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rigeld2 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
What did GZ lie about?

They said there was no chance of a C&D. They obviously knew - for a fact - that there was a chance, and a good one at that.

Fair enough. I guess they didn't think someone would C&D without a sound legal claim. Moon Design, after all, have no compulsions about shipping their Heroquest to Spain (or elsewhere in the world) either, despite only holding a US license.

rigeld2 wrote:

There's no such thing as a non-US Kickstarter. Sure, there are Kickstarters in $other_country_money but since KS is US based, so are all the Kickstarters.

That is MD's claim. They might be right, but I wouldn't yet claim that as a fact (unless you want to side with MD no matter what). Kickstarer is fishy territory any way you go at it. Nobody is "buying" anything on Kickstarter after all, just giving away "free money" to fund an idea (with possibly rewards as incentives). I'd love to see things go to court, just to help clarify that Kickstarter - for all intends and purposes - is a fancy version of E-commerce these days, but that's not proven yet.

rigeld2 wrote:

And LARPs and tabletop gaming are different enough to not cause dilution (just like I could have Ford Pencil Company and be safe from lawyers).

An RPG and a LARPG are different enough, but a board-game and an RPG are not? Don't think that'll hold in any court.

rigeld2 wrote:

But keep hating MD - obviously GZ could do no wrong, despite trying their best to skirt the law at every opportunity.

IP is a tricky issue. Your black-and-white vilification of GZ and white-knighting of MD is as one-sided and unreasonable as the inverse.

I doubt (though I could be wrong) that MD has a legit case before court, just like inversely GZ wouldn't have a legit case against MD's online shop sending Heroquest RPGs to Spain.

Unfortunately, the actual legal positions hardly matter, because the dynamic currently rides on MD blocking the Kickstarter, which may well be (but doesn't have to be) a form of blackmailing themselves into a better deal, they know they'd never get in a courtroom.

Did GZ play an angle? Sure. But it appears to me they thought to be within the law. Frankly, I think (though I am no legal expert) that they are within the law (just as MD is within the law sending Heroquest RPGs to Spain). Just that the law doesn't matter in the fickle Kickstarter-environment, something that MD is exploiting.

A LARP is massively different because you're not selling any physical copies of the game, so it has no real global implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(You sell tickets for your LARP events, and make your money that way.)

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
A LARP is massively different because you're not selling any physical copies of the game, so it has no real global implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(You sell tickets for your LARP events, and make your money that way.)

Your not selling physical copies of anything on Kickstarter either. You're raising funds for a worthy cause.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I'm a bit disappointed (but not entirely surprised) at all the hate for Moon Designs.

This is a tiny company, producing one of the greatest tabletop RPGs of all time (HeroQuest), for one of the oldest and most revered fantasy worlds ever created (Glorantha; it's right there in the top three most consistent, plausible, complex, deep and fascinating fantasy settings, along with Tekumel and Middle-Earth), working as a labour of love, like most niche gaming businesses.

They're defending the right to a name that's been associated with Gloranthan gaming for more than 30 years. And, as far as we can tell, they've been honest about the whole thing from the start... whereas it sure looks like GZ have been lying from the start.

But of course, everyone wants their anniversary dungeon bash game, so let's hate the company we've never heard of...

There certainly have been a lot of knee-jerk reactions. But it is obvious now that GZ wasn't being entirely honest with their backers- such as mentioning they'd asked for permission from MD and been told flatly "no"!

Also interesting that MD views remaking Hasbro's HeroQuest game as too risky. Any company would love to license out such a valuable property, but not at the risk of being sued into oblivion (since MD is in the US). The risk may or may not happen, but the risk of it is seemingly to much for a small US-based company like Moon Designs. Which honestly makes sense to me, but ymmv. They're not the devil, though- they were upfront with GZ, and GZ was not upfront with their prospective backers regarding this.

Good grief.

Another IP parasite seeking to profit off other people's work exposed. Stealing, excuse me, INCORPORATING and PAYING HOMAGE to other designers' work without their consent, or the current copyright holders' for non-rule assets, is low. Very, very low. Worse still is that the guys claim to be die-hard fans of the original and mean to show the appreciation for it by... making a bootleg version of it.

And some of the users on here have the audacity to bash a company for going to lengths to protect its property... Apalling.

 Zweischneid wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

There's no such thing as a non-US Kickstarter. Sure, there are Kickstarters in $other_country_money but since KS is US based, so are all the Kickstarters.

That is MD's claim. They might be right, but I wouldn't yet claim that as a fact (unless you want to side with MD no matter what). Kickstarer is fishy territory any way you go at it. Nobody is "buying" anything on Kickstarter after all, just giving away "free money" to fund an idea (with possibly rewards as incentives). I'd love to see things go to court, just to help clarify that Kickstarter - for all intends and purposes - is a fancy version of E-commerce these days, but that's not proven yet.

I agree - it'd be great to see it decided in court but I doubt it will in this case.
And I think boiling it down to "a fancy version of E-commerce" is a little much.

rigeld2 wrote:

And LARPs and tabletop gaming are different enough to not cause dilution (just like I could have Ford Pencil Company and be safe from lawyers).

An RPG and a LARPG are different enough, but a board-game and an RPG are not? Don't think that'll hold in any court.

You'd be amazed, possibly literally. Out of the three, which do you play at a table, with dice? For example.

IP is a tricky issue. Your black-and-white vilification of GZ and white-knighting of MD is as one-sided and unreasonable as the inverse.

I'm not white-knighting. GZ demonstrably lied in their communications to backers. After the Chapterhouse case I sincerely believe this would go poorly for GZ in a courtroom.

Did GZ play an angle? Sure. But it appears to me they thought to be within the law. Frankly, I think (though I am no legal expert) that they are within the law (just as MD is within the law sending Heroquest RPGs to Spain). Just that the law doesn't matter in the fickle Kickstarter-environment, something that MD is exploiting.

If they thought they were in the law, why not, I dunno, communicate with the people who told them on Aug 26 that there wouldn't be an agreement?
That's what lawyers are for, see - to hash all this out before the Kickstarter.
Would it cost money? Sure. Would it be done right? It'd at least be done above the table. Something that cannot be said for the way this currently went down.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I'm a bit disappointed (but not entirely surprised) at all the hate for Moon Designs.

This is a tiny company, producing one of the greatest tabletop RPGs of all time (HeroQuest), for one of the oldest and most revered fantasy worlds ever created (Glorantha; it's right there in the top three most consistent, plausible, complex, deep and fascinating fantasy settings, along with Tekumel and Middle-Earth), working as a labour of love, like most niche gaming businesses.

They're defending the right to a name that's been associated with Gloranthan gaming for more than 30 years. And, as far as we can tell, they've been honest about the whole thing from the start... whereas it sure looks like GZ have been lying from the start.

But of course, everyone wants their anniversary dungeon bash game, so let's hate the company we've never heard of...

Yes you are right of course, having had some time to calm down and think about this (and got over the hissy-fit of being denied my anniversary dungeon base game ) obviously there was a breakdown in communication at some point that has lead to this. Having spent a lot of time travelling between asia and the UK and seeing some of the (sometimes hilarious) mistranslations, miscommunications and "I thought you would.. " type comments that happen even between quite large businesses, I can easily understand how something like this could happen. Is it likely that GZ would spend so much time and effort on something that they thought would end up being still-born? No, of course not, and I would say that it is far more likely that this is down to mis-comprehension than malice.

I do think though that had this KS dribbled past $30,000 that it probably would have made it to people's doorsteps without any kind of challenge.. such is the way of the world unfortunately; the downshot of it is, regardless of who you think has the 'right' of it, that the fans lose.

 -DE- wrote:
Good grief.

Another IP parasite seeking to profit off other people's work exposed. Stealing, excuse me, INCORPORATING and PAYING HOMAGE to other designers' work without their consent, or the current copyright holders' for non-rule assets, is low. Very, very low. Worse still is that the guys claim to be die-hard fans of the original and mean to show the appreciation for it by... making a bootleg version of it.

And some of the users on here have the audacity to bash a company for going to lengths to protect its property... Apalling.

Your failure to read and understand the thread is appalling.
Hasbro owns the rights the the Heroquest board game.
Moon Design owns the trademark Heroquest name (for their RPG).
Hasbro has said nothing about the kickstarter.
MD was contacted prior to the kickstarter and said "No, don't do this." And GZ backers were shocked - Shocked! - to discover MD issued a C&D.

At this point, wouldn't it just be easier to say "screw it" and go to a Spanish Bank in Spain to ask for a Spanish Loan for a product using a Spanish trademark?

Thank you.

If I were GZ, I'd just rename it to Dungeon Bash, at this stage, and go right ahead.

I would be more sympathetic to the GZ position if they'd only been producing the game in Spanish, after all they have the rights to sell in Spain.
Since they were producing the game in English, on a crowdfunding platform that is largely US based, it is incredibly naive to say that they weren't trying to sell the game in an area in which they didn't have a license to do so.

 Compel wrote:
At this point, wouldn't it just be easier to say "screw it" and go to a Spanish Bank in Spain to ask for a Spanish Loan for a product using a Spanish trademark?

Pretty much, though without the international exposure of a Kickstarter, they're going to have the Devil's own time of selling enough copies to make that worthwhile. HQ25 would not be a cheap game to make, and Spanish gamers alone probably can't form a consumer base broad enough to support it.

Rigeld, I think you misunderstood -DE-'s post... he was referring to GZ, and agreeing with you, from what I can tell.

rigeld2 wrote:

 -DE- wrote:
Good grief.

Another IP parasite seeking to profit off other people's work exposed. Stealing, excuse me, INCORPORATING and PAYING HOMAGE to other designers' work without their consent, or the current copyright holders' for non-rule assets, is low. Very, very low. Worse still is that the guys claim to be die-hard fans of the original and mean to show the appreciation for it by... making a bootleg version of it.

And some of the users on here have the audacity to bash a company for going to lengths to protect its property... Apalling.

Your failure to read and understand the thread is appalling.
Hasbro owns the rights the the Heroquest board game.
Moon Design owns the trademark Heroquest name (for their RPG).
Hasbro has said nothing about the kickstarter.
MD was contacted prior to the kickstarter and said "No, don't do this." And GZ backers were shocked - Shocked! - to discover MD issued a C&D.

Except in my post I touched on none of these points. GZ has no right to the name - fact, no right to any of the original assets - fact, GZ intends to re-use HQ rules without the original author's consent - fact. Although by doing the last thing they're breaking no laws, it's still morally questionable. They're essentially making a knockoff, or a bootleg. Either way, it has nothing to do with HQ, it's just a way to feed off a popular IP without spending a dime on relevant licenses.

That's the smoking gun, imo. They approached the trademark holder, were told "no", and went ahead anyway. And didn't tell backers anything regarding that. If MD was trying to pull a fast one, they'd have waited for KS to take the money, then challenged for a lot of it. They shut it down because even they don't think even they can produce Hasbro's game, and will only license the name if GZ gets that permission. There is almost nothing legitimate about GZ's approach to this, and they have paid no one for the rights to make this game. It's just amateur hour here, or at best a bootleg / knockoff.

 -DE- wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 -DE- wrote:
Good grief.

Another IP parasite seeking to profit off other people's work exposed. Stealing, excuse me, INCORPORATING and PAYING HOMAGE to other designers' work without their consent, or the current copyright holders' for non-rule assets, is low. Very, very low. Worse still is that the guys claim to be die-hard fans of the original and mean to show the appreciation for it by... making a bootleg version of it.

And some of the users on here have the audacity to bash a company for going to lengths to protect its property... Apalling.

Your failure to read and understand the thread is appalling.
Hasbro owns the rights the the Heroquest board game.
Moon Design owns the trademark Heroquest name (for their RPG).
Hasbro has said nothing about the kickstarter.
MD was contacted prior to the kickstarter and said "No, don't do this." And GZ backers were shocked - Shocked! - to discover MD issued a C&D.

Except in my post I touched on none of these points. GZ has no right to the name - fact, no right to any of the original assets - fact, GZ intends to re-use HQ rules without the original author's consent - fact. Although by doing the last thing they're breaking no laws, it's still morally questionable. They're essentially making a knockoff, or a bootleg. Either way, it has nothing to do with HQ, it's just a way to feed off a popular IP without spending a dime on relevant licenses.

I did misread your post - sorry.

Why is MDs trademark more valid than GZs trademark.

The issue is MD isn't looking out for the legality of GZ, they wanted some of that cash and wanted to guarantee getting it. GZ has a trademark and is allowed to make it within its own country.

I suspect there are going to be piles of people trying to figure out how to make heroquest25th now because to make it is nothing more than some graphic design work. No play testing, no development or R&D. Now it is who can get to market the fastest to get the captive market.

nkelsch wrote:
Why is MDs trademark more valid than GZs trademark.

Because GZ wanted to use Kickstarter, a US company, to collect money.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
A LARP is massively different because you're not selling any physical copies of the game, so it has no real global implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(You sell tickets for your LARP events, and make your money that way.)

Your not selling physical copies of anything on Kickstarter either. You're raising funds for a worthy cause.

That's more than a little disengenuous and you know that's not the case.

In fact, Kickstarter itself disagrees with that statement, and a court case or two does as well.

 Alpharius wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
A LARP is massively different because you're not selling any physical copies of the game, so it has no real global implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(You sell tickets for your LARP events, and make your money that way.)

Your not selling physical copies of anything on Kickstarter either. You're raising funds for a worthy cause.

That's more than a little disengenuous and you know that's not the case.

In fact, Kickstarter itself disagrees with that statement, and a court case or two does as well.

Disengenuous? No. Hyperbole? Yes.

If you can (legally) draw the line between "selling copies of" a game and "selling tickets for" a game, than you'd have a precedent for a similar distinction between "selling copies of" a game and "funding the creation of" a game. No judge in his right mind would want to go their. The implications for IP law would basically ... well ... render it pointless.

The point is, the reason MD doesn't go after the Heroquest LARP, but does go after the Heroquest Kickstarter, is that the former (a) has less money and (b) isn't susceptible to time-sensitive blockades (e.g. it would actually mean MD had to go to court).

rigeld2 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Why is MDs trademark more valid than GZs trademark.

Because GZ wanted to use Kickstarter, a US company, to collect money.

Exactly. IndieGoGo is also US-based. They can make their own pre-order website for "Spanish HeroQuest" if they like. Folks should go buy the "Russian Alien vs Predator" game linked to earlier in this thread while they're at it

GZ can still use websites as Verkami, which is a Spanish company.

I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Read BGG. The TM was just transferred from a man connected to MD to MD itself.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

 RiTides wrote:
That's the smoking gun, imo. They approached the trademark holder, were told "no", and went ahead anyway. And didn't tell backers anything regarding that. If MD was trying to pull a fast one, they'd have waited for KS to take the money, then challenged for a lot of it. They shut it down because even they don't think even they can produce Hasbro's game, and will only license the name if GZ gets that permission. There is almost nothing legitimate about GZ's approach to this, and they have paid no one for the rights to make this game. It's just amateur hour here, or at best a bootleg / knockoff.

You seem to be neglecting that GZ doesn't actually need MD's permission to make the game, since GZ owns the trademarks in their own country. They would like to have MD on board because it'd mean they could sell it from within the US at retail, but without MD's approval they can still make the game in Spain, and ship it to the US, just like MD make their "Heroquest" game in the US and ship it to Spain, where they don't own a trademark.

It's a pretty major grey area, but it looks as if GZ has done nothing wrong, and MD doesn't need to be in the right to pull the Kickstarter. With the KS pulled, MD has put them in a better position to extort money out of GZ in order to get permission to sell them from within the US. I wonder if their royalty percentage is based off the KS total, or off the sales made within the US. If it's the latter then they are perfectly justified, if it's the former then they are clearly just trying it on.

As a UK customer, I can buy Heroquest from GZ and have it shipped to me 100% legally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

But doing this presumably puts them in a better negotiating position; now the company has ownership of the trademark rather than the MD. If it's just a normal transaction, why did it happen 12 days after GZ made contact, when they've had an exclusive license for at least 10 years prior?

My under5standing is that MD aquired the rights to Golgotha (is that the right spelling?) - they already had the rights to HQ.

Which makes sense, cause if they didn't have the rights to HQ why would GZ have contacted them anyway?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
A LARP is massively different because you're not selling any physical copies of the game, so it has no real global implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(You sell tickets for your LARP events, and make your money that way.)

Your not selling physical copies of anything on Kickstarter either. You're raising funds for a worthy cause.

That's more than a little disengenuous and you know that's not the case.

In fact, Kickstarter itself disagrees with that statement, and a court case or two does as well.

Disengenuous? No. Hyperbole? Yes.

Nah, I'm going to stick with disingenuous.

The Dictionary wrote:not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

Because, as we've all learned:

Kickstarter wrote:Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

Of course, there are no guarantees, but to state that we're all just 'happily donating to a cause' is incorrect and rather incendiary, and doesn't often lead to rational discussion.

Herzlos wrote:

As a UK customer, I can buy Heroquest from GZ and have it shipped to me 100% legally.

And in Spain you can but Heroquest from MD and have it shipped to you 100% legally as well.

Herzlos wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I note that nobody else had remarked on three interesting details:
Per MD's own statement, GZ contacted them on July 31, 2013.
Per MD's own website, the company only acquired all the trademarks on August 12, 2013.
Per MD's statement, they then refused GZ on August 26, 2013.

And now they want a significant slice of the pie to let GZ produce the game.

Prior to acquiring them they had an exclusive license to use them. I don't see any issue here - instead of continuing to pay licensing fees they just bought the IP outright.
Seems normal.

But doing this presumably puts them in a better negotiating position; now the company has ownership of the trademark rather than the MD. If it's just a normal transaction, why did it happen 12 days after GZ made contact, when they've had an exclusive license for at least 10 years prior?

I love how that "seems normal". It also "seems normal" that MD waited to ask KS to halt it after the KS had made like a half million bucks, right?

The stupid icing on the cashgrab cake was MD's odd statement that they wanted to maybe make their own Heroquest board game in the future. But their defense was GZ needs Hasbro's permission to use the trademark MD claims to own. But obviously for their own Heroquest game they wouldn't need Hasbro's permission.

Cashgrab. They want a bunch of money and, unfortunately, Gamezone will have to relent if they want the KS to continue.

So I guess its to Feebey for the stuff.

Too bad, those figures that they had shown were the cats meow!

Wonder if they could just up and sell the figures in battle packs, or something to the effect of "Hero Sets" "Villian sets with a couple of map sections and some scenery and call it a day.

Games looking R.I.P.