Tag: Lawsuit

In Plain English: KLM Starfall Education Foundation v. Trion Worlds, Inc.


Today’s In Plain English covers the very short lawsuit between Starfall Education Foundation and Trion Worlds regarding the Rift expansion Starfall Prophecy. You may be aware that Trion Worlds recently changed the name of the expansion to the Prophecy of Ahnket and wanted to know why. The explanation lies in a recent lawsuit filed by a children’s charity foundation over its ownership of the trademark “Starfall.”

If you don’t know what Starfall is, I’ll let the charity’s website explain itself:

Starfall Education Foundation is a publicly supported charity, 501(c)(3). We create free and low-cost experiences whereby children can successfully learn through exploration. On the Starfall website and in Starfall classrooms, children have fun while learning in an environment of collaboration, wonderment, and play. We teach through positive reinforcement to ensure children become confident, intrinsically motivated, and successful.

Donors to the Starfall Education Foundation can sleep soundly knowing that your contributions went to fund the Bardacke Allison LLP, Melkonian & Co, and Purvis Gray Thompson, LLP law firms for the purposes of filing a dispute over a video game expansion title. For what might otherwise seem to be a pretty minor issue, Starfall decided to bring a team of three lawyers on board, an ultimately pointless move since Trion Worlds didn’t put up much of a fight or make much in the way of arguments on their own behalf.

Still, a $400 filing fee is a big lump of money when your 2015 revenue looks like this (via Citizen Audit):

Unlike certain other cases covered here on In Plain English, this story is fast and has a simple ending. Rather than fight what could become a lengthy and costly legal battle over something rather trivial, Trion Worlds decided to settle. Those of you who play Rift, or read about it, will know that Trion Worlds has changed the name of the expansion to Prophecy of Ahnket, a decision that might be confusing if you don’t understand this underlying context.

Trademark ownership is only as strong as the owner’s protection, although MMO Fallout has doubts that the case would hold up given a company willing to lawyer up and take a stance. The numerous Starfall video games and video game related websites that we were able to find over the course of a half hour, many of which predate the Starfall 2002 founding date, and thus its 2004 trademark registration date, could make a solid case against Starfall’s claim to the term. Still, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take any of this as legal advice.

Blizzard’s Court Victory: Bossland Hit With $8.6 Million In Damages


Blizzard has emerged victorious in its lawsuit against Bossland, a cheat maker based in Germany. The court ruled that Bossland is to pay $8.6 million in damages, with the potential for more to cover Blizzard’s legal costs, and set forward an injunction preventing the company from selling their products in the United States. Bossland has already been prevented from selling their cheats in the UK.

“The Bossland hacks destroy the integrity of the Blizzard games, thereby alienating and frustrating legitimate players and diverting revenue from Blizzard to defendants,”

During the court case, Blizzard successfully argued that Bossland bypassed Blizzard’s anti-cheat tech, thus violating DMCA rules against circumvention and reverse engineering. Blizzard’s case, while requesting a large sum, was likely an easy win as while Bossland did attempt to have the case dismissed, they didn’t actually show up in court to defend themselves.

(Source: BBC)

IPE: Romine V Sterling Lawsuit Dismissed With Prejudice


The lawsuit by ex-Steam developer James Romine against Youtube personality James Stanton (Jim Sterling) looks like it is officially over, as Romine has presented stipulation for dismissal. The lawsuit, which started more than a year ago, has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning Romine cannot bring the same charges by the same evidence back into court again, ever. As part of the dismissal, Romine has also agreed to stop filing frivolous DMCA takedown notices against Sterling’s videos without first considering fair use.

Plaintiff agrees to forever refrain from directly or indirectly filing against Defendant any cause of action arising from the same facts or circumstances alleged in the Amended Complaint. Plaintiff also agrees to refrain from taking action against Defendant’s business, such as sending DMCA takedown notices, without first considering whether Defendant is engaged in fair use of a copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 107, as required under federal law and Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015).

(Source: Court files)

Homicide By Any Other Name: The Latest On The Romine Case


Here at MMO Fallout, the dead truly never stay down, and nothing says painstaking existence quite like the story of Digital Homicide and the lawsuit by James Romine against Jim Sterling. Those of you new to this discussion are going to have to read the archives, after going on two years of discussing what Digital Homicide is and what they do, frankly I’m sick of retelling the same story every other month. When we last left this story, the judge had dismissed Romine’s case unless he could present a counter-argument through an attorney. Key part of this phrase, through an attorney. Keep that in mind for the weeks ahead, it is very important.

Since Romine decided to file yet another 73 page document, I went through and plucked out some of the more interesting facts/claims that were made this time around. See below:

  1. Romine is now claiming that Jim Sterling is a direct competitor, as Sterling is “a member of a development team” currently working on a Steam release, thus alleging jurisdiction in Arizona because said game will no doubt be sold in Arizona.
  2. The idea that Romine has been using alternate accounts to put out other games and hide his name, because having either Romine or Digital Homicide attached to your name is guaranteed rejection by the gaming public, has basically been solidified in legal documents. Romine planned on using the Micro Strategic Designs name to ‘rebrand,’ an effort that was ruined because the developer messed up and accidentally placed the game in a Digital Homicide bundle, thus revealing the connection.
  3. The goal at the time was to completely retire the name Digital Homicide, because the name itself was irreparably damaged thanks to bad press and extremely low rated games.
  4. Romine believes that it is unfair for Digital Homicide’s poor reputation to follow to a new company owned and operated by the same people.
  5. How easy it is to game Steam Greenlight: According to the court documents, Attrition: Nuclear Domination made it through Steam Greenlight with just 500 yes votes. If you’re wondering how all of these bad games get through, here is your answer.
  6. Romine has more alternate accounts, under the names Vampier Straud, TheMac, SimplebutFunGames, and Micro Strategic Designs. There are seven total, four owned 100% by Romine.
  7. Valve nearly gave Digital Homicide the boot in 2015: According to the documents, Valve nearly gave Digital Homicide the boot in October 2015, stopping only because Romine begged (his word) them not to, promising to remove his future products to avoid having everything shut down. Incidentally, Valve would ultimately terminate their business with Digital Homicide following aggressive legal action from the latter.
  8. Someone sent a bag of poop by mail to Digital Homicide. Don’t do that.

How will the court respond? There’s only one way to find out. Tune in next time, folks.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Spurs Frontier Lawsuit Against Atari


Frontier Developments is currently best known for their hit title Planet Coaster, of course when people aren’t thinking of them as the developer of that Star Citizen-esque game that actually saw release. Odds are you’ll also remember them as being the developer behind Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, because I just told you they were. The news today is that Frontier Developments is suing Atari over what it claims are $2.2 million in unpaid royalties.

“We can confirm Frontier is currently pursuing a complaint against Atari. We have attempted to resolve this issue without legal action since April 2016. We have so far been denied our contractual right to audit by Atari, and we are unfortunately left with no other way to resolve our concerns. We are unable to offer any further comment while the matter is subject to due legal process.”

Here’s where it gets weird. First, of all people, TMZ broke the story. According to the news article, Frontier Developments is citing a Steam tracking website (likely Steam Spy) in their claim that Atari owes them $2.2 million, following with a lawsuit because Atari has been delaying an audit which Frontier is entitled to in their contract. Secondly, it is odd to see a developer using something like Steam Spy as a source. For the record, it is impossible for third party services to count how many people own a certain game, that information isn’t publicly available. They guess, using data from accounts that are public, and do not claim to be accurate.

Imagine users as voters, but instead of voting for one of three candidates, they’re voting for several games from tens of thousands available in Steam catalog. Even the most popular paid games are reaching maybe 5% of this audience and most are in realms of 0.1% or even less.
So 0.1% margin of error for a game with 0.1% of Steam audience would produce results that are mostly useless. That’s why Steam Spy has to gather millions points of data daily to predict games sales and audience. And that’s why Steam Spy is often wrong. Not by much, but still wrong.

At a $2.2 million difference comparing sales to Steam Spy, it’s rather believable that Atari shorted Frontier Develoments on some level, and you could be forgiven for taking the delays as a sign that the company is hiding something.

Or maybe nobody at the shell corporation that calls itself Atari answers their email. I couldn’t get a single person to answer my requests for comment over Asteroids: Outpost.

Digital Homicide’s Business Destroyed, Lawsuit Against Steam Users Ends


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The lawsuit by James Romine against 100 unknown Steam users has come to an end. A few days ago, Romine filed a motion for extension of time or dismissal without prejudice, effectively asking the court to either grant him more time or to kill the case until a future date. The reason, as stated in the documents, is as such:

“Upon filing this case, per advice of the local sheriff who could not help me or my business with a massive ARS-13-2921 criminal harassment problem on an Internet Store front and via email, the Plaintiffs business was destroyed completely financially disabling The Plaintiff, destroying usability of all current work effort, and untold other damages.”

If you haven’t been keeping track, Valve responded to a submitted subpoena by terminating their business agreement with Digital Homicide, citing hostility toward customers as a primary reason. As a result, Digital Homicide lost access to a platform that holds at least 70% of the PC gaming community. As such, according to documents filed with the clerk on 9/27, Romine is unable to afford the cost of serving the defendants in said Steam case. Romine had initially asked for either a 90 day suspension or a refund of filing fees and a dismissal without prejudice, which would allow the case to be pursued at a later date.

The court, under the Honorable Stephen M. McNamee, has approved decision #2 and dismissed the case without prejudice. As of September 30th, the case has been terminated. MMO Fallout will update should the case be renewed in the future.

James Romine Subpoenas Valve For Steam User Details


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Digital Homicide’s James Romine has filed a subpoena against Valve in Phoenix to discover the identities of what appears to be 100 anonymous users who had made statements about the company in the past. The documents were filed and the subpoena granted this week. The case has been assigned to Magistrate Judge Eileen Willett. Romine is representing himself and is demanding $18,000,000 with the nature of the suit being personal injury.

More information as it appears.

[NM] Sorry, ODD Games, Retroactive Defamation Isn’t Real


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Here at MMO Fallout, I have always taken the position that a developer’s previous work does not prohibit them from fixing what is broken or improving in future products. While we would like to see a world where games stop launching in a barely functional state, it stands to reason that any game can go from a failure to a success with a simple series of patches.

Nevertheless, it is a new day and that means another independent studio dead set on dragging their reputation through the mud by threatening a member of the games media. ODD Games has been making headlines with the news that the studio threatened Youtuber Nerd³ over his review of Monster Truck Destruction, a $5 mobile port currently sitting at a “mostly negative” rating on Steam with a peak of six users over the past month. Not a single person is playing it right now. The review video has been accused of making false statements about the game, at least in a manner of speaking.

Where the case gets interesting, and where the line gets drawn, is in timing. Factually speaking, nothing said in the original Youtube review was incorrect. Since the review was posted, however, ODD Games has patched Monster Truck Destruction and fixed several issues that were present in the build reviewed. In their threat, ODD Games demands that the video be taken down as the review “can be interpreted as defamatory.”

The letter goes on to give a 48 hour deadline before the issue is “escalated to the relevant authorities.”

Unfortunately for ODD Games, defamation doesn’t cover statements that were true at the time they were said but were later invalidated. It does, however, leave a mark on your company as being that one that uses threats and intimidation in order to get your way, and unsuccessfully at that. Just imagine how different these events might have played out had you simply sent an email asking for a fresher review? I can’t guarantee that your request would have been answered, but you can hardly do worse than this.

In Plain English: Epic Sues Paragon Cheat Maker


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Epic Games has launched a lawsuit against German gamer Robin Kreibich under allegations that the defendant violated copyright by selling cheat software for their upcoming MOBA game, Paragon. The program, known as SystemCheats, claims to be the most powerful hack for Paragon and sells as a monthly subscription for approximately $10/month.

The hack promises to give players perfect aiming with “smooth aim” to make their movement seem more natural and presumably less likely for manual detection. According to the creator, the hack is “fully undetected” and can be used with no risk for being banned. Evidently that immunity hasn’t protected Kreibich from court, but the more intrepid viewers might be wondering why a German citizen is being sued in a US district court in California by a game developer based in Maryland. The answer involves some legal wrangling.

Epic Games issued a takedown of Kreibich’s Youtube videos demonstrating how the hack works. When a person files a counter-notice to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown, by Youtube’s own terms of service they consent that any legal matters will be taken care of in Youtube’s judicial district.

It also helps Epic Games that the lawsuit be held in California’s northern district court. Back in 2013, Blizzard won its lawsuit against Ceiling Fan Software simply under the breach of contract charge. The courts agreed that the cheat software was sold with the knowledge that it would breach the contract between World of Warcraft and its users, and the court awarded $7 million in damages and an injunction against Ceiling Fan Software from selling, developing, licensing, or allowing others to use their bot software.

Epic Games is demanding a trial by jury, as well as unspecified damages including reimbursement of their own legal fees.

More coverage to come.

(Source: Scribd)

IPE Update: Run Over By An Internet Semi Update


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Small In Plain English update for the James Romine V James Stanton case (Digital Homicide V Jim Sterling). Following the recent motion to dismiss the case, James Romine has filed his own motion to dismiss the dismissal. To put it bluntly, and to utilize a logical argument that will make much more sense in the next paragraph or two, the case has jumped on the crazy train and left logic bleeding on the highway of justice about two hundred miles back.

First case of interest, in order to prove that Jim Sterling does business in Arizona, James Romine actually purchased a t-shirt from the Jimquisition website and had it shipped to his address. The newly introduced evidence includes a receipt and a photo of the “Jim Fucking Sterling Son” t-shirt ordered from the website. Romine takes a moment of the court’s time to note that his brother coined that term. Romine also notes that he has been subscribed to Sterling’s Patreon for three months now.

In what appears to be a case of lacking awareness, Romine is now invoking the case of Ventura V Kyle as precedent for defamation in cases where the defendant was not in the same state as the trial. Ventura V Kyle is described as “a case with no winners,” where Jesse Ventura sued Navy Seal Chris Kyle after the latter claimed to have punched Ventura in a bar. Ventura’s reputation was severely damaged after he continued the lawsuit against Kyle’s estate after Chris Kyle was fatally shot at a gun range in Texas in 2013, the events adapted into the film American Sniper.

Don’t worry, it gets stranger. Romine goes on to compare the case as being “precisely the same” as being run over by a series of cars. I’m going to attach the full paragraph because paraphrasing wouldn’t do the full quote justice.

“It is precisely the same as being hit with a car in Arizona by an out of state resident passing through. In this case, The Defendant’s ‘car’ is actually an Internet semi with a camera attached to display the show of The Plaintiff being run over to The Defendant’s subscribers and then is followed by a thousand more cars following The Defendant’s lead.”

To sum where the case is up to this point: James Romine filed a motion to amend his complaint, which Sterling responded to with a motion to dismiss said amendment as pointless because the defense believes it can have the case thrown out before it goes to court primarily on the grounds of lacking jurisdiction and that his comments were a matter of opinion. Romine filed to have the dismissal dismissed, making claims that Arizona’s district court does indeed have the jurisdiction and that Sterling’s comments are a matter of fact.

Get it? Got it? Good. More on the story as it develops.