Reading one post here got me remembering how all of us felt back in early 2005 when we heard that Marvel was going to get the game shut down.
I have a .pdf copy of the original complaint filed by Marvel and it is dated November 10, 2004. So the game was only out 6 months or so.
At time of course there was a valid point as Woolfereens and Bulks and whatever were rampant. But you could also make original heroes as well, something Marvel sort of glossed over in the complaint.
But you could just as easily make a Superiorman or Bat-Guy and we all wondered why DC never sued (as far as I know).
And I was surprised DC didn't get involved as Marvel even claimed they invented Super Heroes!
But the thing we heard at the time was Marvel was going to release an MMO and basically wanted no competition.
Just as we now want to ban all things NCSOFT a lot of chatter in the forums and in the game was people would ban from buying any marvel products if Marvel indeed had the game shut off.
Although the game was only 8 or 9 months old at the time we already loved it and couldn't bear if it was shut down because of Marvel.
Of course we were overjoyed when like 99% of the case was dismissed when the judge found out that almost all of the screenshots presented as evidence of trademark infringement were made by MARVEL EMPLOYEES that signed up for the game just to make those clones.
Though if the game was shutdown at that stage it wouldn't be as upsetting as it was to be shut down after spending 8 years and a lot of money.
I came on the scene in 2007....so I missed that.
I did get wind of it by seeing the generic police at work in CoH. :roll:
Copyright requirements mean if you think someone is possibly infringing - YOU HAVE TO SUE THEM.
Then it goes to court and the decision is made or a settlement is made. Marvel wasn't being evil they were following the law. If they didn't try to stop infringment - they would lose their copyrights.
No malice and no ulterior motive - just the law.
Quote from: Ironwolf on October 12, 2013, 11:13:19 PM
Copyright requirements mean if you think someone is possibly infringing - YOU HAVE TO SUE THEM.
Then it goes to court and the decision is made or a settlement is made. Marvel wasn't being evil they were following the law. If they didn't try to stop infringment - they would lose their copyrights.
No malice and no ulterior motive - just the law.
actually that's trademarks.
You don't lose copyrights.
But you are spot on with Marvel because sometimes trademarks and copyrights go hand in hand and if they didn't pursue, they probably would have lost some trademark rights.
But it's good thing that copyrights are not lost if not pursued. Fanfic is many times copyright infringement but lot of authors don't mind it or take it as helping get their materials out there. But if they had to sue or lose their work, it would be a sad day in fanfic world as 99% of it is by definition of the law copyright infringement.
Quote from: Ironwolf on October 12, 2013, 11:13:19 PM
Copyright requirements mean if you think someone is possibly infringing - YOU HAVE TO SUE THEM.
Then it goes to court and the decision is made or a settlement is made. Marvel wasn't being evil they were following the law. If they didn't try to stop infringment - they would lose their copyrights.
No malice and no ulterior motive - just the law.
Then why didn't DC sue as well? Whatever Marvel's motives were - it just made them look like the bad guys since DC never said a peep about the game.
But the fact that Marvel was planning on releasing an MMO back then was a big part of it. Though it took them about 8 years.
And to be fair - Wolverine is not the only super hero with claws or even published by Marvel, so in theory every comic company should have come down on COH - but they didn't - only Marvel.
Not saying Marvel was totally wrong and I can understand why they did what they did but some of those claims they made in the suit were just ridiculous.
Quote from: Ironwolf on October 12, 2013, 11:13:19 PM
Copyright requirements mean if you think someone is possibly infringing - YOU HAVE TO SUE THEM.
Then it goes to court and the decision is made or a settlement is made. Marvel wasn't being evil they were following the law. If they didn't try to stop infringment - they would lose their copyrights.
No malice and no ulterior motive - just the law.
The malice was when the infringements being cited were from Marvel employees who had gone in with the express purpose of trying to make copyrighted characters. Is it legal? yes. Is it dickish? Uh, yeah.
Yeah, basically, if I'm remembering the original legal documents correctly, Marvel asserted that there were "hundreds" of player-created characters in-game that were infringing Marvel copyrights.
However, when challenged to show examples of such, the only ones they could produce were characters that Marvel employees had created. And they created them after the legal forms had all been filled out. They couldn't produce a single example of an actual player with an infringing character.
(Which is a bit of a surprise, since Hulks were all over the place)
Quote from: Thunder Glove on October 13, 2013, 08:49:47 PM
Yeah, basically, if I'm remembering the original legal documents correctly, Marvel asserted that there were "hundreds" of player-created characters in-game that were infringing Marvel copyrights.
However, when challenged to show examples of such, the only ones they could produce were characters that Marvel employees had created. And they created them after the legal forms had all been filled out. They couldn't produce a single example of an actual player with an infringing character.
(Which is a bit of a surprise, since Hulks were all over the place)
Well they probably didn't have access to the account information. So they could take a pic, but then it would have been easily thrown out as faux or posed. But they probably was in a rushing. If they took their time and just hung around on any server for an hour or two in Atlas park,. they would have had at least 3-5 copyright infringement toons per hour per person they send out to watch. With a crew of ten and about 5-6 hours, spread across the servers, they would have had about 100 sightings easy.
Yeah I'm sure there were hundreds of players that actually did copyright infringement. But I think the way they went about proving it, sinked their case. Hulks were everywhere and really though the moderation team up that point really wasn't doing anything much about them. Thus if Marvel didn't shoot themselves in the foot, NCSOFT and COX was a sitting duck to prove that it was going on and that the moderation rule enforcement didn't enforce the rule even though they had it written. After the case, for a while they went on a copyright infringement toon purge. Then it slowed down again, then around COV was released they went on another purge.
Quote from: Thunder Glove on October 13, 2013, 08:49:47 PM
Yeah, basically, if I'm remembering the original legal documents correctly, Marvel asserted that there were "hundreds" of player-created characters in-game that were infringing Marvel copyrights.
However, when challenged to show examples of such, the only ones they could produce were characters that Marvel employees had created. And they created them after the legal forms had all been filled out. They couldn't produce a single example of an actual player with an infringing character.
(Which is a bit of a surprise, since Hulks were all over the place)
At the same point I saw many many Supermen, all kinds of Batman rip offs. Hell I even teamed with a toon named Bruce Wayne that was a MA/SR scrapper. or a guy in my own SG that named a toon Wally West - had a Flash type costume - picked Superspeed as a scrapper and then later wondered why his toon got genericed.
I still wonder why Marvel bent themselves out of shape to get COH closed yet DC or other comic companies never did a thing.
Quote from: doc7924 on October 13, 2013, 11:23:18 PM
At the same point I saw many many Supermen, all kinds of Batman rip offs. Hell I even teamed with a toon named Bruce Wayne that was a MA/SR scrapper. or a guy in my own SG that named a toon Wally West - had a Flash type costume - picked Superspeed as a scrapper and then later wondered why his toon got genericed.
I still wonder why Marvel bent themselves out of shape to get COH closed yet DC or other comic companies never did a thing.
It's just one of those things.
Some authors actively pursue and C&D every fan fic. thing they come across. Others don't.
Youtube-Some companies don't bother with their vids while some companies are notorious for C&D youtube videos.
Some gam companies don't mess with private servers while some actively seek them out and eve nthen that depends on the game and time of year and various other factors.
Just like someone here probably me more lenient about a friend ripping off their property and maybe not be happy with it but may not press charges compared to someone they hate and they probably will go the full entire extent of the law.
Choices. Some choose to go one way and others choose to not. Easiest thing to do is don't take or replicate what don't belongs to ya illegally. Then the choice of whether or not they will sue is not even an issue.
Quote from: JaguarX on October 13, 2013, 11:32:31 PMSome authors actively pursue and C&D every fan fic. thing they come across. Others don't.
The word you're looking for is "litigious". Marvel Comics is quite litigious.
So is Disney, BTW. Remember those day care centers it bullied? A PR disaster for them, and Warner Bros. swooped down in a timely fashion and allowed them free use of their Looney Tunes characters.
Quote from: CoyoteSeven on October 14, 2013, 08:47:13 PM
The word you're looking for is "litigious". Marvel Comics is quite litigious.
So is Disney, BTW. Remember those day care centers it bullied? A PR disaster for them, and Warner Bros. swooped down in a timely fashion and allowed them free use of their Looney Tunes characters.
Yeah PR disaster but didn't slow them down and they still are one of the most powerful top grossing entertainment companies out there. PR is sometimes over rated especially when dealing with major corporations. Bad PR for a mom and pop store, yes it could be detrimental, but the point of business is not to do warm and fuzzy just to do warm and fuzzy. It's to make money. Like people, each have it's own personality. Some do a little bit more warm and fuzzy others don't do so much. WB, I gurantee ya, if someone use their stuff in a manner they don't like they will sue. And of course there will be a group of people that wont like it and say, "Oh because they sued, it was a PR disaster for them." Yeah the day care thing, a little uncouth IMO. But in reality how hard is it to simply ask for permission before using someone else property? That to me is more rude than Disney suing someone for using their stuff without permission.
But in today's world people seem to get it in their head they are entitled to stuff that don't belong to them and entitled to take what ever they please without permission and without question.
I remember back in the early days of CoX; the Matrix was popular at the time so it seemed every other character was a clone of Neo or Agent Smith.
The game was also full of Gokus, Vegetas and Piccolos. Actually anything that was popular on the CN or AS at the time popped up in one form or another, thanks to the strength of the character creator.
Some people actually do have more fun playing someone else's character. Doesn't make much sense to me, but if that's what they enjoy who am I to look down on them for it? See also: Marvel Heroes.
Quote from: General Idiot on October 15, 2013, 01:10:45 PM
Some people actually do have more fun playing someone else's character. Doesn't make much sense to me, but if that's what they enjoy who am I to look down on them for it? See also: Marvel Heroes.
What makes DCUO so much more appealing is you can make your own hero - and still base it on a DCU hero if you like.
But Marvel's is like playing an online Ultimate Alliance - you could play Captain America - but so could 200 people and you all look the same, play the same, have the same powers.
The whole appeal of games like COH and DCU and Champions is yes you may try and copy a hero but you can also make your own original, where in Marvel's game you can't and that's the only reason I haven't bothered with it.
Quote from: doc7924 on October 15, 2013, 04:10:16 PM
What makes DCUO so much more appealing is you can make your own hero - and still base it on a DCU hero if you like.
But Marvel's is like playing an online Ultimate Alliance - you could play Captain America - but so could 200 people and you all look the same, play the same, have the same powers.
The whole appeal of games like COH and DCU and Champions is yes you may try and copy a hero but you can also make your own original, where in Marvel's game you can't and that's the only reason I haven't bothered with it.
Honestly, I barely even notice it. Marvel's game is more Diablo (which isn't surprising considering a couple of the Diablo guys are behind it) than anything. Diablo multiplayer is all kinds of repeated classes - there's only like 4 or 5 after all. And that's basically all the Marvel heroes are: a whole bunch of different classes. Plus with the three skill trees and limited skill points, not every character will play the same even if they're both Black Widow.
At least try it before you dismiss it out of hand, out of ignorance. :) I had the same opinion - in fact, a large contingent of the players in MH had the same opinion ("if everyone's playing X character, I won't feel special or unique!") - but actually experiencing the game is totally different.
Quote from: Aggelakis on October 15, 2013, 05:04:27 PM
Honestly, I barely even notice it. Marvel's game is more Diablo (which isn't surprising considering a couple of the Diablo guys are behind it) than anything. Diablo multiplayer is all kinds of repeated classes - there's only like 4 or 5 after all. And that's basically all the Marvel heroes are: a whole bunch of different classes. Plus with the three skill trees and limited skill points, not every character will play the same even if they're both Black Widow.
At least try it before you dismiss it out of hand, out of ignorance. :) I had the same opinion - in fact, a large contingent of the players in MH had the same opinion ("if everyone's playing X character, I won't feel special or unique!") - but actually experiencing the game is totally different.
I am thinking more of the look. If I play a hero on a team or against others I'd rather not look exactly like people on my team or the other team.
Though I did sign up for it anyway - just haven't had the time to install and try it out.
Quote from: doc7924 on October 15, 2013, 05:22:49 PM
I am thinking more of the look. If I play a hero on a team or against others I'd rather not look exactly like people on my team or the other team.
There is that, but that is also fairly easy to overlook ingame. I barely notice it anymore. And I am DEFINITELY part of the "unique heroes!" contingent - it was part of my anti-Marvel-Heroes stance before I tried it out ;)
Quote from: doc7924 on October 11, 2013, 07:48:42 PMBut you could just as easily make a Superiorman or Bat-Guy and we all wondered why DC never sued (as far as I know).
And they
were being made; I remember, not long after
City of Villains was released, coming across -- and reporting -- someone who'd created an SS/Inv Brute named 'Ubermensch', whose costume was blue tights, red briefs and boots, and a yellow belt, with a red 'U' on his chest; after the Marvel suit, it seemed to be too close to the trademarked character to let run around for DC to use as one more bit of evidence for a suit.
I was actually in the closed beta for Marvel Heroes, so I dismiss it out of experience. :D
After a year, I don't remember which server it was (my character list is on my other computer), but I had dedicated one of the lower populated servers to copyright infringement. I did have one character on Champion, tho, Specialman, who arguably looked like Superman. He was a tank, but his backstory was more reminiscent of the Tick. ("His mom always told him he was special! Now, he was going to show the criminal element of Paragon City!") The name wasn't genericked, but his costume was switched to shades of grey and the "S" removed from his chest. I'm not sure if I felt he was important enough to me to take screenshots of him (again, other computer), but I changed his costume to something very close to early West Coast Avengers Wonderman, and all was good. ;)
Point being, sometimes the (arguable) copyright infringement is not a complete lack of creativity.
Quote from: Thunder Glove on October 13, 2013, 08:49:47 PM
Yeah, basically, if I'm remembering the original legal documents correctly, Marvel asserted that there were "hundreds" of player-created characters in-game that were infringing Marvel copyrights.
However, when challenged to show examples of such, the only ones they could produce were characters that Marvel employees had created. And they created them after the legal forms had all been filled out. They couldn't produce a single example of an actual player with an infringing character.
(Which is a bit of a surprise, since Hulks were all over the place)
This wasn't due to Marvel's lawyers being blind or anything, but because of the highly dubious nature of their lawsuit in the first place. Their lawsuit rested almost entirely on the following legal theory:
1. City of Heroes marketed itself as being designed to allow players to create comic book characters.
2. NCSoft was not a comic book publisher and did not own any substantial amount of comic book property.
3. Ergo, by encouraging people to create "comic book characters" they must have been referring to Marvel and other company's characters, and thus encouraging players to recreate other company's intellectual property.
I believe they (Marvel) honestly didn't feel it was necessary to demonstrate all of the technical mertis of infringement carefully, because they were hinging their case on essentially creating new law. In fact, they felt that actually creating most of the infringing characters was irrelevant, because their legal theory was enablement: because you *could* make infringing characters, NCSoft was responsible for contributory infringement no matter who actually did the infringing. Because Marvel had no intent on going after thousands of individual players for individual infringement.
Honestly, the case was so shoddy that I think it was entirely a pro-forma case given to the lawyers to give them something to do. I'm not exaggerating the ridiculousness of the case above; here it is taken from the actual complaint:
Quote1. This is a civil action by Marvel against Defendants for direct, contributory and vicarious copyright and trademark infringement arising out of Defendants' creation, distribution and online facilitation of the computer game enttiled "City of Heroes." According to Defedants, "City of Heroes brings the world of comic books alive in the first PC massively multiplaer online game of its kind." Considering that Defendants own no comic book characters themselves, it stands to reason that the comic books to which they refer are those that depict the characters of Marvel and others. Through its character creation engine (the "Creation Engine"), City of Heroes enables players to create customized "Heroes," which then enter "Paragon City" by way of Defendants' internet servers and engage in multiplayer online games. Unfortunately, Defendants' Creation Engine facilitates and, indeed, encourages players to create and utilize Heroes that are nearly identical in name, appearance, and characteristics to characters belonging to Marvel.
2. Within minutes of loading City of Heroes onto a personal computer ("PC"), a player can use Defendants' character Creation Engine to "create" a gigantic, green, "science-based" "tanker" - type Hero that looks, moves, and behaves nearly identically to Marvel's character "The Incredible Hulk." The player can even name his or her "creation" "The Hulk" and enter Paragon City to join scores of other such infringing Heroes.
3. Alternatively, a player can choose a "mutant-based" Hero and, within minutes, enter Paragon City as a character nearly identical in appearance and attributes as Marvel's X-Men characters "Wolverine" or "Storm."
4. In sum, Defendants have created, marketed, distributed and provided a host environment for a game that "brings the world of comic books alive," not by the creation of new or original characters but, instead, by directly, contributorily and vicariously infringing upon Marvel copyrights and trademarks, in clear violation of 17 USC 101 et seq, 15 USC 1114(1)(a) and 15 USC 1125.
The rest is just the technical details of their complaint. Their entire legal argument rests with the notion that since NCSoft advertised City of Heroes as allowing players to make "comic book characters" *of course* players would make copies of existing ones, because that's what comic book characters are: the ones Marvel (and other companies) make, not what players might think up on their own. Just giving them the ability is de facto encouragement, and thus all player infringement is all NCSoft's fault.
Their case relied heavily on the notion that it doesn't matter who makes them, only that they can be made, so that's why they did not spend a lot of time locating actual players with actual infringing characters. In fact as NCSoft stated in their countercomplaint, Marvel was so arrogant in their belief that they basically own all comic book characters that they didn't actually provide the court with any actual depictions of their own characters to compare to the supposed infringing ones. They just said "see, I can make something with a bad haircut and claws, ergo Wolverine-clone."
They wanted the court to rule that just because you could make infringing characters, NCSoft was as much at fault as the players doing so. Unfortunately, that requires Johnnie Cochran-levels of Chewbacca which the Marvel attorneys did not possess.
Quote from: Arcana on October 18, 2013, 01:08:38 AM
This wasn't due to Marvel's lawyers being blind or anything, but because of the highly dubious nature of their lawsuit in the first place. Their lawsuit rested almost entirely on the following legal theory:
1. City of Heroes marketed itself as being designed to allow players to create comic book characters.
2. NCSoft was not a comic book publisher and did not own any substantial amount of comic book property.
3. Ergo, by encouraging people to create "comic book characters" they must have been referring to Marvel and other company's characters, and thus encouraging players to recreate other company's intellectual property.
I believe they (Marvel) honestly didn't feel it was necessary to demonstrate all of the technical mertis of infringement carefully, because they were hinging their case on essentially creating new law. In fact, they felt that actually creating most of the infringing characters was irrelevant, because their legal theory was enablement: because you *could* make infringing characters, NCSoft was responsible for contributory infringement no matter who actually did the infringing. Because Marvel had no intent on going after thousands of individual players for individual infringement.
Honestly, the case was so shoddy that I think it was entirely a pro-forma case given to the lawyers to give them something to do. I'm not exaggerating the ridiculousness of the case above; here it is taken from the actual complaint:
The rest is just the technical details of their complaint. Their entire legal argument rests with the notion that since NCSoft advertised City of Heroes as allowing players to make "comic book characters" *of course* players would make copies of existing ones, because that's what comic book characters are: the ones Marvel (and other companies) make, not what players might think up on their own. Just giving them the ability is de facto encouragement, and thus all player infringement is all NCSoft's fault.
Their case relied heavily on the notion that it doesn't matter who makes them, only that they can be made, so that's why they did not spend a lot of time locating actual players with actual infringing characters. In fact as NCSoft stated in their countercomplaint, Marvel was so arrogant in their belief that they basically own all comic book characters that they didn't actually provide the court with any actual depictions of their own characters to compare to the supposed infringing ones. They just said "see, I can make something with a bad haircut and claws, ergo Wolverine-clone."
They wanted the court to rule that just because you could make infringing characters, NCSoft was as much at fault as the players doing so. Unfortunately, that requires Johnnie Cochran-levels of Chewbacca which the Marvel attorneys did not possess.
Yeah lot of their complaint got thrown out, six of them the first round and six more after the amended complaint was put forward.
One thing that did survive the cuts were the charge of contributory copyright infringement and that is when the settlement happened for undisclosed amounts allowing NCSOFT to keep the character creator.
And that probably had a lot to do with them ncsoft going on a "generic hammer" war path soon after the settlement was done.
While most of the stuff was found to be bogus and "shady", not all points were. Thus the settlement. If the settlement was turned down, would it had been thrown out eventually? Possibly but there is a such law that covers contributory copyright infringement, but yeah they would have to prove that NCSOFT was letting it go and not policing the players and it would have been hard to prove at the time. Since then though, the contributing copyright infringement laws got a bit more in depth especially dealing with software and digital media. contributory copyright infringement is how Napster went down.
Which honestly it was an on and off thing throughout the years and very lax before the lawsuit thing happened.
Quote from: JaguarX on October 18, 2013, 01:58:09 AMWhile most of the stuff was found to be bogus and "shady", not all points were. Thus the settlement. If the settlement was turned down, would it had been thrown out eventually? Possibly but there is a such law that covers contributory copyright infringement, but yeah they would have to prove that NCSOFT was letting it go and not policing the players and it would have been hard to prove at the time.
True, but its worth noting the following facts of the case. First, the court allowed the following claims to go to trial:
1. NCSoft *itself* infringed on Marvel copyrights; specifically Marvel claimed the character of Statesman infringed on Captain America.
2. NCSoft "enables and encourages" players to infringe on Marvel copyrights by making infringing characters.
3. NCSoft profited from players infringing on Marvel copyrights, and were in a position to control or stop the infringement.
4. NCSoft *itself* directly infringed on Marvel common law trademark, vis-a-vis Statesman again.
5. NCSoft damaged Marvel by reducing the value of Marvel property, in effect by claiming NCSoft was commercially profiting from game content Marvel could have otherwise done so through future games.
Of those five remaining issues not dismissed by summary judgment, two relate to Marvel asserting that Statesman infringes on Captain America, a matter of law and not of fact, which is why it could not be summarily dismissed. But it does seem unlikely Marvel would have won on either of those counts, and neither would have materially affected the game negatively if NCSoft lost. After all, we eventually killed Statesman ourselves :). The second issue also seems extremely unlikely to win at trial, and you would have had amicae lined up around the block on appeal, because *no one* anywhere in the entire games industry would want Marvel to prevail on that count. Consider that even Warner would have been vulnerable to that ruling with DCUO.
Really, the only two issues that seem like they had any chance at all were three and five. Three would have been difficult to prove and the court itself shot down an attempt by Marvel to have the court summarily rule that the DCMA did not provide safe harbor to NCSoft as an internet service company, which would have been an affirmative defense (i.e. if upheld they win). Which leaves issue five.
Given that, I think Marvel eventually decided to just plain give up. The most they could have gained on issue five would be some multiple of the revenue they claimed to have lost, and they would have proved they actually had upcoming games whose sales were likely to be impacted. Which I don't think they actually had. Which means proof of actual damages would have been tricky at trial.
Although the terms were sealed, NCSoft went out of their way to claim after the settlement that the terms of the settlement did not require them to alter the game or their operating of the game in any way. In other words, the settlement contained no requirement for NCSoft to do anything at all.
Combined with no financially visible settlement number, and I think both sides spent more on their lawyers than changed hands in the settlement in either direction.
Quote from: Arcana on October 18, 2013, 03:35:15 AM
True, but its worth noting the following facts of the case. First, the court allowed the following claims to go to trial:
1. NCSoft *itself* infringed on Marvel copyrights; specifically Marvel claimed the character of Statesman infringed on Captain America.
2. NCSoft "enables and encourages" players to infringe on Marvel copyrights by making infringing characters.
3. NCSoft profited from players infringing on Marvel copyrights, and were in a position to control or stop the infringement.
4. NCSoft *itself* directly infringed on Marvel common law trademark, vis-a-vis Statesman again.
5. NCSoft damaged Marvel by reducing the value of Marvel property, in effect by claiming NCSoft was commercially profiting from game content Marvel could have otherwise done so through future games.
Of those five remaining issues not dismissed by summary judgment, two relate to Marvel asserting that Statesman infringes on Captain America, a matter of law and not of fact, which is why it could not be summarily dismissed. But it does seem unlikely Marvel would have won on either of those counts, and neither would have materially affected the game negatively if NCSoft lost. After all, we eventually killed Statesman ourselves :). The second issue also seems extremely unlikely to win at trial, and you would have had amicae lined up around the block on appeal, because *no one* anywhere in the entire games industry would want Marvel to prevail on that count. Consider that even Warner would have been vulnerable to that ruling with DCUO.
Really, the only two issues that seem like they had any chance at all were three and five. Three would have been difficult to prove and the court itself shot down an attempt by Marvel to have the court summarily rule that the DCMA did not provide safe harbor to NCSoft as an internet service company, which would have been an affirmative defense (i.e. if upheld they win). Which leaves issue five.
Given that, I think Marvel eventually decided to just plain give up. The most they could have gained on issue five would be some multiple of the revenue they claimed to have lost, and they would have proved they actually had upcoming games whose sales were likely to be impacted. Which I don't think they actually had. Which means proof of actual damages would have been tricky at trial.
Although the terms were sealed, NCSoft went out of their way to claim after the settlement that the terms of the settlement did not require them to alter the game or their operating of the game in any way. In other words, the settlement contained no requirement for NCSoft to do anything at all.
Combined with no financially visible settlement number, and I think both sides spent more on their lawyers than changed hands in the settlement in either direction.
Indeed.
Especially the lawyers fee part. I wouldn't be surprised if both parties were happy to end the court case by the end and do a settlement. But I bet those lawyers made out like bandits though. kaching!