Japan Arrests Two For Lineage II Item Theft

By On November 29, 2010 · 1 Comment

Police in Japan have arrested Yu Nishimura and Kaori Tanaka on suspicion of stealing virtual goods from other players in NCSoft‘s subscription MMORPG, Lineage II. Nishimura and Tanaka stole the items through use of a program that claimed to help users play the game, but actually just stole users’ account names and passwords. Police think [...]

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PopCap Partners With NCSoft To Publish In Korea

By On September 14, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Casual game publisher PopCap plans to publish freemium versions of its hit games in Korea through a Web portal created in partnership with Korean MMO publisher NCSoft. The Korean portal will be called PopCap World and will host free versions of 13 PopCap games familiar to North American consumers as paid downloads, including Bejeweled, Zuma, [...]

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Gamer Sues NCSoft For Lineage II Addiction

By On August 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Plaintiff Craig Smallwood is suing Korean publisher NCSoft for $3 million in damages on grounds of defamation, negligence, gross negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Smallwood claims he became so addicted to playing NCSoft's 3D MMORPG Lineage II that he was "unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting [...]

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Worlds.com Settles NCSoft Suit; Short On Funds?

By On April 26, 2010 · Leave a Comment

After a little over a year since Worlds.com filed suit against NCSoft for patent infringement on Christmas Eve in 2008, the parties have settled the matter. According to Patent Arcade, the court ordered dismissal with prejudice due to a binding settlement agreement between the two companies on April 23. NCSoft began the litigation process by [...]

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PalTalk Peppers Virtual World Makers With Lawsuit

By On September 18, 2009 · 1 Comment

Virtual world/MMO developers Turbine, Sony, NCsoft, Activision, and Jagex were all named as defendants in a lawsuit filed this week by PalTalk Holdings. Inc. The complaint was filed in US District Court in Marshall, Texas, a notoriously plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction. The suit alleges patent infringement which revolve around PalTalk-purchased patents which cover technology which facilitates the [...]

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QuickStat: Korean Market Update

By On July 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Market research and consulting firm Pearl Research today teased the game and virtual worlds industries with a number of data points from its recently published "Online Games Market in Korea" study. The stats are worth noting as what is popular, and who is thriving, in Korea — in the online gaming, MMOG, and virtual worlds [...]

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QuickStat: Korean Market Update

By On July 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Market research and consulting firm Pearl Research today teased the game and virtual worlds industries with a number of data points from its recently published "Online Games Market in Korea" study. The stats are worth noting as what is popular, and who is thriving, in Korea — in the online gaming, MMOG, and virtual worlds [...]

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Article One Scores Startup2009 Win

By On June 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

In the news yesterday for its role in challenging the Worlds.com patent infringement lawsuit brought against NCsoft, activist organization Article One Partners has secured even more ink. It was just named the winner of the Startup2009 competition this afternoon in New York City. Startup2009 pitted the six-month-old company against nine other start-ups, each vying for [...]

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Article One Scores Startup2009 Win

By On June 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

In the news yesterday for its role in challenging the Worlds.com patent infringement lawsuit brought against NCsoft, activist organization Article One Partners has secured even more ink. It was just named the winner of the Startup2009 competition this afternoon in New York City. Startup2009 pitted the six-month-old company against nine other start-ups, each vying for [...]

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Worlds.com v. NCsoft Lawsuit On Shaky Ground?

By On June 2, 2009 · 4 Comments

On Christmas Eve of last year, Worlds.com, an early developer in the virtual worlds industry, laid down the gauntlet in Tyler, Texas. It filed a lawsuit in federal district court there accusing Korean game giant NCsoft of infringing its patent no. 7,181,690, a patent it argued conveyed rights to the system architecture behind NCsoft's avatar-based [...]

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