Talk:Wisdom Tree

Unliscenced Christianity

Wisdom Tree is a manufacturer and distributor of unlicensed Christianity-themed video games, primarily for the Nintendo Entertainment System. ^(rev)

Unlicenced Christianity! Dear God, is that legal? --zippedmartin 20:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely; because it's "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of Expression". Many preachers today preach in their own churches unlicensed by the government--and there's nothing wrong with that because it's "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of Expression" as well.

--JJ

I think, perhaps, that zippedmartin was merely commenting on the humor of the apparent modification of "Christianity" by the adjective "unlicensed" in the article's intro. Incidentally, it's separation of church and state, i.e., freedom of religion, not necessarily freedom of speech. - Jersyko·talk 20:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Nintendo and Color Dreams were both doing business in the USA and subject to USA law. Nintendo has repeatedly claimed in public certain laws protect their business practices and are violated when US companies (or their own customers) compete with them. But these are in fact Japanese and international laws they cite, that are trumped by US law when the matter occurs within the US (games and hardware sold here, law must be obey here). A videogame manufactures 'license' is not a law. In fact, the law specifically does not protect the practices that companies spell out in their licensing agreements, this is why they need the license agreement. Besides, Color Dreams did not agree to Nintendo's license, their for they cannot 'underhandedly' violate it. When a customer or company agrees to a license, they are basically waving their legal protections and agreeing they will do as the Licenser asks. But, their are certain legal rights that cannot be waved, even if the license says they are. For instance, a customer in California cannot ever wave their right to a 90 day defect warranty even though this is a clause in some licenses. Also Microsoft's licenses include waving rights if the product kill someone, but the customer will have this protection anyhow. Atari was blindsided with independent developers and sued them repeatedly, entirely for being competitors usually, but also for damaging their reputation, just like Nintendo. They lost (even though Atari's was being blamed for 'porn' games by independent developers). The independent developers sued these companies for unfair (illegal) business practices, they won (with the exception of Tengen, who messed up and did violate the law). Clearly if there was any underhand advantages of the law being taken, it was by the companies that kept losing in court —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.180.171 (talk) 19:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism?

Is it me, or is some of the text in this article very similiar to the planet nintendo link at the bottom? Could it be someone has forgotten that it is still plagiarism even if you source it.--THollan 15:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Could you point to an example? I will have to disagree, however, that "it is still plagiarism even if you source it," as the definition of plagiarism contemplates that if the information is sourced, it is not plagiarism. Whether this article is properly sourced is another matter entirely, though. - Jersyko·talk 16:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Even if you source it, it can still be plagiarism. If you qoute something and do not put it in quotation marks and give proper attribution, it is plagiarism, since you are presenting the words as your own, regardless of whether or not your provide a source. Qouting without attribution is the same as not providing sources. Anytime something is not in qoutes, one can assume that it is your own words.--THollan 19:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh?

"Super Noah's Ark 3d holds the distinction of being the only Super Nintendo game to use an alternately made cartridge."

What does this even mean? And incidently, is there evidence backing up this statement? --Matthew0028 09:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It means that the Super Noah's Ark 3D cart for SNES is the only game for the SNES that doesn't use the standard carts that Nintendo made. The only other thing to use a non-standard cart is the gamegenie, which we can all agree is not a game. I have seen the cart and can vouch for it being 'different', It ressembles the game genie cart actually cause you have to plug another game into it to get it to work, but I cannot vouch for it being the only one. Although it's perfectly believable as Nintendo has a very strong hold on the game industry. Remove it if you like, it's not an important fact. --Thaddius 14:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Dubious

Does anyone find it odd that this 'christian-themed' company would take advantage of such a dubious law? Despite the 'freedom of speech' and other American arguments listed above, it's still an undehanded tactic for a company with religious connotations. --Thaddius 14:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well you know how them christians are: "the end justifies the means". Actually I just kidding.--Kenn Caesius 15:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You're forgetting that the most important word in "christian-themed company" is not "christian", it's "company". Speaking of which, I read awhile back that the founders of Wisdom Tree, Color Dreams, et al were actually looking into creating porn-themed games at one point. I haven't been able to find that reference again, though . . .· j·e·r·s·y·k·o talk · 15:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That would be an interesting addition. @Kenn Caesius: I believe you're thinking of utilitarianism, not Christianity. :P --Thaddius 15:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Color Dreams did license porn games from Hong Kong, they made 'sanitized' versions of them. The 'creating porn-themed games' comment you saw is probably a misunderstanding. Some reliable sources to add this information to the article would be helpful. But, there seems to be none beyond original research of playing bother versions of the games themselves. I just edited an opinion toned comment in the article regarding this.--76.191.180.171 (talk) 03:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Underhanded? No more so than the Game Genie. All Color Dreams did was manufacture their own cartridges, meaning that Nintendo received no money from the game sales. The Game Genie does the same thing. I'd say it's more "underhanded" to blackmail retailers to remove the products of one's competitor, but that's just me... EllipsesBent 03:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Galoob, the company behind the Game Genie, is not a self proclaimed Christian company. Wisdom Tree is. That's my point. Also, most of these games were hacked versions of retail games. Subverting licencing and copyright infringement is not something you'd expect from a company that aligns themselves with a religion known for its moral superiority. --Thaddius 18:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, while we're on the topic, Nintendo had a strict licencing policy as they hoped it would help avoid another crash (unlicensed games arguably caused the '83 crash). Nintendo did blackmail retailers into not letting them sell Color Dreams' games, but they were unlicensed carts and it was within their right to do what they could to ban their sale. I'm not saying what Ninty did was right either, but again, Ninty doesn't align themselves with a religion. --Thaddius 18:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

So Sparrow Records must be underhanded too? Because they published Music Machine. And don't forget VIA, darn underhanded Christians taking advantage of laws to make better technology when they could be letting their innovations be buried by non-Christian underhanded companies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.180.171 (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Nintendo could have done more to prevent another crash by allowing quality games to be published on other systems. And the '5 games' limit had much more to do with immediate profit than preventing a crash. If Nintendo feared a crash so much and thought a 5 game limit wold prevent it, then why did they themselves release more than five games a year and allow other companies to circumvent this limit? Answer: To keep the 3rd parties from competing with them. Also, companies could create subsidiaries and each subsidiaries could publish 5 more games. If a company could have published 25 games, Nintendo would charge them fees + an amount per game. But 5 companies were charged 5 fees + per game. I hear whining about how poor Atari had their marked ruined by a flood of 3rd party games. Meanwhile they themselves were republishing their old games with new titles and producing really bad games based solely on famous licenses. (Rubik's Cube, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Pac-Man, A-Team (same as Saboteur), Pepsi Invaders (same as Coke verses Pepsi [i]and[/i] Coke Wins), Holey Moley, Atari Video Cube, Pigs in Space). Nintendo was doing the same thing with some really bad games. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.180.171 (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

reference

Here's a few paragraphs that might be useful as a reference (which this article is rather lacking), from: Ian Bogost (2007). Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press. pp. p. 287–288. ISBN 9780262026147. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help) If nobody else does, I may edit the article accordingly, but thought I'd type it up here in the meantime:

"Color Dreams, a struggling publisher who managed to bypass Nintendo's first-party lockout chip in the late 1980s, attempted to appeal to nonsecular players with a series of religion-themed games. Color Dreams changed their name to Wisdom Tree and reskinned a number of their previous games to present semireligious themes. The games themselves verge on the absurd. Bible Buffet challenges players to throw utensils at opponents and collect carrots while answering Bible trivia. In Sunday Funday, a reskin of the Color Dreams platformer game Menace Beach, the player pilots a skateboarding youth dodging obstacles to get to Sunday School on time. Other games leveraged the era's popular 2D platform conventions for Bible-themed adventures. In Exodus, the player takes the role of Moses, who shoots W's that represent the world of God (see figure 9.4). Similarly, Bible Adventures recreates three Bible stories, Noah and the ark, the story of the baby Moses, and David and Goliath. And Spiritual Warfare borrowed the action/role-playing conventions of The Legend of Zelda; the player helps a young Christian who must rid his town of demons by converting them to Christianity."

"Wisdom Tree does not appear to have been motivated to create these games in the interest of faith alone. Color Dreams struggled to sell their secular games because Nintendo put pressure on retailers to refuse to sell unlicensed titles. Because Christian bookstores and specialty shops did not sell other Nintendo games, Wisdom Tree correctly predicted that such retailers would be happy to sell their unlicensed titles without concern for reproach from Nintendo. Nevertheless, the company must be credited with inventing the genre of religious videogames; they remain in business today selling old and new titles alike."

"Genre innovation notwithstanding, Wisdom Tree's games did not proceduralize religious faith. Instead, they borrowed the operational logics of platform and adventure games, applying vaguely religious or biblical situations atop the familiar gestures of moving, shooting, and jumping. Many of the games were direct reskins of previous Color Dreams games, further accentuating their focus on movement over belief."

The article as it currently stands seem not to mention the reskinning bit: that a lot of the early Wisdom Tree games were pretty transparently reskinned, and only very vaguely religious, versions of Color Dreams games, to the point where Bogost describes them as "verg[ing] on the absurd". It also might be worth mentioning the claim that they invented the genre of the religious video game, though. --Delirium (talk) 08:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

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is anyone willing to elaborate the claim regarding "Sunday Funday" as the last commercial release?

Really - According the defunct List of final video games for consoles and the List of NES games, the title of the final game goes the Wario's Woods released in 1994 as the last licensed North America release and the most recent unlicensed game as Sydney Hunter and the curse of the Mayans in 2017. With the citation being an article about the history of Color Dreams/Wisdom tree development, I would declare the source be outdated if not outright wrong.--Kencaesi (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Past as Color Dreams?

There seems to be large chunks of history missing on this page. It's public knowledge for example that Color Dreams planned to create a Hellraiser game in the Wolfenstein 3D engine 14.2.74.197 (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, there is some evidence that Color Dreams shifted towards development of IP surveillance cameras since the mid 90s, if not for sources backing it up. Blake Gripling (talk) 12:12, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Link has died

Hey guys, the link in the infobox just died. Someone, probably me, actually, should do something about it.146.200.113.157 (talk) 10:26, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

References