Velogames RIP?

kingstongraham

From their website....

Due to a recent legal notice, entries into the current Fantasy Grand Tour game are currently suspended until further notice.

It is fair to say I am absolutely gutted about this turn of events, but do not want to comment further until the situation progresses.

At present it is looking unlikely that the current Fantasy Grand Tour game will go ahead as planned.

Yours in fantasy cycling, George

WTF ASO?

RichN95.

ASO have launched their own version and are eliminating the competition. I'm not sure on what grounds though

fenix

Shameful !

kingstongraham

Theirs is so much worse. I know the point is to get traffic, but having to go to their website every day to set your day's "road captain" is terrible.

mattsaw

Yep, really annoying.

Doubly so that I had already spent Wednesday meticulously choosing my team

blazing_saddles

Assholes Showing Off.

kleinstroker

KingstonGraham wrote:

From their website....

Due to a recent legal notice, entries into the current Fantasy Grand Tour game are currently suspended until further notice.

It is fair to say I am absolutely gutted about this turn of events, but do not want to comment further until the situation progresses.

At present it is looking unlikely that the current Fantasy Grand Tour game will go ahead as planned.

Yours in fantasy cycling, George

WTF ASO?

Velon seem to be doing it now. What a great shame.

timmyotool

So annoyed about this! Definitely not doing the ASO game out of principle.

Anyone know what grounds the legal challenge is under? Eurosport still seem to be running theirs!
Would it be use of the term "Tour de France" or use of rider names maybe?

kingstongraham

It's a proper The Man move to take someone else's idea and then sue them.

cougie

If it's not velogames I'm not playing.

iainf72

ASO have form for this. For years there was the channel 4 TdF coverage available on YouTube. It was removed because ASO requested it.

That's fine I guess - If they offered an alternative. It's not like you could go watch the race in an ASO archive for $$'s or something.

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

ASO have launched their own version and are eliminating the competition. I'm not sure on what grounds though

Do they 'own' the results?

RichN95.

TailWindHome wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

ASO have launched their own version and are eliminating the competition. I'm not sure on what grounds though

Do they 'own' the results?

I think they own the results, but don't own the facts. So the reproduction of the results could be stopped, but use of the facts of the results to create something original probably couldn't be. But I'm pretty much guessing.

DeadCalm

It's been a long while since I practised law but I am pretty sure they don't own the results. The results are what they are. There isn't any creative effort on the part of ASO to generate them*. They probably don't own the team lists either, unless the Dataco, Stan James judgment has been overturned in the last few years. There may be some trademmark stuff over the name but it sounds merely like a big company bullying a smaller one to me.

*jokes anticipated.

No_Ta_Doctor

For the first time I joined a fantasy league, mainly due to pleading/bullying from a mate. Feeling a bit guilty about it now as it's the ASO one.

I shall protest by doing really, really badly.

RichN95.

DeadCalm wrote:

It's been a long while since I practised law but I am pretty sure they don't own the results. The results are what they are. There isn't any creative effort on the part of ASO to generate them*. They probably don't own the team lists either, unless the Dataco, Stan James judgment has been overturned in the last few years. There may be some trademmark stuff over the name but it sounds merely like a big company bullying a smaller one to me.

*jokes anticipated.

It's a long time since I read about this stuff. Certainly several years before Dataco. I think everything's changed by now.

mattsaw

I know the Premier league own their fixture lists and charge a significant amount to publish them. It may be something along those lines.

No_Ta_Doctor

Mattsaw wrote:

I know the Premier league own their fixture lists and charge a significant amount to publish them. It may be something along those lines.

Yeah, they got very, very shitty about it a couple of years back and were ridiculed for being arseholes.

Lanterne_Rogue

Should get around the licensing issue with classic Pro Evo Soccer style names:

Cross Broom
Marc Ovendish
Roberto Urine
Tyler Fishy

etc etc

RichN95.

underlayunderlay wrote:

Should get around the licensing issue with classic Pro Evo Soccer style names:

Cross Broom
Marc Ovendish
Roberto Urine
Tyler Fishy

etc etc

They used to have those for some of the teams on Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe they still do.

awavey

just need UK Cycling Expert to come up with the new names, has alternatives for most of the riders and names of the places in france, it just becomes the race for the yellow jumper

DeadCalm

Mattsaw wrote:

I know the Premier league own their fixture lists and charge a significant amount to publish them. It may be something along those lines.

I've seen that claimed elsewhere. II'm out of toch with the law but 'd be interested to know on what basis. Dataco vs Stan James was on precisely this point and Dataco (who represent the Premier League as well as the English and Scottish Football Leagues) lost.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/d ... cid=531066

kingstongraham

Well after a few days I can conclusively say that the ASO game site is really not good. Overengineered rubbish. Our league has instituted house rules saying no substitutions and no changing the captain, so we don't have to keep going to the site.

cygnet

RichN95 wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

ASO have launched their own version and are eliminating the competition. I'm not sure on what grounds though

Do they 'own' the results?

I think they own the results, but don't own the facts. So the reproduction of the results could be stopped, but use of the facts of the results to create something original probably couldn't be. But I'm pretty much guessing.

It seems that they've come up with a way to stop anyone using their results - by not publishing them on their website...

Yesterdays individual results: Ranking is coming

No_Ta_Doctor

KingstonGraham wrote:

Well after a few days I can conclusively say that the ASO game site is really not good. Overengineered rubbish. Our league has instituted house rules saying no substitutions and no changing the captain, so we don't have to keep going to the site.

I've got 20 years of web development experience, and I agree entirely. Nothing works as you'd expect it to and many basic web standards are completely ignored. The UX is awful. It's junk.

jimmythecuckoo

I am sticking in there with the procycling stats one, which doesn't appear to have been shut down as yet.

larkim

Velogames has a note now pointing people towards the ASO game - has the feel of a compromise to me, with ASO dropping any claims for Velogames pointing customers in their direction? Any other insights?

alanparsons

Velogames is back up and running.
Looks like they have most events covered, interestingly all of July is TBA!
Spring classics starts tomorrow.
https://www.velogames.com/

Is there still an active league code for BR?

blazing_saddles

alanparsons wrote:

Velogames is back up and running.
Looks like they have most events covered, interestingly all of July is TBA!
Spring classics starts tomorrow.
https://www.velogames.com/

Is there still an active league code for BR?

Try it and see.
They ran both P-N and T-A competitions, but then changed the rules to unlimited transfers for the Spring classics game.
Since this was announced, a lot of negative feedback was incoming, so now they intend to run the old, 24 transfer version as well. (note what it says on that link you posted.)


Which leaves folks all over 24 hours....

kingstongraham

No velogames for the "upcoming grand tour".

What's second best these days?

larkim

Shame as Velogames has a nice simplicity and functionality about it.

I'm still quite bemused as to what element of information which is freely available in the public domain the ASO feel they have rights over, and moreso in that participation these sorts of things helps the audience of the race too. But when did the ASO ever make entirely logical decisions!!