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Wizards of the Coast files lawsuit vs Cryptozoic / Hex [Update: Settlement]

K

Kyuur

Member
dmcAxle said:
https://hextcg.com/hex-update-from-cory/
May 19, 2014

To our family of HEX supporters…
I have been chasing a dream for the last three years, a dream to produce an innovative trading card game: a game that combines the strategy of a TCG with the community and progression of an MMO. Something amazing and new, something you would love. We presented that dream to you, our community, and you responded with such mind-blowing support to help us launch HEX.

Sadly, the potential of that innovation has driven WOTC to file a meritless lawsuit in an attempt to kill a competitor before it delivers on that promise. HEX has a chance to give gamers a better and completely different experience from a digital-only TCG than a paper TCG can. Sometimes being small and independent makes you seem like an easy target to the bullies, and that’s not an easy place to be, but rest assured we are ready to defend the dream.

Yes, WOTC, and its even larger parent, Hasbro, are much bigger than Hex Entertainment. But the size of their bank accounts doesn't make them right, and we will fight to deliver the game that you supported throughout this journey. We will not allow this frivolous legal action to damage our ability to deliver a quality game experience to you.

I appreciate the outpouring of support on our forums and I can understand the need to speculate on the specifics of the case. Clearly, I cannot address these posts in detail, but rest assured we have retained legal counsel that is very experienced in these types of matters and I feel 100% confident in a positive outcome for HEX. I will say that it’s important for the HEX community to remember we are all part of the same tribe. We are all gamers, so even if someone isn’t into HEX, please treat them with kindness and respect. We must all stick together as a tribe; gamers have it hard enough as it is without tearing each other down.

I will not allow the dream we shared as a community to be crushed. You believed in me, made the Kickstarter an amazing success, and stuck by us as we slogged through the alpha client. It is unfortunate that this hurdle has been thrust upon us. But, we will prevail; we have come too far to let the dream die now.

Lastly, I must ask that you respect the obligations of the HEX team members during this time and direct all questions or comments to myself and legal at legal@hextcg.com. We will read all inquires but remember that because of the nature of this situation we may not be able to respond at this time. But, we will continue to keep all of you, our fans and support, apprised of the developments as we have strived to do so from the very beginning.

Thank you,
Cory Jones and HEX team
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Pretty general statement saying we're going all in on this claim and not backing down.
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Ryuukan said:
Reading material for the op
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/end mod abuse

------

Straight from their website:

http://company.wizards.com/content/...ryptozoic-entertainment-and-hex-entertainment

May 14, 2014 (Renton, WA) – Today Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS), filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against Cryptozoic Entertainment, LLC and its alter ego, Hex Entertainment, LLC (collectively, “Cryptozoic”), for willful infringement of intellectual property rights.

Cryptozoic develops and publishes the digital trading card game, Hex: Shards of Fate, a clone of the world famous tabletop collectable trading card game, Magic: The Gathering®, and its digital expressions, Magic Online® and the Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers® franchise.

“Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast vigorously protect our intellectual property. This infringement suit against Cryptozoic demonstrates that while we appreciate a robust and thriving trading card game industry, we will not permit the misappropriation of our intellectual property” said Barbara Finigan, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Hasbro. “We attempted to resolve this issue, but Cryptozoic was unwilling to settle the matter.”

The suit includes claims for copyright, patent and trade dress infringement.
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Although the game is pretty obviously inspired by MTG, there a lot of differences as well. I wonder exactly what aspects they will go after in this case. As far as patents go, all I know is the hilarious 'tapping' cards patent (patenting turning a card 90 degrees? really?).

I wonder if this will plague any other 'spiritual sequel' games that are being realized by smaller developers using things like Kickstarter. Without a big publisher to back them up it might be hard for small devs to fend off things like this.
 
JetBlackPanda

JetBlackPanda

Member
without doing to much research. The interface does look a lot like the Planeswalker app. However that's kind of the nature of Digital CCG's.
 
D

Disaster Nebraska

Banned
This is really, really odd. Hobby boardgames tend to have a lot of "clones" and copycats. Not like they're 100% clones, of course. Dominion, for instance, spawned a dozen deck-building games with just one or two twists on the core formula. Fantasy Flight has made LCGs (non-collectible "living card games") that are quite similar to MtG.

Wonder why WotC is so adamant about it.

EDIT: forgot to clarify that I'm talking about the physical card games, which are WotC's bread and butter. I seriously doubt they're losing a cut of their biggest market from a self-proclaimed "TCG/MMO" that doesn't even have a physical release. Like I said, they haven't gone after card games that are directly competiting withing the hobby board/cardgame market. Why go after this?
 
F

Fragamemnon

Member
Wizards just pissed off that Cryptozoic, with a fraction of the resources of WOTC and similarly little online gaming experience, developed a gaming client/server infrastructure that makes theirs look terrible in comparison. MTGO is bad compared to Hex and absolute trashcan compared to Hearthstone.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Gxgear said:
Looks quite different to me. Or rather, as different as TCG's look from one another.
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This is my thoughts as well... until someone parses out the exact details of what makes Hex infringing while a game like Hearthstone doesn't I don't think I can have a full thought on it.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Fragamemnon said:
Wizards just pissed off that Cryptozoic, with a fraction of the resources of WOTC and similarly little online gaming experience, developed a gaming client/server infrastructure that makes theirs look terrible in comparison. MTGO is bad compared to Hex and absolute trashcan compared to Hearthstone.
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They cling to the cardboard. Makes them too conservative with the digital.
 
D

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Fragamemnon said:
Wizards just pissed off that Cryptozoic, with a fraction of the resources of WOTC and similarly little online gaming experience, developed a gaming client/server infrastructure that makes theirs look terrible in comparison. MTGO is bad compared to Hex and absolute trashcan compared to Hearthstone.
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lol?

I put like $20 into Hex, total waste of money. Messed around with the beta, the client is fucking trash. It's literally worse than really rudimentary shit like Apprentice or Magic Workstation.

I'm not surprised this lawsuit happened. Hex is pretty much a carbon copied version of Magic.
 
H

HiddenWings

Member
Fragamemnon said:
Wizards just pissed off that Cryptozoic, with a fraction of the resources of WOTC and similarly little online gaming experience, developed a gaming client/server infrastructure that makes theirs look terrible in comparison. MTGO is bad compared to Hex and absolute trashcan compared to Hearthstone.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much the reason right here. Hearthstone is pushing digital card games in a Big Way, and MTGO is being left behind. Otherwise, this lawsuit would have happened much earlier.
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
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WotC is just trying to bully them into submission. They can't actually win anything here unless they actually stole art. Tapping was mentioned earlier, but that was for the word when used in context with the action, not the act.
 
Z

zabuni

Member
darkside31337 said:
lol?

I put like $20 into Hex, total waste of money. Messed around with the beta, the client is fucking trash. It's literally worse than really rudimentary shit like Apprentice or Magic Workstation.

I'm not surprised this lawsuit happened. Hex is pretty much a carbon copied version of Magic.
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You don't understand. MTGO is much worse. Much, much, worse. And they have had years to make it better.

Looking at the legal filling, this seems pretty bullshit. Most of the claims are against the fact that they directly copied mechanics. But as the US Copyright Office says:

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
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http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html


In fact, most of the complaint is a list of mechanics they directly took from Magic.

Edit: Dangit should have previewed.
 
N

nynt9

Member
While it looks visually different, the gameplay mechanics seem identical. I can see why this is infringement.

Edit: my bad, alright. Copying mechanics can't be infringement.

But the mechanics are still 100% lifted from MTG and this is shady even if it's not infringement.
 
K

kirblar

Member
It has the DOTP clone interface, and its colors are Black, White, Red, Blue and Green, with Artifact as colorless.

This lawsuit's completely justified.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Anyone who's played more than a cursory amount of Magic can see that this game is literally identical though. Even if it's technically not infringement, why is everyone defending this? We're against direct ripoffs in mobile app stores, but when it's kickstarted, it's ok? I've been playing Magic for about 18 years, 5 of it competitively and this game is basically a shameless ripoff.
 
R

Ryuukan

Member
nynt9 said:
Anyone who's played more than a cursory amount of Magic can see that this game is literally identical though. Even if it's technically not infringement, why is everyone defending this? We're against direct ripoffs in mobile app stores, but when it's kickstarted, it's ok? I've been playing Magic for about 18 years, 5 of it competitively and this game is basically a shameless ripoff.
Click to expand...

Just because Hasbro owns Monopoly doesn't mean they can have one in real life
 
D

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
nynt9 said:
Anyone who's played more than a cursory amount of Magic can see that this game is literally identical though. Even if it's technically not infringement, why is everyone defending this? We're against direct ripoffs in mobile app stores, but when it's kickstarted, it's ok? I've been playing Magic for about 18 years, 5 of it competitively and this game is basically a shameless ripoff.
Click to expand...

I agree with you - I honestly don't get how Wizards are the bad guys in this. Cryptozic are the ones who made a shameless ripoff of a game thats been around forever. Maybe this lawsuit is without merit, I don't actually know but I honestly feel bad putting money into Hex. Didn't realize how shameless of a ripoff it actually was, and then the actual quality of the beta has been dreadful too.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Ryuukan said:
Just because Hasbro owns Monopoly doesn't mean they can have one in real life
Click to expand...

So you're fine with this game being an almost direct copy of MTG?

I'm fine with "inspired" works, but I draw the line at "basically the same thing with a new coat of paint"
 
P

Phades

Member
So, which edition of this is it directly copying off of MTG?

I mean if it is directly copying, then they will have a complete line up of cards with effects that are the same right?

Or by copying you mean like how platformers copied each other and became a genre?
 
N

nynt9

Member
Gez said:
You must hate all those chess games.
Click to expand...

Yeah comparing an evergreen, millenia-old game to a currently sold product created by a currently active company is totally the same thing.

Strawman-light.jpg
 
Q

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
They could win vs WotC pretty easy by bringing up the fact mana doesn't work the same and the hero stuff, not to mention the pve side of things with equipment and other things. Also the charge mechanic and transforming cards.

The base stuff is really similar but it has enough things different to be considered it's own thing.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Pudge said:
Link to the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/hex-mmo-trading-card-game

IDK, This doesn't seem to be any more or less of a clone of Magic the Gathering than a bunch of other card games out there. Seems like Wizards is pushing smaller guys around more than anything. Is there something I'm missing?
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From what I've seen, Hex was really really a Magic clone in its core mechanics. Many of the keyword mechanics map 1:1 to Magic mechanics, and of course the underlying requirement there is that the rules map closely as well.

I don't know if I'm fully on board with this lawsuit, but Hex is by far the most Magic imitative card game I've ever seen
 
K

kirblar

Member
I don't know how to convert .pdf to an image file - but there's a big chart that basically outlines the issue inside of the lawsuit and makes this a no-brainer for WotC to sue on.
 
C

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
kirblar said:
It has the DOTP clone interface, and its colors are Black, White, Red, Blue and Green, with Artifact as colorless.

This lawsuit's completely justified.
Click to expand...

Yeah - everyone pooh poohing Wizards should probably go try out Hex before you comment on how Wizards is just throwing their weight around. They didn't even TRY to hide the stealing of Magic.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
I was expecting only a few similarities, since Wizards of the Coast has historically been very nasty with IP protection.

The rules of Hex are literally just Magic. This is basically Chinese offbrand Magic.

  • Each player starts with 7 cards (Option to mulligan) and 20 health, with the objective to get the opponents' health to 0.
  • Resources are lands.
  • Resource payments are mana costs.
  • Threshold requirements are color requirements.
  • Troops are Creatures.
  • Actions are Sorceries.
  • Quick Actions are Instants.
  • Constants are Enchantments.
  • Artifacts are... Well, Artifacts and have no threshold requirement like Artifacts have no color requirements.
  • Attack is power.
  • Defense is toughness.
  • Combat mechanics are lifted wholesale.
  • Colors are Blood (Black), Wild (Green), Diamond (White), Ruby (Red), and Sapphire (Blue).
 
Shrennin

Shrennin

Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
This seems more like WotC feeling threatened more than anything -- Hex is similar, yes, but not a direct copy. It has some of the same mechanics (all named differently and some even work differently like the resource system using threshold), but it expands upon it and utilizes the digital nature a whole lot more (since Magic isn't a digital game). Also, I've heard the patents have apparently expired, too.
 
Z

zabuni

Member
nynt9 said:
So you're fine with this game being an almost direct copy of MTG?

I'm fine with "inspired" works, but I draw the line at "basically the same thing with a new coat of paint"
Click to expand...

Couple of reasons:

1. They have made cards with mechanics that are basically impossible in a non-digital game. Random effects, changing one card to another, summoning cards after destroyed, etc.

2. MTGO is terrible, and remains terrible. WOTC has done little to make the game better, and it has been out for quite some time.

It the original developers of a game couldn't make a decent version of it, maybe it'd be alright to give someone else a shot. Especially if they are making improvements based on the new medium.
 
K

kirblar

Member
Shrinnan said:
This seems more like WotC feeling threatened more than anything -- Hex is similar, yes, but not a direct copy. It has some of the same mechanics (all named differently and some even work differently like the resource system using threshold), but it expands upon it and utilizes the digital nature a whole lot more (since Magic isn't a digital game). Also, I've heard the patents have apparently expired, too.
Click to expand...
They're actively defending their IP against a Chinese-level blatant ripoff.
 
M

medze

Member
WotC is obviously very frightened by the popularity of card games going digital and by their ineptitude in entering the market. MTGO is one of the worst digital TCGs as far as interface and usability are concerned and WotC is surely feeling threatened. Duels of the Planeswalkers isn't exactly an example of quality programming either. The amount of bugs and shoddy netcode in that game that never was fixed even while more paid content was continuously being released is a prime example of their lackluster experience in digital games. They really need to step their game up rather than worrying so much about suing the competition.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
QisTopTier said:
They could win vs WotC pretty easy by bringing up the fact mana doesn't work the same and the hero stuff, not to mention the pve side of things with equipment and other things. Also the charge mechanic and transforming cards.

The base stuff is really similar but it has enough things different to be considered it's own thing.
Click to expand...

Honestly all that extra stuff is certainly exciting and why I'm interested in Hex, but I mean

SappersCharge.jpg


Pyrite%20Spellbomb.jpg


The fundamental mechanics are really damn identical.
 
Shrennin

Shrennin

Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
kirblar said:
They're actively defending their IP against a Chinese-level blatant ripoff.
Click to expand...

Lol it's not even close to a "Chinese-level" blatant ripoff. They are trying to claim the plot is similar (it's not even close), I think they mentioned the physical size of the cards (it's a digital game), and they are also claiming that they could have reasonably expected the $2 million dollars in revenue that Crypto got in the Kickstarter.
 
D

Discobird

Member
If you read the complaint that Ryuukan posted you'll see that the game mechanics are an unessential element of the copyright claim. They could lose on the mechanics claim and still prevail on the remainder of the copyright claim, not to mention the trade dress and the patent claim (which might cover the mechanics--I haven't read the patent at issue yet). Any of which could be sufficient to support an injunction even if the court finds that the "sequence and flow" of MTG are not copyrightable.

I think it's a stretch to call the complaint bullshit just because of this.
 
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