Wrestling Manager?

[Sousa]

....how is it a parody, exactly?

In many... many ways.

Well, I'm convinced.

Glad to have helped!

Since they apparently don't have sarcasm on your planet, "Well, I'm convinced" is Earthspeak for "Wow, what a dumbass."

Please note that this is a sleight on your perceived intellect as a whole, not that of your rear end in particular.

[Benjamin]

I want to have a name change related to making fun of this!

Someone help me change it to Hulk Hogan

[Serious Parody]

....how is it a parody, exactly?

In many... many ways.

Well, I'm convinced.

Glad to have helped! <------------ clearly sarcasm.

Since they apparently don't have sarcasm on your planet, "Well, I'm convinced" is Earthspeak for "Wow, what a dumbass."

Please note that this is a sleight on your perceived intellect as a whole, not that of your rear end in particular.

Irony.

If you can't see how Rod Van Damn is a parody then there's no point in me explaining the many other ways we parody the wrestling industry in general.

Edited October 2, 2011 by Serious Parody

[Guest JukeboxHero]

Don't worry about them. If you aren't part of their clique, they'll find ways to put you down, make fun of you, and kick you in the dirt. They'll even disagree with you even if they don't actually disagree with you. They'll put down anything you say. The way I see it, some legit media is reporting on the game and they're baffled. So they make fun of it to make themselves feel better. I, for one, look forward to the game.

Edited October 2, 2011 by JukeboxHero

[King Ellis]

Is Rack Zyder in the game?

[Meacon Keaton]

Oww Oww Oww! You're aware of it!

[Sousa]

If you can't see how Rod Van Damn is a parody then there's no point in me explaining the many other ways we parody the wrestling industry in general.

There's a difference between parody and copyright infringement, and that difference isn't "because I say it's this." It's not a polemic; it's a ripoff. I'm not saying, oh, you're going to get sued omg or anything like that because I outright do not care, but there is a lot of precedent surrounding parody as protected speech and "exactly like Kane except blue and also named after the brother of the Biblical Cain" is going to fall pretty squarely outside that purview.

But never mind, JukeboxHero is right, we only have it in for you because you can't join the Stonecutters because it's too exclusive.

Oww Oww Oww! You're aware of it!

OH, RADIO, KEEP ME APPRAISED OF YOUR SUNDRY TRIVIA.

[Serious Parody]

If you can't see how Rod Van Damn is a parody then there's no point in me explaining the many other ways we parody the wrestling industry in general.

There's a difference between parody and copyright infringement, and that difference isn't "because I say it's this." It's not a polemic; it's a ripoff. I'm not saying, oh, you're going to get sued omg or anything like that because I outright do not care, but there is a lot of precedent surrounding parody as protected speech and "exactly like Kane except blue and also named after the brother of the Biblical Cain" is going to fall pretty squarely outside that purview.

But never mind, JukeboxHero is right, we only have it in for you because you can't join the Stonecutters because it's too exclusive.

Oww Oww Oww! You're aware of it!

OH, RADIO, KEEP ME APPRAISED OF YOUR SUNDRY TRIVIA.

Wrestling on a whole lends itself to parody and when you consider that Rob Van Dam is a parody of Jean Claud Van Dam and that characters like Sting were based largely on The Crow (and more recently The Joker) you can see that wrestling has always had outside influences on characters. Anyone remember Gillberg? or more recently The Black Machismo? The fact that wrestling companies have always had those parody characters is something we parody within the game.

We also looked at the way other games have handled similar situations. For example Pro Evolution Soccer had names like Bryan Griggs instead of Ryan Giggs, they have Manchester Red instead of Manchester United, etc. Tekken have parodies of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Mark Coleman, etc. More recently, Game Dev Story (which was a big influence of Wrestling Manager) parodied the games industry and instead of having the Game Boy from Nintendo or the Genesis from Sega, they had the Game Kid from Intendro and the Exodus from Senga, Walt Sidney instead of Walt Disney and Steve Jobson instead of Steve Jobs, etc. We have similar things through-out our game and we've tried to use in-jokes that hopefully the wrestling community would enjoy.

I appreciate people expressing concern but I assure you, we have done a lot of research and consulted lawyers to make sure things are all legal. We aren't trying to pass any of our characters off as being real wrestlers. We are quite clear that this is intended as a parody of the wrestling industry and not associated with any wrestling promotion or wrestler. We don't think anyone is going to buy this game specifically to use Able, we think they are going to buy the game because they want a good wrestling management sim for their phone and that's what we have made.

---

Anywho, lets let the legal team worry about the legalities of the game. How do you guys think Story Lines should work within the game?

[GoGo Yubari]

Wrestling on a whole lends itself to parody and when you consider that Rob Van Dam is a parody of Jean Claud Van Dam and that characters like Sting were based largely on The Crow (and more recently The Joker) you can see that wrestling has always had outside influences on characters. Anyone remember Gillberg? or more recently The Black Machismo? The fact that wrestling companies have always had those parody characters is something we parody within the game.

This is awesome because it takes "what do we call The Undertaker in order to not get sued? I GOT IT, THE OVERTAKER" and turns it into a lofty thesis. Bravo.

I mean, it really doesn't seem like the end of the world to me beyond how dumb a lot of the names that I saw were. Fire Pro had a ton of names like that (golly I wonder who "Bushido YaShin" is supposed to be!).

[Rocky]

I thought parodies were meant to be funny

[Serious Parody]

I thought parodies were meant to be funny

Not all parodies are funny, Wrestling Manager is more of a Serious Parody but we did try to be humours along the way. I guess it just depends on your sense of humour.

[Berober]

I prefer Gentle Parodies.

[SeanDMan]

Polite Parodies are my favourite, when they apologize after the laughter dies down.

[Skummy]

No. A parody is an imitation of something done for deliberate comic effect. A "serious parody" just isn't a thing.

You can't just say "Oh, he's called Sandy Ravage!" and assume that's okay. You can't just pallette swap Kane's outfit and assume that's somehow not an infringement of copyright.

I certainly hope your "legal team" have more of a fucking clue than you do.

[Summers]

Parody, you're an idiot.

Love from Stonecutter Summers.

[GoGo Yubari]

Someone should drag Heel Turn into this thread. 1-2-3 not it!

[Stormshadow]

I think you said you were based in Scotland. With my limited understanding of UK Copyright law based on working doing Legal Admin from time to time is that parody is rather hard to claim under the current copyright laws, as the likenesses & slight name swaps do appear to make up a substantial base of you product.

Edited October 2, 2011 by Stormshadow

[Cymbols]

Case closed your honour.

Advice for Mr. Parody. Give monthly updates, answer serious questions, hype the game, otherwise keep your head down. (They may have a point about copyright though).

EDIT- I don't have a clue how copyrighting works. Did EWR and TEW need to get permission to use all of the names and likenesses?

Edited October 2, 2011 by cymru96

[Walker]

Even if copyright law isn't on his side, FIFA never sued PES over the exact same issue (as far as I am aware), and they were direct competitors.

[Stormshadow]

As I said limited understanding I'm pretty sure someone who knows a whole lot more could come it and state whether right or wrong.