Dial M For MMO?

For those of you excited about the upcoming MMO DC Universe Online, you might have heard last week's DC announcement. They're going to publish a weekly comic book, DC Universe: Legends, tying into events of the game. As explained at IGN, the game "tells a core story but connects with gamers, giving them hints, strategies..."

Not a bad concept, if you're into that kind of thing. But before anyone gets all excited, maybe they had better read the fine print. From Dan DiDio's interview in that same article:

What I think is the most exciting thing is that, if everything is working as well as we hope once we get down the line, characters that players create actually have an opportunity to work their way from the game into the comics themselves.

Which might sound cool, but think about it. There's no way DC would put a player-created character into the comic book interacting with other DC characters unless they owned that new character. Now, that could mean that DC will see some player-created characters in the game that they like, negotiate with the owner, and pay to buy him. But that would be a lot of work and legal hassle.

Or, more likely, the licensing agreement for the game will require that DC owns any character you create outright. Remember the 1980's run of Dial H For Hero, where readers were encouraged to submit hero and villain characters? Those entries automatically became DC property, whether they were used in print or not.

Just watch...the box you have to check in order to click "I agree" to start the game will have, buried in the legalese, a "Dial H For Hero" clause that declares that DC presumptively owns any character you create in their game's universe. Your Captain Ultra-Cool will become DC property the second you create him.

Think about that...you're paying a monthly fee to play the game...and they get to keep the characters you create. Great deal. And you probably won't even get a T-shirt, like you did with Dial H.

Maybe I'm wrong; maybe DC (and Warner) will allow independently owned creations to mingle freely with their copyrighted characters and copyrighted stories. Maybe they'll deal openly and honestly with you when they "work" your character into their comic books.

But a word of advice to anyone who plays the game: before you invest hours into creating and fine-tuning your hero or villain, and hundreds of hours (and dollars) building him into something really cool, you might want to read the licensing agreement you're signing very carefully. Because he might not really be yours...