Antitrust Violation

[SickPuppy]

I believe that Activision is violating U.S Antitrust Laws by only allowing Gameserver.com to host Black Ops. Join me and send a complaint to the DOJ

 

You may submit your concern by e-mail, regular mail, or phone.

 

E-mail antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov

 

Mail Citizen Complaint Center

Antitrust Division

950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Room 3322

Washington, DC 20530

 

Phone 1-888-647-3258 (toll free in the U.S. and Canada)

or 202-307-2040

 

If enough GSP owners complain the DOJ will have to investigate.

[ECF]

Do you have legal advice backing this claim up Puppy?

[Jesse]

Not that I am disagreeing, just wanted to point out a similar situation and if we even have any ground. When Apple released the iPhone here in Canada anyways it was exclusive to Rogers... now after so long it became available to the other providers - is that how they can get around that? Rogers did have this same exclusivity in a situation where "a product is released and a 3rd party service provider had exclusivity".

[studeggle]

I'd suggest you seek legal advice. What I've been told and seen is there is no statement in us antitrust forcing a company to allow multiple distibutors of there product. Such a notion is a misconcept of antimonopoly laws.

[HIS-MOTHER]

Technically this would fall under the Sherman Act, further there isnt a court in the world that would find whats being done Unreasonable which is what is required for a Sherman Act violation.

 

The Supreme Court has said that all violations of the Sherman Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, although the FTC does not technically enforce the Sherman Act, it can bring cases under the FTC Act against the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Act. The FTC Act also reaches other practices that harm competition, but that may not fit neatly into categories of conduct formally prohibited by the Sherman Act. Only the FTC brings cases under the FTC Act.

 

 

Good luck with that .

[adamnp]

You would need to find evidence that they are swaying the entire market one way or the other. One game title won't acknowledge this, and unfortunately I don't think will make it very far. There are still many other games for the users to choose.

[SickPuppy]

All we need to do is voice our concern the DOJ will investigate the complaint and determine if a violation has occurred. Not all violations fall into an easy category. If the DOJ thinks they are doing something that may not violate the letter of the law they can still pressure them to stop or change their evil ways.

 

One thing is for sure, if we do not speak up they will never change, and if they get away with it once they will do it again.

 

I don't mind fair competition, that is what our economic system is based on. But when a company like gameservers.com conspires with Activision to control a segment of the GSP industry in order to receive an unfair advantage we either speak up or sit back and suck on what they are willing to give us.

[SickPuppy]

Do you have legal advice backing this claim up Puppy?

 

I was directed to the website by a friend of mine who is an assistant DA. He does not think it will get very far but as he said "It doesn't cost anything to file a complaint"

[HIS-MOTHER]

"It doesn't cost anything to file a complaint"

 

It costs time and Time is Money.

[dimitrifrom31]

It costs time and Time is Money.

 

sickpuppy you should post the complaint you sent as a kind of template so ppl can copy/paste (making a few changes).

[SickPuppy]

sickpuppy you should post the complaint you sent as a kind of template so ppl can copy/paste (making a few changes).

 

Great idea, here it is.

 

Hello,

 

My name is Edward Horner. I own and operate HostileContact.com an online game server rental company. Recently a game development company, Activision, released a new game in their Call of Duty series called Black Ops. Activision, with great secrecy, brokered a deal with gameservers.com giving them exclusive hosting rights for Black Ops. Activision announced this exclusive hosting deal just prior to the release of Black Ops. In anticipation of the release of this game several smaller game server providers, myself included, expanded their server capacity to handle the increased demand.

 

When a company like gameservers.com is given exclusive hosting rights to Black Ops this has a dramatic ripple effect on the small game server providers. Not only do we lose the revenue from Black Ops rentals we lose other game server customers. Customers that rent previous versions of Call of Duty and want to move up to Black Ops will be forced to leave the small game server companies and rent from gameservers.com. It doesn't stop with the loss of game server revenue. These customers usually rent voice over IP programs like Ventrilo and Teamspeak, and webhosting packages. When a customer moves to a new game host they usually take all of these services with them.

 

Allowing exclusive hosting of Black Ops creates unfair competition giving gameservers.com exclusive control over pricing and availability of this game. What action if any can your department take? Is this a violation of antitrust or other regulations?

 

Edward Horner

[ECF]

Nice letter. Just a small note. You may want to remove the references to Teamspeak and Vent from it, and just say "other services".

 

This is for 2 reasons.

 

1. Avoid legal action against you from Flagship and/or Teamspeak.

2. The DOJ will most likely have no idea what Vent and/or TS is.

 

Just a thought...

[Jesse]

Simply just have to boycot gameservers... oh wait thats not simple (DOH), as long as people use Google to search for their game server provider anyways.

[xpservers]

Not that I am disagreeing, just wanted to point out a similar situation and if we even have any ground. When Apple released the iPhone here in Canada anyways it was exclusive to Rogers... now after so long it became available to the other providers - is that how they can get around that? Rogers did have this same exclusivity in a situation where "a product is released and a 3rd party service provider had exclusivity".

 

This is not true. When the iPhone came to Canada Rogers was the only Capable network to run it (3G). They did not ask or pay for exclusivity it was defaulted and they gained large.

[powerpc]

I believe that Activision is violating U.S Antitrust Laws by only allowing Gameserver.com to host Black Ops. Join me and send a complaint to the DOJ

 

You may submit your concern by e-mail, regular mail, or phone.

 

E-mail antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov

 

Mail Citizen Complaint Center

Antitrust Division

950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Room 3322

Washington, DC 20530

 

Phone 1-888-647-3258 (toll free in the U.S. and Canada)

or 202-307-2040

 

If enough GSP owners complain the DOJ will have to investigate.

 

Please dont... I know from 100% legit source that Gameserver.com are suffering from the deal they did with Activision.

[Jesse]

Care to explain how they are suffering or should we just stop and trust you

[lpgservers]

Please dont... I know from 100% legit source that Gameserver.com are suffering from the deal they did with Activision.

 

Yeah, it must be terrible to have something in the neighborhood of 10,000 instances for it. That would make everyone suffer...

[proclan]

He may be referring to there client base dropping off due to the fact they can't keep up with the support. Going 3-5 days without getting a reply from a support ticket is not going to keep clients around very long. Plus the fact that the game is so buggy to many players. Having enough servers is one thing but to manage that type of client base and keep it.. well we all know how they operate. I also doubt this is going to change the way Act"novision" is releasing there games, to them it's obviously just a bump in the road and they already proved they could care less about the gamers themselves.

 

money..corporate greed= Act"novision"

[Jesse]

I've always wondered why they didn't create games more tailored to the "clan mentality". People in clans usually end up playing the game for much longer periods of time than any single player campaign ever will... leagues and stuff are gaining popularity so why not try and take over that niche?

 

Maybe that would just be too much money who knows -_-

[studeggle]

I've always wondered why they didn't create games more tailored to the "clan mentality". People in clans usually end up playing the game for much longer periods of time than any single player campaign ever will... leagues and stuff are gaining popularity so why not try and take over that niche?

 

Maybe that would just be too much money who knows -_-

 

They have WoW and other similar singular server all run by game producer games. The only way tailoring to a clan makes more money is by charging for continued play so no dedicated game servers will be found for such games.

[DougK94]

I've always wondered why they didn't create games more tailored to the "clan mentality". People in clans usually end up playing the game for much longer periods of time than any single player campaign ever will... leagues and stuff are gaining popularity so why not try and take over that niche?

 

Maybe that would just be too much money who knows -_-

 

The publishers do not want a number of people playing a game for a long period of time. They want people to buy their next new game, and then the next and the next......

[Jesse]

Clans for multiplayer FPS.

 

The publishers do not want a number of people playing a game for a long period of time. They want people to buy their next new game, and then the next and the next......

 

I'm talking about a whole new business model (sorta farfetched) with the idea of the pro leagues (just as the NHL works) where there are development teams and leagues you have to pay fees to play on. I paid over $1500 to play travel hockey, surely you could get gamers paying $10/month which would far surpass the maximum of $80/year (approx.) they make for a game title off one person.

[lpgservers]

Clans for multiplayer FPS.

 

 

 

I'm talking about a whole new business model (sorta farfetched) with the idea of the pro leagues (just as the NHL works) where there are development teams and leagues you have to pay fees to play on. I paid over $1500 to play travel hockey, surely you could get gamers paying $10/month which would far surpass the maximum of $80/year (approx.) they make for a game title off one person.

 

You fail to see the big picture. What your suggesting requires an on going commitment and employs maintaining a work force to sustain said project. Therefore, when you take all considerations, it wouldn't yield the quick return in contrast to the sales of game titles.

[studeggle]

Clans for multiplayer FPS.

 

 

 

I'm talking about a whole new business model (sorta farfetched) with the idea of the pro leagues (just as the NHL works) where there are development teams and leagues you have to pay fees to play on. I paid over $1500 to play travel hockey, surely you could get gamers paying $10/month which would far surpass the maximum of $80/year (approx.) they make for a game title off one person.

 

You have to carry the math farther then that.

1 1/2 titles sold a year = @ $80

12 months $10 subscription = $120

Produce a CD a couple pennys, a little hard to say what programming costs as they are already hired.

Running apro league probably at least $20-$30 a person now that still results in more potential profit. But its not as much profit as it might seem at first and there is the financial risk involved in starting a whole new business model. Programing and selling new releases regularly is an already established and working model.

[Jesse]

You have to carry the math farther then that.

1 1/2 titles sold a year = @ $80

12 months $10 subscription = $120

Produce a CD a couple pennys, a little hard to say what programming costs as they are already hired.

Running apro league probably at least $20-$30 a person now that still results in more potential profit. But its not as much profit as it might seem at first and there is the financial risk involved in starting a whole new business model. Programing and selling new releases regularly is an already established and working model.

 

I realize this, but I'm sure people said the same thing to the Wright brothers about flying... companies today that are one step ahead of "the normal" do very well. If anyone reads Seth Godin's blog you'll see he's on a new venture partnering with Amazon - it's a whole new model to publishing. Ample people most likely shut the idea down when he first talked about it.

 

PS. Why is LPGS back on this forum only to start flaming again? Would you ever walk up to someone on the street and say "you fail to see the big picture"?