According to 3D Realms, the $12 million that Take-Two is suing the company for is baseless. They claim that while Take-Two may have paid that much to get the rights to publish the game, 3D realms never saw any funding from them until July of 2008, which totaled a much smaller $2.5 million. That is compared to the $20 million 3D Realms claims to have put into the project.

Duke Nukem Forever, indeed.

You think you're gunna get money from me?

Frankly, I’m surprised that Take-Two stuck with the project for so long. Apparently they even renewed the contract in 2007 – which, given that was already a decade in development, should have been a clear sign that it just wasn’t happening. Given that Duke Nukem Forever has been the butt of jokes for years, I’m more surprised that they didn’t seek legal measures before, not that they’re suing now. So, while Duke Nukem Forever may potentially never be released, I’m getting the distinct feeling that we haven’t heard the last of it just yet.

Just goes to prove that you can’t bring down The Duke. …You just can’t push him out in game-form these days, is all.

A while back I posted a story about StarGate World’s developer, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, had not been paying their employees. This caused a bit of an uproar and it was revealed that the company was having revenue problems. While the situation was eventually resolved so that the employees were being paid, it looks like CME’s money issues have not gone away. In fact, it seems to be quite the opposite. Currently, they are being sued by Capital Princess, their data center for an “unpaid account.”

In all honesty, CME is going to die. With their now frequent money issues, the economic climate, and a severe lack of coverage for their game, I just do not see this company living. I like StarGate and I’m totally supportive of CME pushing out a game that is successful, but I honestly just do not see it happening. The money problems are just not going to help them live through the current economic crsis that is plaguing so many people.

I hope I am wrong on that though and I wish all of CME’s employees the best of luck. Again.

The CEO of Worlds.com is looking to sue major online worlds such as World of WarCraft and second life – and could potentially sue every single major online world out there. They claim to hold a patent on scalable virtual worlds with thousands of users, which basically means every MMO in existence. They also claim to have held this patent since 1995, which is before most of the major MMO titles from Ultima Online and beyond. Of course…

Late 1995 , early 1995 , … 1991.

In any event, once again I cannot help but wonder: why are tools that are intended to help innovation being used to stifle innovation? Seriously.

Now, I admit to being a bit opinionated when it comes to this sort of a thing (imagine that, I’m blogging about it). So, I’d like to take a brief moment to analyze that from my perspective. What this means for society, is that millions of books will be accessible to the public at large to search through, to read, to learn from, and to enjoy. It also appears that authors will be able to share in the revenues for this system as well, which means the creators still get paid, and the public at large will be able to access a huge resource of information.

If you notice throughout history, the level of access people have to information has a tendency to go up greatly as societies advance. As more people are educated, able to learn, and able to access resources, society benefits as a whole. That is why this news is particularly great to see. I certainly know I’ll be happy to have the ability to have access to all of that material.