Top 10 Wargames of 2006

After hearing about the battle over Wargames.Com, the Los Angeles weblog LAist asked me for a list of the top 10 wargames of 2006. Since this could be the last year I'm legally allowed to use the word "wargames" in a sentence, I jumped at the opportunity.

10. Naruto CCG: Every time I play a seven-year-old kicks my ninja's ass and tells me I bring shame to my family.

9. Advanced Squad Leader Armies of Oblivion: Published by Curt Schilling, who spends his time between pitches calculating how to keep his supply lines open to the Sudetenland.

8. Army Men Sarge's War: You're either with the Green Army or you're with the terrorists.

7. Call of Duty 3 (XBox 360): Makes you glad to live on the continent that's uptight about sex and comfortable about violence and not the other way around.

6. Confrontation (3rd Edition): Way more action than Negotiation or Capitulation.

5. Activision Remix Chopper Command: Back in my day we had one button on our joysticks and we liked it.

4. Memoir '44: Win the last well-liked American war in 60 minutes.

3. Gears of War (XBox 360): The chainsaw bayonet is wrong on so many levels.

2. Victory in Iraq: This isn't a real game, but the guy who comes up with it should be our next Secretary of Defense.

1. BattleLore: Huge medieval hordes fight like in Lord of the Rings, but without any hobbits holding back their homosexual yearning.

Udrp · Gaming · Domains · 2006/12/22 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

Microsoft Seeks Patent on RSS Platform

Don McArthur passes along some huge news in the syndication world -- Microsoft filed for a patent today on the Windows RSS Platform, a common feed database and API that can be used by other applications to read, write and store RSS and Atom feeds:

The web content syndication platform ... can be utilized to manage, organize and make available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. The platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. In addition, the platform can abstract away a particular feed format to provide a common format which promotes the useability of feed data that comes into the platform. Further, the platform processes and manages enclosures that might be received via a web feed in a manner that can make the enclosures available for consumption to both syndication-aware applications and applications that are not syndication-aware.

Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms of implementing the claimed invention.

My initial take is that this doesn't sound like a patentable invention, considering other software that exposes feeds, and the patent system has a chilling effect on software innovation.

One of the strengths of syndication is that you don't need an API to share feed data. Mark Pilgrim's Universal Feed Parser and the Planet Planet community aggregator both offer a lot of the functionality described in Microsoft's patent application.

Rss · Microsoft · Atom · 2006/12/21 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Red Herring: The War Over Wargames.Com

Red Herring interviewed me for a news article on the war over Wargames.Com. The story's pretty fair, though I was never uncertain about what I wanted to do with the domain. I've been playing wargames since Dungeons & Dragons was still considered a wargame in the late '70s.

She covers my background in the article:

Two years ago, Mr. Cadenhead registered www.BenedictXVI.com. When the new pope announced his new name, the website saw 500,000 hits in two days. Mr. Cadenhead decided to donate the domain to a charity rather than sell it to a porn operator and have to face the ire of Catholics everywhere.

He's not, he insists, a domain investor. "When I acquire a domain, my intention is to publish a site," said Mr. Cadenhead. "I would never trade on somebody else's trademark for a profit."

This is a point I'd like to emphasize, as self-serving as it sounds. I'm a computer book author and web publisher who tries to conduct myself ethically. I've turned down a lot of easy money over the 10 years I've published sites -- refusing ads for absinthe, laser pointers, Cuban cigars and countless porn opportunities. I have too much Catholic guilt to enjoy committing any of the deadly sins, except for sloth.

Domains · Gaming · Movies · Udrp · 2006/12/20 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

'The Deck is Stacked Against Cadenhead'

Jim Ledbetter, writing for the Business 2.0/Fortune blog The Browser, covers MGM's effort to grab Wargames.Com:

Over at Techdirt, they're pretty pessimistic about the little guy's chances: "Given the history of the domain name arbitration game, where the big company almost always wins, the deck is stacked against Cadenhead".

But wait! The Browser is not an attorney, and does not play one on television. But we noticed something curious about MGM's trademark of the term. Although the movie came out in 1983, MGM did not bother applying for a trademark until 2001 -- three years after Cadenhead got the domain. If Cadenhead can prove he acted in good faith, that might be enough of a loophole to let him slay the MGM lion.

News of my predicament also has been Slashdotted, where they're excited to find out there's a WarGames sequel:

This news is a little late, but on November 20th WarGames 2: The Dead Code began filming in Montreal. (I only became aware of the new production when I read that MGM is suing the rightful owner of WarGames.com for his domain name.)

Techdirt shouldn't be so pessimistic about one man's chances to stand up against a heartless corporate behemoth and triumph in the end. Has he learned nothing from the movies?

Udrp · Gaming · Domains · 2006/12/19 · 12 COMMENTS · Link

My Battle with MGM Over Wargames.Com

For the past three months I've been privately engaged in a time-consuming dispute with Nathan J. Hole, a lawyer representing MGM Studios who claims that Wargames.Com, a domain that I've owned since April 16, 1998, is the rightful property of the film company because it produced the 1983 movie WarGames and registered it as a trademark.

I received an e-mail this morning indicating that MGM has filed a legal complaint with the National Arbitration Forum to take the domain name away from me.

I registered the domain to sell military wargames like Axis & Allies and Battle of Britain and was able to realize these plans earlier this year. I've never run my own business, so figuring out sales taxes and licensing, finding suppliers, running a secure web server and setting up ecommerce software took around two years.

My store has nothing to do with the film WarGames or any other movie, but attempting to convince MGM there's no infringement has been utterly fruitless. I suspect this is because the film studio is filming a WarGames sequel for 2007 release.

Hole's an intellectual property attorney who appears to be making a name for himself by going after domain name owners using the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), an arbitration process that governs domain disputes. All domain owners agree to be bound by the UDRP when they register or renew a domain name.

In my research on the UDRP, I found that Hole has been the complainant's attorney on nine arbitration cases:

• Dell Inc. v. Innervision Web Solutions for the domain dellcomputersucks.com
• Dell Inc. v. SZK.com for the domains dellcustomersupport.com and wwwdellcomputer.com
• Dell Inc. v. David Wong for the domains dellwork.com and dellworks.com
• Dell Inc. v. Siims for the domains delldvr.com, delldvr.net, delldvrs.com and delldvrs.net
• Dell Inc. v. Superpennysaver for the domains dellsite.com and dellsite.net
• Dell Inc. v. Steve Kerry d/b/a North West Enterprise Inc. for the domains wwwdell4me.net, wwwdellcom.com, wwwdellcom.net, dell4mecom.net and wwwdell4mecom.com
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Michael McGreevy for the domain rocky.com
• Dell Inc. v. Dynamix Inc. c/o Dynamix for the domain dellpromos.com
• Alienware Corporation v. SZK.com for the domain wwwalienware.com

He's won all nine, but in six of the cases the domain owner didn't file a response, which gives the complainant the domain names by default. Most of them appear to be clear examples of cybersquatting, where a domain owner had no legitimate, non-infringing plans for the domain.

Fighting one of these arbitrations is expensive in both money and time, but I'm operating my store legally and have a well-documented history of owning domains in good faith -- as you can confirm with the Vatican. I've spent at least 1,000 hours developing Wargames.Com and have rejected dozens of offers over the years to sell the domain, including one for $30,000. My goal is to turn the business into something I can give my sons when they're old enough to run it.

I'll cover the legal battle here on Workbench. With the help of my attorney Wade Duchene, I'm learning how honest domain name owners can defend themselves from a grab like this, but you have to take steps to protect yourself before you hear from an attorney like Hole.

Once I received Hole's first letter on Sept. 11, the only actions that could end up saving my domain are the ones I took before that date.

Domains · Gaming · Movies · Udrp · 2006/12/18 · 150 COMMENTS · Link

I Was a Teen-Age Dungeon Master

A 1983 Dungeons & Dragons commercial has found its way to YouTube.

Back then, I couldn't watch that commercial without rousing my D&D jones, though it was false advertising to suggest that Jami Gertz might join your gaming group.

But watching it again, I'm reminded of what huge geeks those players were.

A lightning bolt cast by a magic user is five feet wide and 80 feet long in a straight line. Though it does 1d6 of damage per spellcaster level to the red dragon, half if a saving throw vs. spells is made, it also does the same damage to anyone else within the area of effect and can destroy their equipment. The only advantage to such a reckless tactic is that it can reduce your encumbrance.

Gaming · 2006/12/16 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

When Tech Bloggers Attack

Dave Winer's last blog entry ever ever ever has been postponed from the end of the year to April 2007.

In the movie SoapDish, Sally Field plays a soap opera diva in New York who has a surefire method of cheering herself up when her esteem tank is running on fumes. She goes to a mall in Paramus, N.J., and basks in fan adoration. "Give my best to Paramus!" another actor sneers.

Blogging is Winer's Paramus. If you're a person who needs to be reminded occasionally that you're the smartest kid in the class, a high-traffic blog is a big red you like me, you really like me button.

When Winer said he'd quit last March, he raised the possibility of selling his site to admirer Mike Arrington:

Mike Arrington says I can't quit blogging. ... Mike it'll be good for you. Maybe I'll write for TechCrunch. Maybe I should sell Scripting News to you. Maybe I'll do other things (I will). When a big tree falls, even a small big tree, it creates room for other things to grow.

When Winer unquit this week, one of his reasons was harsh criticism from Mike Arrington:

... there's some other stuff I can't write about at this time, but I'll want to have a platform and a pulpit. Someone is picking a pretty ridiculous fight with a guy who buys his ink by the barrel, and I want to be sure I got all the tools I need to fight back.

Arrington, whose rage against the New York Times now extends to Winer and any other blogger who likes the paper, is enjoying Winer's hollow promise to quit more than I did. Winer commented yesterday on Arrington's blog that they "used to be friends."

I haven't had this much trouble picking sides in a fight since the Iran-Iraq War.

2006/12/14 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

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