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Slapcast

Slapcast

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TSR-U-KIDDING-ME: Tabletop Twitter got weird these last few weeks as debates exploded around the tweets made by Ernest G. Gygax, Jr.––son of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator, Gary Gygax––where he doubles down on strong, anti-SJW views in support of his new RPG, Giantlands.

SLAPP FEST: Andrew also checks in with the current legal fight started by Chris Avellone––formerly of Black Isle and Obisidian Entertainment––as he tries to sue people who said mean things about him on the internet.

Also, Dan has gotten even more obsessed with the Metroid series since last week.

RELEVANT LINKS:

https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1409624663492378626?s=20
https://twitter.com/dmschmeyer/status/1409054177980870657?s=20

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Pong 2020” (07 June 2019): Where D. Bethel and Andrew discuss the comments made by Chris Avellone about writing games “without” any politics in their narrative or design.
  • “Zombie Brooms” (11 June 2021): Where Andrew covered the nature of lawsuits and their jurisdictions when talking about the copyright lawsuit filed by a photographer against Capcom.
  • “Drive Your Gorilla” (25 June 2021): Where D. Bethel’s excitement for Metroid gets reignited.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

  • “Nerd Law” written and performed by D. Bethel
Zombie Brooms

Zombie Brooms

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ROUGH TEXTURES: Capcom gets sued for allegedly using textures from a reference book––Judy A. Juracek’s Surfaces––for many of its games in the early 2000s and the evidence is pretty compelling. Without dispensing professional legal advice, Andrew guides D. Bethel through the nuances and complexities of this interesting case.

RELEVANT LINKS:

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Don’t Stop Recording” (03 July 2015): Where D. Bethel and Andrew talk about how the 1986 classic,The Transformers: The Movie, may have started as a toy commercial but ended up as a defining emotional moment for young fans at the time.
  • “Listeners in the Woodwork” (18 October 2019): Where Andrew and D. Bethel discuss the lawsuit surrounding the origins of the theme song from X-Men: The Animated Series.
  • “Dating the Void” (23 April 2021): Where Andrew discussed the copyright confusion surrounding Sherlock Holmes.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Big Brother vs. Goliath

Big Brother vs. Goliath

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FREEDOM FOR APPS: Andrew and D. Bethel dedicate this week’s episode to discussing and parsing and debating and understanding and reacting to the very, very strange lawsuits being fought between Apple and Epic Games. SPOILER: They have no answers.

RELEVANT LINKS:

RELEVANT EPISODES:

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

18 January 2019 – Sandwich Poets

18 January 2019 – Sandwich Poets

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Image Source: Chooseco. Art by Paul Granger.

NERD LAW, 2019: Two unrelated but intriguingly similar trademark cases have made the rounds in the news this last week. Chooseco, the owner of the Choose Your Own Adventure franchise has brought a lawsuit to Netflix over Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and the tenuous if not honorific connections that movie has to the classic children’s book series. In the world of video games, the Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations has sued Take Two––owners of Rockstar Games––for the apparent vilification of the company in the developer’s highly successful late-2018 release, Red Dead Redemption 2. Andrew and D. Bethel sound the Nerd Law alarm and discuss these two cases in depth.

Dan will be tabling at Stocktoncon Winter this Sunday, January 20, with Kyrun Silva of Taurus Comics yet again (which hints at a return of the Con Artists limited podcast series)! If you’re in the area, please stop by. For more information, read this post at Long John or go straight to the source at Stocktoncon.com. Hope to see you there!

RELEVANT EPISODES:

LINKS:

  • The Pinkerton Detective Agency was a job; it was not a requirement to be a hero as this tweet from JoeWV testifies:

Source: Despair, Inc.

INFO:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 156 – River City Rampage

Episode 156 – River City Rampage

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It’s the return of NERD LAW!

A MARVELOUS MONSTER: After a long gestation and some delays, Disney has officially acquired 20th Century Fox assets, comprising of Fox’s film and tv properties. This means everything from the Alien franchise to Bob’s Burgers and even The Simpsons are now owned by Disney. Of course, for comic book fans and fans of comic book movies, the biggest part of this deal means that the X-Men and the Fantastic Four film rights are now under Disney/Marvel control. But it’s a much bigger––and more complicated––deal than just the superhero franchises and make some people a little nervous.

WHAT NINTENDON’T: Emulation software has been on the internet for at least twenty years at this point, allowing people to download and play often near-perfect versions of games from the NES, SNES, and many other classic consoles. While playing emulated games have always been legally murky, Nintendo’s big legal smackdown of a few emulator and ROM sites in particular have really shaken the whole community in more ways than one.

RELATED EPISODES:

RELATED LINKS:

INFO:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 150 – Comivention

Episode 150 – Comivention

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WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew returns to a previous WiG by booting up a since heavily patched River City Ransom Underground (starts at 2:03) while D. was impressed with the pragmatism and instructional value of Brandon Dayton‘s Sketchbook Summer artbook (12:32).

NERD LAW: When legal stuff happens in the nerd world, Andrew is on the case (though not dispensing any legal advice). This time around, he talks about Epic Games suing players who use cheats in Fortnite and Comic Con International winning its copyright battle against Salt Lake Comic Con over the term “Comic Con” (19:40)

RELATED EPISODES:

LINKS:

  • Bethel, D. “Trials By Fire #001: Fantasy“: A 2011 article by D. Bethel where he talks about Orcs Must Die!, a game he compares to Fortnite.

WORKS CITED:

INFO:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“Nerd Law” by D. Bethel
-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 119 – Too Much Content

Episode 119 – Too Much Content

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WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew plays Overcooked! with Taylor Katcher while Dan watches Crazyhead on Netflix.

PHOENIX FALLING?: The Phoenix Comicon has come under scrutiny recently as it became public that, essentially, people would have to pay to be volunteers at the show by paying dues to become members of the Blue Ribbon Army Social Club. Dan and Andrew discuss the issues surrounding this controversy, such as “Why is this a controversy at all?”

Sources:

UPDATE: Square Egg CEO and Phoenix Comicon director, Matthew Solberg, has resigned his position on the board of the Blue Ribbon Army.

MINDING THE NUMBERS: In a Bleeding Cool article covering December’s comic book sales numbers, Andrew and Dan dive deep into 2016 sales by Marvel and DC and compare their respective performances and draw some interesting (if very not scientific) conclusions from the data.

D. Bethel’s Exhaustive Data Collection

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Nerd Law” by D. Bethel
-“Bleeding Me” by Metallica

Episode 112 – God King Teddy Roosevelt

Episode 112 – God King Teddy Roosevelt

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showcard112

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew steps into a new reality when he tries out PlaystationVR with the help and aid of friend-of-the-show, Taylor Katcher, while Dan starts watching ABC’s new procedural show, Conviction, which he instead considers to be a time-travel continuation of Agent Carter, which also starred Hayley Atwell.

I KNOW THAT VOICE: A week ago, voice actors in the SAG-AFTRA union strike against major video game developers in the hopes of renegotiating contracts for voice acting in video games. Dan and Andrew investigate.

SWITCHEROO: Nintendo released a trailer for their long-speculated, highly anticipated new console, the Nintendo Switch. Andrew and Dan examine the possibilities that seem to be promised in the trailer and whether Nintendo can make good on them.

Let us know your thoughts about this week’s topics by leaving a comment at forallintents.net. Join the official Facebook page for links, updates, and conversations with other listeners. Subscribe to the show on iTunes and leave a review to help spread the word. Also be sure to check out and subscribe to our official YouTube channel.

Dan mentioned that his webcomic, Long John, would be finishing up its second chapter on Tuesday. Head on over and check it out. If you like it, share it! Even better, buy a book!

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Sogno di Volare (‘The Dream of Flight’)” by Christopher Tin (from Civilization VI)
-“Troops March On” by Nobuo Uematsu (from Final Fantasy VI)
-“Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)” by White Denim
-“The End (Reprise)” by Jack Wall & Sam Hulick (from Mass Effect)