This past Friday, Bloomberg.com reported that video game publisher Konami has filed suit against Harmonix/MTV/Viacom over claims of Rock Band violating patents they filed back in 2002-2003. Konami is reportedly seeking cash compensation, in addition to trying to prevent Harmonix from using the instrument controllers in their games.
Many people will remember that Konami is planning on releasing its upcoming title this year, Rock Revolution, which is basically the same premise behind both Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour. However, while Konami may be mostly known in the music gaming genre for their Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Karaoke Revolution games, few people have heard of two previous games they released many moons before Rock Band & Guitar Hero came on the scene.
Those two games are Guitar Freaks and Drummania, neither of which has been very successful in the US. Guitar Freaks originally came out back in 1999 - six years before the original Guitar Hero was released to the masses. Both of Konami’s games used instrument peripherals as the controller for hitting notes music notes in sequence with the accompanying song.
When asked for their take on the lawsuit, Harmonix replied:
“Konami’s actions are extremely surprising. Unfortunately, successful products such as Rock Band can often become targets for baseless litigation. We have substantial defenses to this claim and intend to vigorously defend it.”
We’ll keep up to date with any developments on this case as they are made available. Perhaps something will go down behind the scenes at E3 this week!
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1Chicago Horde
on Jul 14, 2008 at 1:05 pm:
So Konami sues Harmonix, but NOT Activision/Red Octane/Neversoft? Sounds like sour grapes to me, and a way to try and recover some development $$$ as they know Rock Revolution is going to be a distant third place behind the 2 established franchises…..
2C
on Jul 14, 2008 at 2:05 pm:
Well, I am fairly sure that Activision and whoever developed Guitar Hero originally paid liscensing fees or whatever they are called when they originally made it.
Konami never could have guessed how big GH would get, and now they are tryiong to capitalize on RB’s success.
The thing is, Konami is basically right…. go look at guitar freaks, a game that came out probably in 2000 or 1999. It clearly is the thing that inspired these games and Konami deserves their credit.
http://www.funworldnh.com/Images/guitar_drum.jpg
Look at that pic. That is a newer version of two of the games that Konami released back in 1999 or 2000. You could play with 5 people at once between 3 arcade cabinets. You can have 2 guitarists, a drummer and 2 keyboard players.
Soooo… my point is that Konami isn’t completely off base with this, but I’d rather not see this happening since RB is my favourite music game right now.
3C
on Jul 14, 2008 at 2:08 pm:
Just one more bit of proof:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/data/575671.html
http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/data/581601.html
As you can see, guitar freaks was released in 1999 originally, and drummania 2000. These games could link up for a mode called bandjam with a third machine called Keyboardmania.
4C
on Jul 14, 2008 at 2:13 pm:
Err… I made a 2nd post but it didn’t seem to go through.
Either way I just posted two links to the release dates of guitar freaks 1 and drummania 1, 1999 and 2000 respectively.
Sooo… as you can see Konami clearly were the inventors of this “genre” of games.
5Scottythegreat1
on Jul 17, 2008 at 2:28 pm:
You cant sue someone for developing the same genre of game, so long as there is a noticeable difference in the two games. It would be like id Software suing a company for making a first person shooter, when it is clear that they developed the genre. This precedent was established in 1987 with a series of karate games released at the time that caused uproar due to the similarities between the two games (Data East Vs. Epyx/System 3).
Konami CAN sue for peripheral patents. They can easily get money for using a patent technology they developed for a specific game. Should Konami win, Harmonix/Viacom would have to cease and desist the production of the drumset/microphone/guitar peripheral (not sure which one they have beef with if not all three of them), they could pay fines and compensation to Konami as well. Konami has to prove that Rock Band used the products that Konami has a patent on. Im not an engineer, so I dont fully understand the engineering behind it all, but I understand the legality behind this issue.