World of BotCraft? What’s this? We received some interesting news from Playcomet, the online game portal based in China which is owned by the bit torrent giant ‘Bitcomet’. This is not so much interesting based on the news itself, but the fact that they are certainly treading on dangerous trademark ground.
First, they have launched a new facebook app called ‘World of BotCraft’. They readily admit that this is a play on World of Warcraft and honestly, this by itself is not a big deal. This is not really parody so it does cross into kindy of a gray area but who cares right? What does the app do? That’s where things get a little more interesting. You see this is for a game called Transforce, but from the press release below you can see that it is without a doubt based directly on the Transformers™ franchise. To give you a little background, the name of their game ‘Transforce’ is not even really a creative play on the well known title. It is also the actual title of the Transformers™ convention. Now I want to clearly point out that I am not accusing Playcomet of trademark infringement, because they may certainly have a license to do this. But, if you venture over to their site, you will curiously see no references to Hasbro or copyright/trademark rights which are present on all of the officially licensed affiliates of the game. We have contacted Playcomet to answer these questions, but so far we have not heard back. We will certainly follow up on this to let you know how things progress.
In the mean time, here is the news release, and hey it does actually look like a great game. Official Release Playcomet, the leading publisher and developer of Free-to-play MMO Games, today announced that the most popular browser-based Strategy game TransForce rolled out its long anticipated integration of Facebook Connect (http://tf.playcomet.com) at the name of World of BotCraft, which is also the virgin social game published by the Playcomet team. The move allows Facebook users to sign in the facebook account to play TransForce directly while enabling current TransForce players to connect their accounts with the social network.
Once Facebook Connect has been activated, players will be able to publish their comments and share game strategy. Players can also quickly invite their Facebook’s friends to play TransForce and earn the in-game items or Matrix, a virtual currency in TransForce. "World of BotCraft is the newest version of TransForce, embodying our team’s strengths and knowledge." Said Newing, the project manager, "the game is no longer the Traditional Application, but with much fun applied and being applied. For example, the newly added ‘The Wanted System’, ‘Bounty Hunt System’ and the Legendary Heroes. We will continue developing the new features in 2010."
TransForce is a free online browser strategy game where players choose the Decepticons and the Autobots, and fight in the vast universe space. TransForce is closely bounded up with the Marvel comic book series and also the Film ‘Transformers’.
Apart from the traditional gaming features like PVP, PVE, Tribal War, the folks at the TransForce team bring World of Warcraft’s features possible in the World of BotCraft. In WOB, you can also challenge the Instances, Explore the wild lands around and beyond. What is matchless in the web browser gaming world is that WOB delivers hero Levelup, equipment Upgrade and Enforcement, as well as assumes a new aspect by raising the Tactics into the role-playing level.
This is an important move for both companies. For Playcomet, it means a lot more exposure on Facebook, as their tens of thousands of existing users link their accounts and publish information to promote the game. For Facebook, it represents a big new partner for Facebook Connect, and brings the Facebook users more choices to play the game.
For more about TransForce: World of BotCraft, please visit the official website http://tf.playcomet.com
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