Sacred Symbols+, #409 | Nintendo Lawsuit, Journalist Cease and Desist, and A Failing Ubisoft
Added 2024-10-02 16:00:13 +0000 UTCIt's time for more Sacred Symbols+! This week, I (Colin) am joined by SS+ regular and lawyer Rick Hoeg for a deeper look at a few stories that don't make a whole lot of sense to cover on the main show. We begin with Nintendo's recently-announced litigation against Palworld developer Pocketpair. What's Nintendo's gameplan here? What are its chances of success? And how can Pocketpair respond? Then, we discuss the mysterious case of Kotaku writer Alyssa Mercante, whose legal represenation recently presented a YouTuber with a cease and desist for his content about her, demanding retractions and apologies. This is on the back of this firm also going after infamous forum Kiwifarms on her behalf. Where does freedom of speech end and legal accountability begin? Is Alyssa onto something, or will all of this turn into another prime example of The Streisand Effect? Finally, we end with a brief chat about Ubisoft, the storied publisher having a very, very rough year. With its stock down to the $10-a-share mark from a high just three years ago nearly nine times that much, it's clear something has to change. Did the culture warriors finally get the scalp they've been seeking?
Comments
awesome episode. all of the topics were good enough to warrant their own episodes. also the anti-slapp section was very informative.
Guybrush Threepwood
2024-10-06 21:15:10 +0000 UTCIsn’t Colin a Christorian? That’s an awfully harsh opinion on kiwi farms for a Christorian. I agree with him but I’m very much not a Christorian…
Zachary Beach
2024-10-06 12:56:49 +0000 UTCWhy isn't Colin's favorite adage of "vote with your dollar" applied here? If it isn't as good as the OG, it won't really succeed. Why prevent things from being created?
Gooch Gobbler
2024-10-04 18:02:09 +0000 UTCLmao he was doing that on purpose right?
Alec Dyer
2024-10-04 01:53:19 +0000 UTCSo glad Hoeg was there to serve as a counter point to Colin a little when it came to Palworld being the spoof. Taking the concept of using Pokémon to fight on your behalf and turning that into actually using monsters to fight as literal martial weapons is about as spoofy as it gets. Add whole new elements like survival and crafting onto it, and I think it’s safe to say it’s far from a copy. And like Hoeg said, if they stole assets, Nintendo would sue them for it. I’m legit curious what a “spoof” of Metroid 2 that those developers of the fan remake could have made that wouldn’t have drawn his ire if Palworld and Pokémon are too close.
Jared R
2024-10-03 21:09:49 +0000 UTCAs a patent attorney and fellow Michigan Law grad (2014), I appreciate that Hoeg took the time to try to explain the difficulties of patent law to a lay audience. I have a few nitpicks on some of the details, but overall it was one of the most thoughtful explanations of the Palworld situation.
Peter Keros
2024-10-03 16:41:16 +0000 UTCWhat’s the 3 hour Marie Antoinette podcast you mentioned, Colin?
Beau
2024-10-03 15:06:52 +0000 UTCEvil shit to say the least
Conor Wilson
2024-10-03 09:36:08 +0000 UTCI’d be interested in hearing more about what signals Hoeg’s seeing that suggest Star Wars Outlaws will have a long tail. I suppose the success of the Jedi games? EA sold around 8m copies of Jedi in just a few months. Ubisoft has reportedly sold only 1m copies of Outlaws in its first month. I suppose a long tail doesn’t necessarily mean lots of copies, but it’s hard to see Outlaws breaking even 5m in lifetime sales unless they add it to subscription services. Analysts were originally estimating 8m copies in the first quarter alone. It all seems very dire, but maybe there’s other info out there to suggest otherwise.
Jimmy G
2024-10-03 03:34:01 +0000 UTCI believe it’s pronounced Alyssa Mercunt
Brandon V
2024-10-02 22:54:59 +0000 UTCIf Twin Breaker isn't Arkanoid then how is Palworld Pokemon? By that reasoning Coromon, Temtem, Cassette Beasts, Nexomon, and many others can be sued. As the law suit stands not even Nintendo thinks they could win off Palworld straight up copying their monsters.
Context Should Matter
2024-10-02 20:53:50 +0000 UTCLooool call it something ridiculous like the "Ketchum Cube"
plzsendpie
2024-10-02 20:24:06 +0000 UTCI actually found out about Colin through Bob! I used to love his retro gaming podcast. He made an offhand comment about Colin once, and I looked into it. The difference between his kind, thoughtful “on air” persona and his deranged online ramblings was very disturbing. I’m not sure what he’s up to now, but there was seriously something very wrong with him at the time.
Jimmy G
2024-10-02 19:18:06 +0000 UTCYou capture monsters with Nintendo GameCube throwables 😂
Bartevious
2024-10-02 19:08:24 +0000 UTCYall should include Matty in the metaphor discussion. He loved that teams last game so much it inspired him to get into game dev. Just speaking for myself but his opinion will probably matter most for me as it’s in his “fallout/kotor” level of love which he typically does a great job covering Colin stand down, you already outed yourself for abusing controllers. Stop calling us controller abusers 😂
Bartevious
2024-10-02 19:07:28 +0000 UTCI don’t know if this affects the legal outlook, but posters on Kiwi Farms are known to have a stated goal of harassing their targets into killing themselves. This very unfortunately happened a few years back with Near, a well-known gaming emulation programmer who struggled with mental health issues. After their suicide, posters on Kiwi Farms celebrated and took credit for it as a victory on their part.
Mike R
2024-10-02 18:36:18 +0000 UTCSpeaking of Bob Mackey, I only looked into that in the past couple weeks. I had been indulging in delicious schadenfreude in ResetEra threads over Colin’s Concord scoop and came across an insane reason a poster gave for why “Colin bad”. The reason was that Colin had made a video “targeting” Mackey. They linked the video, which I watched. It was an early 2018 video from the CLS days addressing online harassment and really highlighted how absolutely demented this guy was, displaying a seemingly endless parade of tweets targeted at Colin. Just nutty stuff. Harass Colin for multiple years=fine. Colin saying hey this is kinda ridiculous=TARGETING. Either completely oblivious or completely twisted people.
Alan Wake 2 - Alan WOKE
2024-10-02 18:21:16 +0000 UTCFucking hell lads, Hoeg without a cap
Daddy T
2024-10-02 18:11:55 +0000 UTCYeah she’s one of the loudest dei warriors from the legacy media, the less you know the better
Scott
2024-10-02 17:12:21 +0000 UTCI don’t know anything about this Smash JT guy, but this Alyssa lady seems like an exceedingly unpleasant person.
Alan Wake 2 - Alan WOKE
2024-10-02 16:36:33 +0000 UTCrepresenation
Alan Wake 2 - Alan WOKE
2024-10-02 16:22:44 +0000 UTCI see Hoeg, I press play. Always a great listen!
Meatball
2024-10-02 16:21:01 +0000 UTCIt would be hilarious if Palworld just has to change the spheres to cubes when capturing pals
plzsendpie
2024-10-02 16:20:40 +0000 UTC
