<story><title>Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game</title><url>https://www.clickerheroes2.com/patent_trolls.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmihaly</author><text>Yeah. I&amp;#x27;m the friend he mentioned. Achaea.com was the first game in the world to use virtual currency&amp;#x2F;goods as its business model, back in 1997. Still live today. My company&amp;#x27;s at ironrealms.com. I mailed you offering help.</text></item><item><author>fragsworth</author><text>Hey. Developer of Clicker Heroes here.&lt;p&gt;More examples of prior art are very helpful, so that would help us out a lot. Do you have any examples of any of these MUDs that had virtual currency?</text></item><item><author>Lasher</author><text>I passed this on to a friend of mine who has been doing virtual currency in online games since the mid 1990s (MUDs) and has been called as an expert witness in the past to defeat some of these &amp;quot;virtual currency&amp;quot; patents.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fragsworth</author><text>Wow. I actually remember playing your game when I was 17. I can&amp;#x27;t remember details about the virtual currency though.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;#x27;838 patent was filed in 2000 (which is the effective date, 2007 is just the processing date). Did Achaea have virtual currency before then? If so, that would help us a lot.</text></comment>
<story><title>Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game</title><url>https://www.clickerheroes2.com/patent_trolls.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmihaly</author><text>Yeah. I&amp;#x27;m the friend he mentioned. Achaea.com was the first game in the world to use virtual currency&amp;#x2F;goods as its business model, back in 1997. Still live today. My company&amp;#x27;s at ironrealms.com. I mailed you offering help.</text></item><item><author>fragsworth</author><text>Hey. Developer of Clicker Heroes here.&lt;p&gt;More examples of prior art are very helpful, so that would help us out a lot. Do you have any examples of any of these MUDs that had virtual currency?</text></item><item><author>Lasher</author><text>I passed this on to a friend of mine who has been doing virtual currency in online games since the mid 1990s (MUDs) and has been called as an expert witness in the past to defeat some of these &amp;quot;virtual currency&amp;quot; patents.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lostcolony</author><text>Holy crap. Blast from the past. Thanks so much for making those games; I killed years in high school on Achaea.</text></comment>