Gorf: Good News and Bad news....

[Machine]

did the cd unit get returned?

 

[sirlynxalot]

Wasn't Midway acquired by Warner bros after it went into bankruptcy shortly after 2007? That's like the Atari circle of life right there. 

[Isgoed]

I can't answer your last questions guys... I could say some things that I "seem to remember" of how things went but I am not even sure if these memories are correct.

The events that I mentioned in my last post were facts as far as my memory serves me.

[+Stephen]

I believe the story was presented as (short version).  Little Cuss asked if he could use the game.  Danny Bunton said yes.  Midway said he-she™ didn't own the game therefore couldn't grant blessing for release.

[alucardX]

On 8/3/2020 at 10:47 AM, Goochman said:

 

You only get to keep your IP if you protect it when notified of its use.  Why do you think Nintendo cares about all the 2600 knock offs - or that never happened either.................

It would be a better thing to refer to it as copyright, not "IP". IP is a propaganda term used to refer to patents, copyright and trademark with one term. Those are three very different things and they all serve very different purposes. If you don't think about them separately and draw the distinctions of each then you run the risk of misunderstanding the implications each may have on the context you're working within.

 

Either way, copyright lasts a really long time (because of legal extensions over the years), without the intervention of renewal on behalf of the copyright holder. Even if the copyright holder to Gorf does NOTHING with it their copyright won't expire any time soon.

[JagChris]

I think it may fall within the IP domain if your description of the differences are correct. VladR and I were talking to David Crane and he said Activision has to use the Pitfall name every now and then or they could lose it. I'm assuming that Gorf is in the same domain. 

[davidcalgary29]

On 8/3/2020 at 2:30 PM, Machine said:

did the cd unit get returned?

 

...and in working order? "No, we were sent a Sony discman, and that's what you're getting back. I absolutely have no current listings for a Jaguar CD unit on eBay!"

[JagChris]

Yes the unit got returned

[+thanatos]

All legal aspects aside, when I missed out on the Jaguar version, "Well, at least I have the ROM for MAME."

 

So, yay I guess.

 

[+cubanismo]

6 hours ago, JagChris said:

Activision has to use the Pitfall name every now and then or they could lose it

This is specific to trademarks.  IANAL, but I have Google, and from what I gather: You can copyright something and then never offer it for sale and never sue anyone copying it and your copyright is still valid.  Your trademark must be enforced and in active use, or it quickly becomes invalid (~must be renewed with documented evidence of use every 5-6 years).  So using everyone's favorite example: I can't make a carbon copy of BattleSphere because it is copyrighted.  However, if they didn't have a trademark (Note the logo on their FAQ claims they do, though I haven't verified this), I believe I could legally make a very similar game called Battlesphere II and claim it's the sequel to Battlesphere providing I don't do so by actually copying their source code, binaries, images, sounds, etc.  So I believe it's trademarks, not copyrights, that are used to protect families of videogame "IPs."

[alucardX]

53 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

This is specific to trademarks.  IANAL, but I have Google, and from what I gather: You can copyright something and then never offer it for sale and never sue anyone copying it and your copyright is still valid.  Your trademark must be enforced and in active use, or it quickly becomes invalid (~must be renewed with documented evidence of use every 5-6 years).  So using everyone's favorite example: I can't make a carbon copy of BattleSphere because it is copyrighted.  However, if they didn't have a trademark (Note the logo on their FAQ claims they do, though I haven't verified this), I believe I could legally make a very similar game called Battlesphere II and claim it's the sequel to Battlesphere providing I don't do so by actually copying their source code, binaries, images, sounds, etc.  So I believe it's trademarks, not copyrights, that are used to protect families of videogame "IPs."

This is a really good example of why we should not use the term "IP". You can already see that the issues get conflated. You're on the right track though as to what is protected when. If you just do away with the term "IP" then it is more clear from the outset and people can start to understand what is going on.

[JagChris]

Ok guys thread is only 4 pages long and most of the story is in the first page

[+thanatos]

On 8/13/2020 at 2:41 PM, JagChris said:

Ok guys thread is only 4 pages long and most of the story is in the first page

 

Yet you added another to the necrobump. 

[+Stephen]

Which page has instructions for getting on the pre-order list again?

[+Mitch]

15 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Which page has instructions for getting on the pre-order list again?

Try here.

 

Mitch

[+Stephen]

2 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Try here.

 

Mitch

Kidding as usual.  I have a white case numbered edition of Gorf CD.  Was glad to get it - it's a great conversion.

[+Mitch]

4 hours ago, Stephen said:

Kidding as usual.  I have a white case numbered edition of Gorf CD.  Was glad to get it - it's a great conversion.

I figured that. Did you see what I linked to?

 

Mitch

[+Stephen]

10 hours ago, Mitch said:

I figured that. Did you see what I linked to?

 

Mitch

Yeah - on both lists for the GD.

[+orpheuswaking]

On 8/14/2020 at 11:35 PM, Stephen said:

Kidding as usual.  I have a white case numbered edition of Gorf CD.  Was glad to get it - it's a great conversion.

you git, that's the one Jag game I don't have that I would love to play. 

[ThunderFist]

As I understand, the programmer did have permission from Jamie Fenton, who unfortunately did not have ownership of Gorf at that time. Jamie has said, however, that as the rights to her games revert back to her, she is interested in making them free to distribute, as has already happened with Robby Roto. I guess all we can do it wait until the rights revert back to Jamie, if they ever do in our lifetime. It's an even bigger shame to me that Ms. Golf has still not been released. Jamie has said that it would be easier to recreate that game from scratch because the original program is difficult to retrieve due to being on 8 inch floppies, and even if you could retrieve it, she doubts it would ever compile since the setup used during that time no longer exists. There is footage of Ms. Golf running, but we don't even know if the entire game played that way or if it was just one level. Jamie does seem to be all for someone trying to recreate the game, and if anyone ever does, hopefully they can do so as close to her original vision as possible.

[+LS650]

I've played GORF for Jaguar a couple of times, and I will say that it is a superb version for the Jaguar. 

Very close in look and feel to the arcade release. 

It would be great to see an official legal release but I think that is unlikely to happen, sadly.

[+Sauron]

Every time someone necrobumps an old Gorf thread, I feel like someone's opening the closet door on the Jag's seedy best-forgotten past. Considering all of the goodness we've gotten from Jag homebrewers over the past decade or so, it's a little disturbing to remember that a port of an ancient arcade game was considered such an accomplishment.

[PeterG]

Just now, Sauron said:

Every time someone necrobumps an old Gorf thread, I feel like someone's opening the closet door on the Jag's seedy best-forgotten past. Considering all of the goodness we've gotten from Jag homebrewers over the past decade or so, it's a little disturbing to remember that a port of an ancient arcade game was considered such an accomplishment.

I agree when you look at it this way but in my head at that time it was just the start of a long list of new games that were hopefully to follow. And that in a time where we did not get that many new games. Now of course it is ridiculous to look back and see that with all the drama over years all that was released where two games and some demos or something like that ... 

[Zerosquare]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

it's a little disturbing to remember that a port of an ancient arcade game was considered such an accomplishment.

To be honest, the real issue wasn't Gorf-the-game, it was Gorf-the-developer.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Zerosquare

[+remowilliams]

5 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

To be honest, the real issue wasn't Gorf-the-game, it was Gorf-the-developer.

 

Final thread update.

 

Bad News: No licensed Gorf-the-game

 

Good News: No Gorf-the-developer