submitted to family groups as well as industry associations for their recommendations.
Rob Hulls, the Victorian Attorney General believes that an R18+ rating is needed for video games. He marks the inconsistency between restricting certain films with mature content by rating them R18+ but not attributing the same rating to computer games with the same level of mature content.
Some supporters of the R18+ rating amongst the Australian government do not understand why Australia has not yet adopted the rating and call upon the Senate and Parliament to address the issue.
Coverage at: GameDaily.com
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