PolyCast Episode 271: "Not Just a Lame Clip Show XX"

[DanQ]

[img=right]http://civcomm.civfanatics.com/polycast/images/polycast_logo.jpg[/img] Taking to task. The two-hundred-and-seventy-first episode of Civilization strategy podcast PolyCast, "Not Just a Lame Clip Show XX", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and "MadDjinn" with five guest co-hosts in the twentieth compilation of segments archived from previous episode recordings and not released previously. With a 59m59s runtime, the summary of topics is as follows:

- 00m38s | Miscellaneous
Original Civilization Co-Designer Bruce Shelley on board game influences for the title, followed by fellow Co-Designer Sid Meier on being the "man who made a million empires" (05m15s) and offering "insights" on the series to date (14m16s; recorded for Episode 250); then, critiquing the critic who claims CivilizationEdu is a "bad idea" (21m21s; recorded for Episode 264) and lessons learned from the story of one game developer using the Civilization trademark (34m16s; recorded for Episode 270).

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding, TurnCast on Civ multiplay. The 2016 PolyCast Christmas Special is to be released on December 24th.

 

[dwcole78]

Hello all!

This is Zaldar otherwise known as Daniel Cole the guest who talked about trademark law in the above podcast. I am a practicing intellectual property lawyer with Bold IP. We would love to help anyone who has needs in the intellectual property realm. Among those would be analyzing your potential project to see if there are any trademark issues you need to be aware of to help you avoid situations like the developers here found themselves in.

Information about the firm can be found here www.boldip.com and information about me (along with an incredibly handsome portrait can be found here: http://www.boldip.com/meet-the-bold-team/daniel-cole-patent-attorney/

 

[DanQ]

Your applying your expertise to the Civilization trademark infringement story was appreciated, Daniel.

 

[legalizefreedom]

One thing that raised an eyebrow in this episode was the assumption that Sid's primary goal when making the original Civ was making money. I'm sure he wanted to make a successful game, but in that day success was more closely tied to popularity and recognition than money. There just wasn't a lot of money in game development.

Considering the times, I would have to assume he, like most other game developers at the time, was primarily interested in creating a great game. That's, not so coincidently, why so many games from that era were great compared to what we see today. Many reasons why, but that's a big one.
As a general statement... At some point game developers changed from artists to businessmen, but that had not happened yet during the original Civ's development.

 

[DanQ]

The underlying, practical purpose of making a game as part of a company is -- by the very nature of being in a company -- to make money, to make a profit. If for no other reason than this, making games that are successful should be the standard by which such companies operate... but certainly we see that there is more to it than that with respect to Civ past, present and hopefully the future too.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Thing is, if his primary goal was making money, he could have gone to work in a more robust industry. I tend to think the primary motivation was the desire to make games... and hopefully... make enough money to live on and keep it going.

That's the difference between that time and today. Then it was "Let's make a great game and hopefully we'll make some money" whereas today it's "Here's our budget and schedule. Let's do what we can with this." The former is the attitude of an artist and the latter is the attitude of a businessman.