Marvel Comics has sued NCSoft and Cryptic Studios, the makers of the popular MMORPG called City of Heros, because of what player might do. They say it is possible for players to create replica characters matching their 4,700 comic book characters. While suing, Marvel admits that they have not seen any exact replicas and that trademark comic book hero names are on a blocklist preventing anyone from using them

Read more about it here: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nov...have_note.html

Many speculate the reason for the lawsuit is that Marvel is making their own MMORPG game and fear that the established City of Heroes game will lower their market share. City of Heroes has over 100,000 subscribers on 10 servers in the US and plans on releasing the program for European servers later this year along with an expansion pack called "City of Villians".

What I don't understand is why media companies who rely on a fanbase for business think it is a good thing to hurt those fans with lawsuits such as these.

That's pretty interesting... But I would also not leave out the possibility of it as a PR stunt

That aside, I really agree that if they are doing it seriously for curbing others using their characters... ah well, their loss. They are surely losing an opportunity for free marketing

Another key point to keep in mind is that Marvel Comics had pull page ads advertising this game. I think its a stupid move on Marvels part since its assured that they will lose at this point.

edit: Marvel could still do well. Look at all the fantsasy based mmorpgs that are doing so well. More importantly, if Marvel struck a deal with DC to include thier characters in the game as well... people would sign in droves to live out the battles they could only dream about.

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Final Fantasy

Personally, I don't follow the comic books. Never really have and have never owned a comic book in my life. I do watch the recent comic book based movies like the X-Men series, Daredevil, Punisher and the Batman movies. I also play City of Heroes.

I play the game because on a whim, I suggested that my sons get it for my wife as a Yule gift. I supplemented the gift with a 2 month subscription card so she had three months (it comes with a 30 day trial) to try out the game without hassle. Since then the entire family has created multiple heroes and played the game, including my 9 year old autistic son. Even though we are long time computer users and have played text-based online games for over a decade, this is our first MMORPG. We chose this one because it didn't have Player vs. Player combat. Since the first copy, we have gone out and purchased a second copy of the game and created a second account. This allows two people to play at the same time and we can support each other in the game. The environment is good and most the people we have met so far are good people.

I am sure that when Marvel releases their own game with its stable of characters as NPC's it will have a draw for people who are fans of that stuff and it will be successful. City of Heroes is successful but only has ~130,000 subscribers so it has really only barely tapped into the comic book market or of those who have watched the movies based on Marvel's characters. Most of these people will play multiple games.