EA Phenomic - Shutdown and Shuttered

Right, so if your friend, without your permission, copied your essay verbatim and then changed the wording in a few sentences and handed it in as his own work, then your professor gave both of you an F and had you expelled from your university, would you be cool with it? Where do you draw the line?

I'm mostly a customer here, not one of those who write articles here.

My only "real" article I ever wrote was an AOW article I long ago wrote for the Dot. I guess you didn't give credit for that, too ?

Apart from that, I *did* send in newsbits quite a lot. And I always believed that a) the link itself tells the people receiving my message where I have it from, b) I gave the source as far as I know it.

Once I found out (or was it twice ?), that an RPG-related newsbit I had found at the German magazine's web site of the magazine called "PC Games" was in fact from Gamebanshee.
So, they basically "stole" that newsbit from Gamebanshee, too.

Where do you draw the line where a Newsbit is coming from, when it comes from a source both of the Watch and Gamebanshee are drawing from ? Will you accuse other sites of stealing News when in fact the source has been different ?

And News - News is imho still something different than an Academic Paper.

Who will remember this Newsbit after 10 years?
Who will research *any* Newsbit after 10 years ?

Who will remember an Academic Paper after 10 years ?
Who will research *any* Academic Paper after 10 years ?

To me, these 2 are different "worlds". In Journalism, people copy from one another.
Not fully written reports, of course.
As soon as a Newspaper has a headline, you can be sure that it will be in another Newspaper the other day.
And a third'll probably make a proper report out of it.
That's how I know it from Newspapers.
 
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I can't believe what this thread turned into.

First I have to say that about the Phenomic/EA thing I've heard on another site linked nohow to RPGwatch, GameBanshee or whatever .biz site that's cited. So I really don't care who copy what and from where especially where noone made any profit on others' work.
Second, I wish Brother None was still on GB as this would never happen if he was… How should I put it… Still alive? He would know when is more appropriate to use PM instead of hijacking a thread.
Third, I can't remember when was the last time I visited GameBanshee to get any news. From time to time I do read a review there - if it's "advertised" on RPGwatch news. And it's always credited ofc.

What exactly is the fuss about? A word, a sentence or two? If this was about copying someone's memoirs or doctorate, I'd understand. But it's actually about a "confirmed rumor" that EA bought Phenomic, case closed. But no, why would we leave it on that, let's insinuate a conspiracy since we're bored.

No matter what, I still won't be searching for news on GB but here. And I still won't care if something is copied or not as long as the primary source is noted, and in this case, it's some .biz site - and I don't see they're complaining.
 
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Let's be honest here: We knew this would happen the day EA bought Phenomic. Still, it's a shame to see, as I really did enjoy the SpellForce series. Who knows, maybe they'll reform as a studio and get back to their roots?
 
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There were rumors about financial problems and layoffs when EA bought Phenomic. The studio was closely linked to JoWooD, who had the brilliant idea to launch SF2 directly against Oblivion (RPG) and a Star Wars game (RTS).

So it's quite possible that EA effectively prolonged their life as a studio for a couple of years.
 
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Really? I had no idea. I thought the SF series did fairly well, but I suppose whatever success it had went into the JoWood black hole at some point.
 
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Bullfrog and Westwood hurt the most for me. I assume Origin tops for a lot of folks due to Ultima, but I was never a big fan.
 
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I think you're doing a great job - and it obviously takes quite an effort to keep trying to come up with relevant news.

As for whether you made a mistake in this case or not, I must admit I find the whole matter so trivial - I can't even be bothered to make up my mind about it.

When DArt doesn't have an opinion on something - trivial is a very mild word to describe that something.
 
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