Google Vs. Oracle Case Results In Mixed Ruling

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District Court jury in San Francisco has ruled that Google infringed on the overall structure of software copyrights held by Oracle. However, the ruling also said that Google had not violated other important parts of Oracle’s software, popularly known as Java.

Oracle has asserted that Google violated its copyrights to Java when it built the Android operating system. This ruling, however, consequently means that Google will not have to redesign its Android mobile OS.

The loss on one count means that Google will continue to fight. “There are going to be appeals,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC. “It looks like Google is close to what it wants, with just one copyright loss. If they have to get a license, all the Android phone vendors have to get one too. It could give Oracle a say in future versions of Android, and that is something Google doesn’t want.”

Source: New York Times

Cross The Tweets

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An epic Tweet Battle on Facebook brought two sides together like never before. Fans began by choosing the team they wanted to fight in the Tweet Battle – #TeamStreetFighter or #TeamTekken. By filling in a tweet of support of either team and submit to take part in the Tweet Battle. The Tweet Battle unfolded through each team’s health gauge (and their portraits) being revealed! The winning characters of each round were released via an exclusive wallpaper to celebrate their victory. After each round was completed, 500 users who registered for the overall winning team will earn an exclusive in-game title in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Kickstarter Goal Reached For Moebius

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Pinkerton Road Studio has announced that their new game Moebius has reached their funding goal of $300,000. The project still has more than a week left to amass even more funding from fans.

Additionally, it has been announced that the studio has gotten funding for a second adventure game. This will let them create Moebius and a second adventure game together; those who pay the $50 tier will receive both titles and e-book versions of Jensen’s two out-of-print Gabriel Knight novels, while backers on a lower tier can choose between either title.

Furthering the Gabriel Knight connection, those that donate more than $200 get access to Jensen’s Gabriel Knight design documents. At $500, backers get a one-of-a-kind production sketch from the first Gabriel Knight game signed by Jensen and artist John Shroades.

Source: Kickstarter

Zynga Purchase Of OMGPOP Implicitly Criticized By EA

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Electronic Arts is currently competing with Zynga for the top slot in both the mobile and social space. He didn’t name Zynga, but EA CEO John Riccitiello clearly struck out against the publisher when talking about acquisitions such as the one for OMGPOP and Draw Something.

“In terms of acquisitions, to be honest with you I’m pretty anxious about acquiring instant one-hit wonders in this space. There’s an awful lot of noise that grows up around an individual franchise as it rises, not so as that individual franchise when it declines,” said Riccitiello. “At lot of times when people are acquiring individual new intellectual properties in mobile and social, they try to put an earnings multiple on it, typically a 10x or a 20x. The problem is, to put anything on it more than a 3x or a 4x you have to have a belief that this thing is going to last a very, very long time. If something’s gonna come and go in three or four years, you can’t put a multiple, you’ve got to add up three or four year’s profitability to figure out what to pay for it, and then do some sort of a risk-adjusted discount on that.”

“We actually think with The Sims, Sim City, what we’ve got in Bejeweled, and the rest of the PopCap IP, we are blessed with an unbelievable portfolio of brands. We don’t need to buy a brand just to get a temporary lead on top of the charts for whatever is hot this quarter,” he added, saying, “That doesn’t mean that we would never buy or never invest; we would. But right now, what I’m starting to see, is valuation expectations that assume that these things are all hockey sticks moving up and to the right with no end in sight. I think those are bad assumptions. Some of them will work, some of them won’t, but they can’t all be worth the multiples that I’m seeing in the market right now.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Team Meat Strikes Out Against Free-To-Play Conventions

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Team Meat has announced that they will be bringing Super Meat Boy: The Game to mobile platforms. Edmund McMillen of Team Meat took the time to confirm what the game would not be like on mobile platforms.

“In our last update we touched on what Super Meat Boy: The Game was, and wasn’t. Still early in development our main focus is currently to really examine the mobile playing field to see what companies do right, and what they do wrong,” wrote McMillen. “As many of you may have noticed, there is a whole shit load of wrong out there these days, from abusive and manipulative money making tactics, to flat out stealing. To us the core of what is wrong with the mobile platform is the lack of respect for players, it really seems like a large number of these companies out there view their audience as dumb cattle who they round up, milk and then send them on their way feeling empty or at times violated…”

“There is an on going theme these days to use a very basic video game shell and hang a ‘power up carrot’ in front of the player,” he continued. “The player sees this carrot, and wants it! All the player needs to do is a few very rudimentary repetitious actions to attain it, once they get to it, another drops down and asks them to do more… but then the catch… instead of achieving these ‘goals’ by running on the tread mill, you can instead just pay a single dollar and you instantly get to your goal! Better yet pay 10 and unlock all your goals without even having to ever play the game!”

“Words can not express how ****ing wrong and horrible this is, for games, for gamers and for the platform as a whole . . . this business tactic is a slap in the face to actual game design and embodies everything that is wrong with the mobile/casual video game scene.”

“I’ve gone off on a tangent a bit but what I’m trying to get at is, we are approaching development to SMB:TG with very open eyes, we want to make a game that WE would love to see on the platform, a feature length reflex driven platformer with solid controls that doesn’t manipulate you with business bullshit in order to cash in,” he concluded. “We want SMB:TG to show the player we respect them, not only by not manipulating them, but also by understanding they want a real challenge and they want a real sense of fulfillment when they have achieved something that’s difficult . . . you know, like real games do.”

Source: Super Meat Boy

Machinima Raises $30 Million, Valued At $190 Million

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Machinima has raised $30 million, with some of the investment reportedly coming from Google. Machinima is one of the premier content partners for the Google owned YouTube.

This funding round, which values Machinima at around $190 million, is expected to close within a month. Machinima’s video game flavored content reached 1.61 billion viewers in April 2012 with monthly unique views of 168 million.

Source: AllThingsD.com

Square Enix/Bigpoint Team Up On Gameglobe

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Square Enix and Bigpoint will work together to publish a browser title called Gameglobe. The game will be developed by the Danish studio Hapti.co, and will be an action adventure game with tools and user created content.

“Everyone in games today has to be looking at frankly what can only be described as a proliferation of formats. Of course overall this is driving tremendous growth supported by fundamental shifts in terms of how consumers want to play games,” said Phil Rogers, CEO of Square Enix Europe. “We saw for a whole bunch of people, building and sharing were things they really loved doing. So, if there’s a decision we took, it was to design around these motivations and the format, if you like, just fell out from here.”

“The HD graphics are on-par with the current crop of consoles and the community focus of the platform makes perfect use of the social nature of the web,” said Bigpoint’s executive producer Jan-Michel Saaksmeier. “It feels like what’s being created is the gaming equivalent to YouTube.”

Source: GameIndustry.biz