Creator Defends Afghanistan Video Game

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Creator Defends Afghanistan Video Game

Technology

by Christopher Keough

It’s either a brilliant way to capitalize on current events or a cynical attempt to cash in on national tragedies.

The folks at NovaLogic Inc., creator of “Delta Force: Task Force Dagger,” a new video game based on satellite pictures from Afghanistan, prefer the former.

“We don’t believe anyone should glamorize this situation,” said Georgina Petrie, director of international marketing at NovaLogic in Calabasas. “We’d never do this just to make a dollar.”

“Task Force Dagger,” the latest installment in NovaLogic’s popular Delta Force product line, puts players into the international coalition fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Game play is based on what is known of the actual operations from the U.S. Ranger assault on Kandahar to Delta raids on Tora Bora.

For the intelligence and model terrain maps, NovaLogic teamed with Seattle-based Zombie Studios, which is run by Mark Long, a retired Army major. The terrain was re-created from declassified satellite pictures of Afghanistan.

Petrie said the new game, for all its realistic design and play features, does not betray any confidences or give credit to Osama bin Laden.

“Nowhere in the game do we specify a terrorist leader or organization,” she said. “This is really about the heroes over there. Why shouldn’t they have a game about them?”

The game ships in May and will retail for $29.95.

Funding Fulfilled

Global Communications Semiconductor Inc. closed its fourth round of funding on March 19 with $10 million, finishing a $27.5 million round that should fund it until it goes public.

The Torrance-based company received investments from Sirenza Microdevices Inc. of Sunnyvale and KLM Capital Group of San Jose. The new investment is on top of $17.5 million closed in January. That round was led by TCW/YFY Investment Partners LTD of Taiwan, which manages $710 million in the U.S. and Asia.

Owen Wu, who founded the company in 1997 upon leaving a research division of Hughes Electronics Corp., said the company has raised $70 million. He said revenues hit $10 million last year, and he anticipates a profit sometime in the second half of 2002.

Global Communication Semiconductors puts customers’ designs on computer chips. The company specializes in the wireless telecommunication and high-speed networking industries.

Engineering Searches

The Church of Scientology, wielding the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, has convinced search engine Google Inc. to limit access to certain links that are critical of the organization.

The Church of Scientology objected to highly-placed search links to Xenu.net, a Norway-based site that claims to lead the “fight against the Church of Scientology on the Net.”

Linda Kobrin, an attorney with Moxon & Kobrin who represents the church, said the offending Web pages violate copyright laws regardless of whether they are critical of the church.

Robin Gross, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in intellectual property law, said the flap started when the church used technical means to lower xenu.net rankings on Google, which are based on the number of links in response to a search query. According to Gross, Google got wise to the manipulation and righted the situation, only to be met with the DMCA complaint.

A Google spokesman would not comment other than to say that Google was in direct communication with the webmaster at xenu.net. Google released a statement regarding the incident in which it acknowledged removing certain links to xenu.net because of a copyright infringement notification under the DMCA. Google, which allows webmasters to re-post content if they provide a counter-notification, has re-posted the site’s home page.

Xenu.net officials did not reply to e-mail seeking comment.

Gross, who is not directly involved in the dispute, said the church has developed a track record in claiming copyright infringement and having those claims upheld in lower courts. “It depends on how much backbone Google has in this case,” Gross said. “Are they willing to defend free speech and stand up for their customers?”

Staff reporter Christopher Keough can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 235, or at

[email protected]

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