Introduction

"There's three sides to every story -- yours, mine and the cold hard truth."
- Don Henley, "Long Way Home"

Recently, I watched as Hasbro were pilloried in GameDev.net's forums as well as in Diana Gruber's article. Diana's article tried to put the case for the defendants in the case. It attempted to make out that all these innocent, fluffy little bunny rabbit companies were minding their own business when -- Shock! Horror! -- along comes Hasbro, the games industry's very own Big Bad Wolf, and they got stomped on. With no warning or provocation.

Well now it's my turn, and I seriously doubt I'll make many friends with this rebuttal...

For those of you who've never heard of me: I'm an ex-graphics artist, an occasional (previously pro) programmer, and sometime game designer. I have about 18 years of creating games behind me, 13 of them as a paid professional. I'm not famous. I've seen at second-hand what 'fame' means -- my cousin is a famous musician in Italy -- and I want no part of it.

I'm based in the UK and am currently paid to write for a living.

For the record, I can honestly claim that I've never worked on a derivative work such as a PacMan rip-off. Ever. I got into this industry because I believed I could do better, not merely repeat what has already been done.

The Plaintiff