Dan, Soren, Jeff....please take a peek here....:)

[Velociryx]

In another thread, I saw a reference to some Infogrames shenanigans involving Hurricane Games and their Strat Guide for Civ3. Was wondering if anyone had any solid info. on it, as I'd very much like to read more about that (being that I'm currently developing a Civ3 strat guide myself!)

Thanks to all in advance!


-=Vel=-

[Alex]

Vel, this is from Apolyton's news section:

PRIMA SICS LAWYERS ON HG
(28 November 2001, 21:50 EST/Civ3) In another round of lawsuits relating to CivIII [see November 26th story below], Prima Games (PG) has forced Hurricane Gaming (HG) to remove a strategy guide for the game posted on the latter's website on November 10th on threat of legal action.

Prima, the company behind the official CivIII strategy guide, informed Hurricane via their parent company Random House Publishing that they had an exclusive agreement with Infogrames, CivIII's publishers, to produce and market a guide for the game. According to Doug Walsh, Hurricane Gaming's President/CEO, in an open letter explaining the sudden removal of the guide, written by Michael Lummis from their site, [t]he 32 page [document] which sold for $2.50[US] apparently contained too much helpful information and infringed on Prima's rights to the game.

In response to the notice, Hurricane Gaming executives made the difficult decision to remove their guide from their site as per Random House's request earlier today. While no official confirmation has been given by either side in the dispute, it is presumed that the lawsuit will not go ahead given Hurricane's prompt action in the plaintiff's favour. Despite the frustration behind the ordeal, Walsh used the opportunity to express a positive point about the incident.

"Although this is an upsetting setback that greatly disappoints us, we also see this as confirmation that our content is of the highest quality.

To give a general idea as to how many copies of HG's CivIII guide were purchased and downloaded before its removal, the defendants reported that of the 500 daily visitor average to the site, less than 2% of that number had taken up on the opportunity to acquire the document in question." -DanQ

Unfortunately, I could not get the open letter above mentioned at Hurricane Gaming web site. I hope I have helped somehow.

[Velociryx]

You have indeed! And thank you!

{/rant on}
Sheesh! Have the folks at Prima NEVER heard of or read an "unofficial biography" of someone?!!?! I'm curious to know that, because it seems to me (admittedly not an expert on the matter) that the exact same principals apply.

Unoffical guides to this and that are written all the time! You almost can't walk into a bookstore without tripping over them!? I'm just wondering why Prima and Infogrames are in such a Godawful hurry to utterly wreck the goodwill they might otherwise have with the Civ community! GRRRRR!

{/rant off}

-=Vel=-

[Alex]

Yes, I agree with you, Vel. "You cannot modify this game, you cannot write about it, you cannot even look at it for a long time without paying us a fee", seems what Infogrames says.

Don't get me wrong. I like CivIII very much. I'm having tons of fun with it. But look at how the civ community has been treated lately...

I'm sure that Prima won't really bother if another strategy guide is released, once they have released their first . Since that any informed civ gamer knows that your strategy guide, Vel, will be much better than anything that Prima could print , they are a little worried about sales... Money makes the world goes round, as in the old cliché.

Can you imagine Civ4? "Hmm... I'd like to buy this game". "Ok, it's $100 bucks". "What? But the tag price says $50...". "Oh, the other half is because you're holding the box in your hands...".

[Velociryx]

Thanks for the vote of confidence man! All these lawsuits flying around and/or threat of the same kinna make me wonder when they're gonna start targeting discussion forums.

::Prima Rep:: "Hey! You guys can't talk about strategy here! We've got the exclusive blah blah blahbeddy blah...."

::yawn::

-=Vel=-

[Skanky Burns]

The day infogreed or prima send a representative to thes forums is the day hell will freeze over!!

[MarkG]

hmm, well Vel, the hurricane guys were not simply talking strategy, they were selling something for which prima had payed to get the exclusive rights....

i wonder though if these rights are for eternity or... less

[Herder]

Too much useful information?

I hear a cash cow mooing.

[Libertarian]

I've asked this numerous times. No response yet.

What exactly is wrong with the inoffensive ethic of greed? Why is profit bad? Why ought not the owners of property be the proprietors of rights with respect to it?

Take this site, for instance. Why should those who own it not call the shots here? Why should we be allowed to write HTML code in our posts that blots out their ads and replaces them with our own? Why should the site owners make no profits from the Apolyton store? Why shouldn't they be greedy and want everything for their site?

We're all greedy, aren't we? If you had the rights to X, would you not defend your ownership against the infringement of someone else?

[solo]

Vel,

Just two or three pages into your strategy summaries in the forums and I have much more useful information than I could find in the entire Prima Guide! Very well thought out, well written and entertaining, to boot.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys! And thank you again for the replies and votes of confidence!

Oh....I totally agree with you Libertarian...nothing wrong with a little greed...that's the grease that makes the economy go 'round, but....

When I walk into the local Barnes and Noble and see a zillion "unauthorized" biographies or "unofficial guides to X" it makes me *seriously* question Prima's right to do what they're doing. I mean, yes, they're the only ones allowed to publish Civ3's official strategy guide, but I'd be willing to bet that if the "X For Dummies" folks wanted to put out their "unofficial" views on the topic of the game, there's really not a lot the folks at Prima could do, besides sabre rattle.

Perhaps it has to do with first publication as well though (again, I'm not an expert on the subject....just basing these comments on what I see every time I head to the local book shop).

Hey....I'm game. Let 'em publish first or whatever, but the day will come when I'm satisfied with the condition of my own work and will be checking very closely re: the laws surrounding publishing it. And I'm not scared at all of competing head to head with them. Let the gaming public decide who has the better product....

-=Vel=-

[AnnC]

Until I heard this news, I was planning to buy Prima's Civ3 guide. I will not do so now.

[Libertarian]

Vel, you sound like a level-headed guy to me. Anybody with access to Cheerwine must be okay.

Remember: I'm not the one who suggested that a way around the problem might be to write a book that reviews their book, showing how their strategy is not optimum, etc.

[HalfLotus]

For what it's worth Vel, your strategy threads make the Prima guide look like a book written by monkeys. Stupid monkeys.

While your threads contain unique and insightful thoughts on strategy, Prima has things like:
" We talked to the developer's and here's how the AI cheats on Deity." Who gives a flying ****?

Or my favorite: "Build settlers early on." No ****.

It is misleading to call it a strategy guide. They should call it a reference guide.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Let the gaming public decide who has the better product....

-=Vel=-

Heh. I think the "gaming public" here has already decided, judging by the number of views your strat threads have generated.
I just hope IG has learned their lesson with that negative publicity hit they took after the translation "gaff".
And if I recall correctly you've dealt with Firaxis before when it comes to the matter of a strategy guide...

Go get em Vel!

[Edit: Vel, it may also pay to start keeping accurate original records of all of your musings. Actually I expect you do anway. Dated so that it can be verified that you had it first. If the official guide starts coming out with Vel-like strategies we could be talking counter-suit for plagerism! ]