Gamigo Inc.
WildTangent
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
Founded1998 (1998)
Founders
Headquarters
Bellevue, Washington
,
US
Key people
Jens Knauber (CEO)
ProductsSee List of WildTangent games
ParentGamigo (2019–present)
Websitecompany.wildtangent.com

Gamigo Inc. (trade name: WildTangent) is an American video game developer based in Bellevue, Washington. In April 2019, it was acquired by the German games company Gamigo.[1]

Games

Approximately 30 of the games in the WildTangent catalog were produced by the company's own WildTangent Game Studios. The rest of the games on the WildTangent game network are from other game developers and publishers. This includes games like Mall World which the company has represented to integrate major brands like Levis.[2]

Criticism

Users have complained that the company's products have an adverse effect on their PC's performance or are intrusive to the user's experience. PC Magazine wrote in 2004 that although the program was "not very" evil, some privacy complaints were justified as the program's user manual states that it may collect name, address, phone number, e-mail, and other contact information and could distribute the collected information with the user's consent. Concerns were also raised about the software's self-updating feature.[3] In 2003, antispyware program Spybot classified WildTangent's original WebDriver as a potentially unwanted program.[4][5]

In 2011, WildTangent challenged a patent infringement ruling against Hulu and itself by Ultramercial, LLC, which contended that the two companies had violated its 2001 patent US 7346545 , "Method and system for payment of intellectual property royalties by interposed sponsor on behalf of consumer over a telecommunications network", alleging that the patent was too abstract. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Ultramercial's patent, stating that it "does not simply claim the age-old idea that advertising can serve as currency. Instead [it] discloses a practical application of this idea." The court also asserted that the technical elements required to implement the system described were intricate enough to not be abstract. On June 21, 2013, after being ordered by the Supreme Court to re-examine the case, the Federal Circuit upheld its decision and ruled that Ultramercial's patents were valid.[6][7][8] However, the 2014 Supreme Court ruling in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l narrowed patent eligibility for software, and the Supreme Court subsequently sent Ultramercial's case back to the Federal Circuit. In November 2014, the Federal Circuit invalidated Ultramercial's patent in light of the ruling in Alice, undoing two of its own previous rulings and freeing WildTangent from liability.[9]

Genesis3D

WildTangent owns the Genesis3D game engine created by Eclipse Entertainment in 1997.[10] The engine was announced on July 4, 1998.[11] The first beta version was released on July 30, followed by release candidate 1 on March 2, 1999.[12][13] The engine was free and open-source software under the "Eclipse" license, requiring companies to pay $10,000 to make closed source changes. In 1999, WildTangent acquired the assets for Genesis3D from Eclipse Entertainment to use for their web driver. While working on improving the engine's source code, Mark O'Hara and his team decided to instead create a new engine, Destiny3D, from the obtained knowledge.[10] WildTangent then acquired Eclipse Entertainment in January 2002.[14] Notable games developed using Genesis3D include the first-person shooter games Catechumen (2000) and its successor Ominous Horizons: A Paladin's Calling (2001),[15] Ethnic Cleansing (2002),[16] and Special Force (2003),[17] as well as the action-adventure game Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002).[18]

References

  1. ↑ gamigo AG: acquisition of the game publisher WildTangent Inc. in the form of an asset deal leads to further profitable growth Archived 2020-09-22 at the Wayback Machine/
  2. ↑ "WildTangent Collaborates with the Levi's® Brand to Bring Levi's® Curve ID Product Line to Popular Facebook Game, Mall World". SFGate. 2011-04-08. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
  3. ↑ Machrone, Bill (2004-06-22). "Spyware or Slyware?". PCMag.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
  4. ↑ Archived April 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Archived June 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ "Supreme Court orders do-over on key software patent ruling". Ars Technica. 23 May 2012. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  7. ↑ "One of the worst patents ever just got upheld in court". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  8. ↑ Fisher, Daniel. "Take That, SCOTUS: Appeals Court Reinstates Patent On Video-Ad Technology". Forbes. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  9. ↑ Crouch, Dennis. "Federal Circuit: Novelty in Implementation of an Abstract Idea Insufficient to Overcome Alice". Patently-O. Archived from the original on 19 December 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  10. 1 2 Pedersen, Roger E. (2003). Game Design Foundations. Wordware Publishing. p. 166. ISBN 9781556229732. Archived from the original on September 11, 2023. Retrieved June 29, 2020 – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ Heaslip, Stephen (July 4, 1998). "Cry Havoc Engine Demo". Blue's News. Archived from the original on September 11, 2023. Retrieved September 11, 2023.
  12. ↑ Heaslip, Stephen (July 29, 1998). "Genesis 3D SDK". Blue's News. Archived from the original on September 13, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  13. ↑ Heaslip, Stephen (March 2, 1999). "Genesis 3D Engine Release Candidate, News". Blue's News. Archived from the original on July 14, 2019. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  14. ↑ Festa, Paul (January 2, 2002). "Short Take: WildTangent acquires 3D firm". CNET. Archived from the original on July 14, 2019. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  15. ↑ Gibson, Nick (February 20, 2012). "Christian FPS Games". Hardcore Gaming 101. p. 2. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  16. ↑ Becker, David (August 8, 2002). "Video games raise concerns over racism". CNET. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  17. ↑ Piasecki, Stefan (November 19, 2003). "Für 8,50 Dollar in den Krieg gegen Israel" [To war against Israel for $8.50]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). p. 1. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  18. ↑ Moltenbrey, Karen (January 2003). "A Knight to Remember". Computer Graphic World. Archived from the original on September 11, 2023. Retrieved September 11, 2023.
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