GTA: San Andreas has sold somewhere near 10 million copies. The locked extra content of the “Hot Coffee” mission where a cheat code could unlock a mission where you banged your virtual girlfriend was the focal point of a class action suit against Take Two. They wanted to claim damages that this content should have been disclosed. Here is a shocker, no one gives a shit. Less than 2700 gamers filed with the suit.
“Am I disappointed? Sure,” said Seth Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, reports the New York Times. “We can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t care. The merits of the case were clear.”
Take Two will have to shell out about 30k to gamers and will make a 800k donation to charity. They made that in about 3 minutes when GTA IV came out. This is another case of overzealous lawyers trying to capitalize on a growing medium that may have had a hiccup. The problem here? Gamers tend to side with gaming companies when content is involved. Its only a matter of time before everyone who bought Haze is going to sue for a full refund.
Everyone’s favorite freedom fighter is back and this time he has high hopes. He wants to be the liason between EA and Take 2. Sort of like how Billion dollar investment mogul Warren Buffet helped the Yankees and Alex Rodriguez reach a deal. Trouble is, EA wants absolutely nothing to do with Jack. Here is what they said:
Mr. Thompson,
We have received your letter to EA’s shareholder site. In response to your offer to assist in the proposed acquisition of Take-Two, we would strongly prefer that you not get involved in this matter. EA is a strong supporter of creative freedom for game developers. We feel that your past statements – including false claims about content in our games – make any collaboration with you impossible.
Sincerely,
Mariam Sughayer
Sr. Manager Corporate Communications
Electronic Arts, Inc.
Yeah. Uber pwnage. Not one to be deterred, Jack claims he has a client who was screwed by Take 2 and wants to help them sue Take 2 thus proving how badly EA needs him. This is like a bad episode of Saved by the Bell. Some fat chick wants to get Zack’s attention, so she makes Slater look like a douche bag. I mean, stone washed denim… Anyway, keep in touch for all the muck that is fit to rake because this is only gonna get better.
Parallel Processing, which is a California based computer manufacturing company, has recently taken legal action against Sony for the use of their processor chips in all PS3’s reports next-genbiz. The company claims to have had the patent for the chip in 1991 and is requsting legal reimbursement, damages, and all the chips be destroyed. Here are the specifics:
The patent, “Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory” was issued in October 1991. It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program “into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors” and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times.
Although none of us here at Loot expect anything to come of us, it could start a barrage of small companies claiming suit and making the industry a little messy. This is something to watch in the next few weeks and we will keep you updated.
This one just makes you same hmmm. Microsoft is suing Immersion over their settlement with Sony.
Apparently, when Microsoft settled with Immersion back in the day, they put a clause in the contract saying Immersion would have to pay them should they settle with Sony. Oh yeah, and Microsoft decided to buy part of Immersion. Yes, it’s a dick move.
Well, Immersion and Sony never used the word “settlement”. They “concluded litigations” and “entering into a new business agreement”. Smart move, but Microsoft’s not buying it. The big Redmond giant has screwed over countless companies is similar ways, but now they’re crying foul when someone else is turning the tables on them.
If you look into it, Microsoft paid $26 million to settle their suit in 2002. Now, they’re asking for $27.5 million in royalties for Immersion settling with Sony. Now let me get this straight, Microsoft… you want Immersion to pay you $1.5 million for using their rumble technology? Yeah, that sounds about right.
No longer do we all have to live in fear of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Take-Two Interactive took a huge stand and is filing a lawsuit against Jack Thompson. If you don’t know about Jack’s past, I’m not going to get into it; Google should help you with that.
Good old JT decided about a week ago he wanted to dip his feet back in the lawsuit pool with Take-Two, the publisher of the upcoming titles Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV, because they’re “hyperviolent” and shouldn’t be sold to minors. Ummm, isn’t that the ESRB’s job? Not to mention the fact that gaming stores should be fully responsible, but they are pretty liberal with how they sell games.
JT wants to prevent the sales of these games completely, which is just ludacris. This is the reason Take-Two is filing a counter suit. Their main point of the website, which I highly agree with, is that preventing the sale of these games would violate Take-Two’s First Amendment rights. We can only hope, as gamers and people with brains, that JT’s case gets promptly shot down.
You can read all the legal mumbo-jumbo here.
