Curt Vendel Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 NAMCO SUES OVER ALLEGED COUNTERFEIT GAMES (posted Wednesday, April 9, 2003 -- 3PM) Video game maker Namco, which owns the rights to the popular Pac-Man and Galaga video games, announced today that it had filed a suit and obtained an injunction against a seller of alleged counterfeit arcade video games, PC Amusements of Orlando, Florida, and its owner, Luis Molinary. The counterfeit video games were being sold to the public from various outlets, including Internet auction sites. Namco filed suit in the Orlando Federal District Court, and the court granted an order allowing the United States Marshal service to seize and impound the video games and parts in question. Namco America's president Kevin Hayes said: "The Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga video games are still popular in the United States even after 20 years from their introduction. Namco continues to sell various models of our 20 Year Reunion: Class of '81 Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga, incorporating Pac-Man. The market has responded by buying over 13,000 of the new game consoles, and sales are still brisk. Namco will not hesitate to enforce its strong intellectual property rights, trademarks and copyrights against those who seek to trade on its valuable video game properties." Neil A. Smith, intellectual property specialist attorney at Howard Rice Nemerovski Falk Canady & Rabkin in San Francisco, counsel to Namco, said, "The courts will grant immediate restraining orders and seizure orders when provided with strong evidence of trademark and copyright counterfeiting, as is the case here." When contacted by RePlay today, Molinary said that his company had ceased making replacement graphics for Pac-Man games more than six months ago, but conceded that they had reproduced graphics in the past and in some cases used them in conjunction with boards purchased from importers. PC Amusements repairs or restores and then resells arcade video and pinball games, and often reproduces graphics for those games as well as for other companies. "Everybody and their dog had been doing the same thing (with Pac-Man artwork) and we didn't know it was illegal," he said. "All they needed to do was send us a letter. If we are infringing on somebody's copyright we want to know. We cease and desist as soon as we receive a letter." Molinary said he hoped to see the issue settled out of court. The suit seeks an injunction, money damages and attorneys' fees. In addition to the Seizure Order, the Federal Court issued a Restraining Order. Namco cautioned its customers to buy only from authorized Namco dealers and distributors. For more information contact the Namco America sales office at 630/238-2248. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Nolen Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 These counterfeit ones are all over the auctions now. I am not sure if they are raising or lowering the price of the real ones, but I have to admit, I am sort of glad they will not be making them now. There will always be a bootleg market, but not as blatent as these people have been (painted "sticker" coin doors don't really do it for me, and yes, I know the Namco one also does that on the cabaret ). Cassidy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 They have to do whatever they can to stay alive, they are making nothing but losses. In fact the Namco America office is down to a handful of people. The coin-up market is dying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 I think the coin-op market has lost it's edge...if they were smart, they would go back to making the classics again. I was at a flea market this weekend and they have the old yellow Pac-Man...still in good shape...and a Pole Position still in good shape....and there were kids all over it playing...I think if they just concentrated on making the popular games like that there would be a market...the new coin op games are horrible compared to the old days... They should have never let the consoles pass up the arcade games...when you can play it at home and it looks better than the arcade version...why bother. The classics could be sold all over the place from pizza places to retail stores...problem is now I wouldn't even touch some of the public machines,many are 20+ years old and are just nasty looking...dirty and ugly. Another thing is price...they should not try to make all the money on 1 pac man machine...come on..production cost shoud be very low...mark up on it should be within proportion. Mock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariDude Posted April 18, 2003 Share Posted April 18, 2003 This would explain why Namco and Sega are getting together to discuss a merger. Namco must realize that the arcade is dieing a slow death similar to what has happened to pinball machine makers (I think only one pinball manufacturer exists today). Glad that they are able to stop this person from making counterfeits. Hopefully they will be able to recoop some of their losses by suing this person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pc Amusement 2 Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 Well, to be honest Luis Molinary made better games than Namco, he opened the door and reactivated the business of Namco, Namco never appreciated that. Luis Molinary designed Ms PAC Man / Galaga reunion before Namco. ….. how cool it was ? Molinary helped Namco and later they spit his face. ……. I am happy that Namco is not in business anymore. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 (edited) On 7/21/2024 at 7:02 PM, Pc Amusement 2 said: I am happy that Namco is not in business anymore. Um.. Namco never went anywhere. They are still in the business. https://www.bandainamco-am.com/ECommerce/category/commercial-games On 4/11/2003 at 1:31 PM, CPUWIZ said: They have to do whatever they can to stay alive, they are making nothing but losses. In fact the Namco America office is down to a handful of people. The coin-up market is dying. It's crazy to see a thread like this bumped. Sort of puts things into perspective. In 2003, I was still a regular at a couple of the local mall Namco Arcade locations (one was previously an Aladdin's Castle). We had a decent little fighting game scene at them. But in 2006/2007 all of the ones in my area shut down. I was pretty bummed about that. I had no idea their NA HQ had such a tiny staff by that point. I remember when the Namco Arcade website would let you purchase full sized posters they would use as promos in their arcades. I still have the ones I purchased for Tekken Tag and Tekken 4, I believe. These days one-off arcades are non-existent in my area, it's all family amusement type places now, like Dave & Busters and Round 1. Arcades have bounced back over the last 15 years, but in a different way than I remember them. Edited July 24 by Austin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 On 7/21/2024 at 7:02 PM, Pc Amusement 2 said: Well, to be honest Luis Molinary made better games than Namco, he opened the door and reactivated the business of Namco, Namco never appreciated that. Luis Molinary designed Ms PAC Man / Galaga reunion before Namco. ….. how cool it was ? Molinary helped Namco and later they spit his face. ……. I am happy that Namco is not in business anymore. Holy completely incorrect necrobump, Batman! Did Luis just get out of jail? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youxia Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 On 7/25/2024 at 12:25 AM, Austin said: It's crazy to see a thread like this bumped AI's get bored sometimes too 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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