iGame Radio

Valve has begun an attempt to trademark the name Dota for use in the upcoming Dota 2 game they will be releasing in 2011. Blizzard has responded with confusion about the issue, while the overall reaction of gamers, both in the Dota community and in games influenced by Dota (such as League of Legends), has been anger.

From a business standpoint, the need to apply for a trademark for a new game makes sense. Controlling who owns the game’s name allows the developer to control who can make changes to the game over time, and who can use the name on versions of the game. But for a game based on a mod based on another company’s game? There be muddy waters ahead, for sure.

Blizzard’s initial response has been one of confusion with a touch of sadness. “To us, that means that you’re really taking it away from the Blizzard and Warcraft III community and that just doesn’t seem the right thing to do,” said Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s executive vice president of game design, in an interview with Eurogamer.net.

One can imagine that this confusion and sadness will most likely gel into something a bit more offensive if things continue as is, as Blizzard announced at Blizzcon this past weekend a free Starcraft II mod, Blizzard DOTA.

The community that supports DOTA, on the other hand, have been a bit more assertive about their opinions. For example, Riot Games, developer of the Dota-esque League of Legends, has filed a competing trademark application to block Valve’s attempt. “We have filed for the ‘Defense of the Ancients’ trademark to protect the work that dozens of authors have done to create the game and on behalf of the millions of DotA players all over the world,” Riot’s Steve Mescon said in an interview with PC Gamer.

So what is to be done about this? Could the original creator of the DotA franchise, “Eul”, be found and trademark it? What about the developers who took on the mod afterwards and advanced it, Steve “Guinsoo” Feak and Steve Mescon? Or Abdul “Icefrog” Ismail, who has been working on the mod for the past three years? Perhaps it belongs to Blizzard, who owns the rights to the game the mod is based on? Of course none of these options would take into account the countless numbers of community input that the mod has experienced.

Maybe the various entities currently so confused could take a tip from some of the open-source organizations, who create coalitions or alliances to manage assets, such as trademarks and copyrights, for community-based IP.

Whatever the outcome of this issue, there’s sure to be more confusion, sadness, and anger before it’s all done.

No, I’m not kidding on this. Destructoid reports that Jeep has been named exclusive automotive partner by Activision for Call of Duty: Black Ops, and that they’re making a CoD Black Ops Jeep. The mind just boggles.

The limited-edition Jeep Wrangler will be available for a MSRP of $30,625 for the two-door model and $33,500 for the four-door. The 2011 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition comes standard with “aggressive 32-inch tires, unique military style and Call of Duty graphics.” The vehicle will also be featured as product placement within the game itself, set to release on November 9th.

Now, I know that Black Ops is rated M by the ESRB, but, really, how many gamers playing the CoD series are going to go out and buy this vehicle based on having seen it in the game? Or because they wanted to brag to their game buddies that they now have the limited edition Jeep from the game? The thing is over $30,000! That’s a ton of figurines, y’know.

In a related note to the Overgrowth trailer, I found a post by Wolfire Games on their blog about the Humble Indie Bundle. Something new has shown up on the Humble Indie Bundle website…

By the way, if you go to the Humble Bundle site, you might notice a new spot where you can enter your email. I’m not sure why that popped up all of a sudden, but it’s probably a good idea to sign up!

Is there another HIB on the way? I don’t know, but I sure signed up for the news!

Lot’s to post about today, so let’s get the ball rolling with a new trailer for the upcoming ninja rabbit fighting game Overgrowth from Wolfire Games. Unlike many previous trailers, this one is much more serious, and is a showcase of all that the current Alpha has to offer.

Overgrowth is the spiritual successor to the popular game Lugaru by Wolfire, and has been in development using the pre-release subscription business model (where subscribers get access to the alpha/beta versions before anyone else, and can directly impact the continued development of the game).

One aspect that the trailer highlights is the editor used within the game for both map and level editing. This will be released with the game for player use as well, and looks very powerful for creating a lot of custom-made maps and levels for long replayability.

The 13th Independent Games Festival has released the list of games submitted for the contest, and the list is hefty indeed. Almost 400 games have been submitted this year, ranging from casual to RPG to shooters to music games, on desktop and mobile, all hoping to win an award.

A range of ingenuity is also represented. Some of the games don’t seem to really challenge much in the way of sound, design, graphics, mechanics, etc. But there are many that will make the judges’ lives difficult when it comes to decision-time. One that really caught my eye is the RPG Revenge of the Bitch. Meant to make fun of RPG and cultural stereotypes as well as well-known figures, one only has to view the trailer to get a true idea of just how weird this RPG is going to turn out. Sadly, it will not initially be released for Mac.

There are some well-known names to the Mac community in there as well, including:

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent by Frictional Games
• Achron by Hazardous Games
• Castle Vox by Sillysoft Games
• Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble by Mousechief
• Data Jammers: Fastforward by Digital Eel
• Din’s Curse by Soldak Entertainment
• Overgrowth by Wolfire Games
• Tasty Planet: Back for Seconds by Dingo Games

I’m sure there are other Mac games that I haven’t found…this was just a preliminary review of what caught my eye. Also, there are a lot of iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad games in there as well.

All in all, this is going to be the most interesting IGF ever. Even if you don’t go to the GDC, it would be worth your while to review the list and take a look at some of these games. You might find your next favorite within the mix.

PadWorx Digital Media has launched their interactive eBook for the iPad, Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition. Built on PadWorx’s proprietary game engine, the eBook provides immersion via a combination of text, animation, gameplay, social media, original scores, and more.

Dracula features 300 pages of text, animation, gameplay, and touch screen technology based on the original Bram Stoker version of Dracula. The interactive eBook includes lighting up the words of the page with a lantern to view letters and journal entries, blowing the leaves off of tombstones to reveal the writing beneath, and even using their own “blood” to reveal hidden text on a page. Rare historical images, as well as audio and film from the earliest days of the Dracula legacy, are cleverly hidden within the book.

The eBook is accompanied by original music from indie rock performers and bands Adaline, Eve and the Ocean, Ingela, Nadia, and Emily Spiller. The soundtrack will be available as a separate purchase on the iTunes Store as well.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is available for the iPad on the App Store for $4.99.

Samurai II: Vengeance, sequel to the original bloody hack-n-slash iPhone game Samurai: Way of the Warrior, has hacked its way to the App Store. Adding higher quality graphics and a new control scheme, the game maintains the same gory combat and manga cut scenes as the original.

Samurai II has introduced a new control mechanism from the previous game, including a virtual d-pad and a dynamic camera rather than the original top-down POV and screen swipe. Environmental puzzles have been added as well, which seem from the trailer to be just as vicious as the enemies you encounter. The developer, Mad Finger Games has also promised a deeper gameplay, though whether that means a deeper storyline or wider variety of enemies to encounter remains to be seen.

Included in the game is also Game Center support, tracking achievements and high scores. The original game used Agon for leaderboard management, but Samurai II looks to be using only Game Center.

Samurai II: Vengeance is available on the App Store for $2.99 as a Universal App.

At the end of September, Valve introduced the Mann Co. Store, their peer-to-peer marketplace for players to buy and sell in-game items for Team Fortress 2 (TF2). The store was intended to sell both Valve and community made items for the game. And apparently the marketplace has taken off like wildfire.

Five community members created items for the first round of content creation and entered them into the store. Valve announced that those community members — Rob Laro, Shawn Spetch, Steven Skidmore, Spencer Kern, and Shaylyn Hamm — have all walked away with royalties between $39,000 to $47,000 per person after merely two weeks of sales.

Items created for in-game use are exclusively for model design, and won’t impact game mechanics or gameplay balance. Valve also said that the P2P marketplace won’t replace free updates to the game. Items for sale within the store are subject to a percentage cut by Valve, but the remaining revenue is deposited into the member’s PayPal accounts. Valve ran into a bit of a problem, it said, because the revenue actually exceeded PayPal’s cap on the maximum deposit size, causing Valve to arrange alternate payment methods.

The Mann Co. Store seems to be the first of a series of in-game P2P marektplaces Valve may be planning throughout their games. Valve is also encouraging other developers that use the Steam service to incorporate the P2P marketplace within their own games.

“At a time when content creators are struggling with changing markets and evolving technologies, the Steam community is sending a clear message with these checks,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “Platforms that enable this kind of peer-to-peer exchange of virtual goods and services are going to be enthusiastically received. They create an inherently greater efficiency in connecting creators and consumers.”

For more information about how to create in-game items and contribute to the community of TF2, you can go to the TF2 Contribute page. A FAQ has also been set up with more details about the Mann Co. Store.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. Apple held another “event” this week, introducing iLife 11, OSX 10.7 Lion, the Mac App Store, a new MacBook Air, and more. After Omaha snored through the iLife demos, she and Corey talk about the impact a Mac App Store might have on the Mac gaming community. Also, can you game on the MacBook Air?
• Civilization V for the Mac was finally announced by publisher Aspyr Media…after everyone else already knew. Notwithstanding, Omaha and Corey talk about some of the new aspects of the game, and Corey admits his secret shame.
• EA has admitted to purchasing iPhone publisher Chillingo. What will this mean for EA? How will the purchase change the iPhone games out there? And why are the Angry Birds so angry?
• Phillip Rosedale of Second Life’s Linden Labs has stepped down as interim CEO to pursue a new startup, while the board searches for another CEO. What’ll you hear the name of that startup…
• Omaha and Corey talk about games released, soon to be released, and they’ve played.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Zach Young for featuring music from The Great Tree.
• Tomas Dvorak for featuring music from Machinarium.

I had an opportunity to ask some questions of Aspyr’s Director of Digital Publishing and Business Development, Elizabeth Howard, about where Civilization V for the Mac is in development. Some of my answers will be coming later, but I wanted to share this first set with you, because they included the interesting news that Steamworks is going to be integrated into Civilization V for the Mac!

Q. Aspyr has a long-time commitment to bringing new games in the Civilization franchise to the Mac. Was there ever any question that you were going to bring Civ V to the Mac? Did you contact Firaxis/Take Two, or did they contact you?

A. Our business relationships typically put us in the drivers seat in terms of chasing content, and many times it takes lots of work to get a ‘yes’. We’ve always worked well and worked closely with 2K but nothing is ever a given. We on the licensing side work hard at bringing great games to the Mac.

Q. How far along in development are you at this point? Is porting the new graphics engine that Firaxis created a challenge? What issues have you encountered with it?

A. We are currently at Beta and wrapping up bug fixing. Despite this development effort including a brand new engine, from a development perspective our guys knocked it out of the park in terms of porting a fully-new game to the Mac in a somewhat short window of time. The biggest development effort thus far has been implementing SteamWorks as this is a first for us, but Valve has been helpful and we have some very talented folks on staff who do a great job in solving new problems.

Q. Steam is an integral part of the Windows version for multiplayer. Will Steam be a part of the Mac version as well? If not, how will multiplayer be handled?

A. Civilization V will utilize SteamWorks for multiplayer, achievements and DRM.