Recently, some controversy has popped up regarding who owns the IP of student-created work; recent events with the award-winning creation of some graduates of DigiPen Institute of Technology have highlighted the problematic nature of what is somewhat par for the course in design programs. On the one hand, while I can see some of the arguments for schools retaining the IP (and certainly, the policies are clear to students from day one), I find some of the arguments downright laughable. With the recent kerfluffle, are policy changes on the horizon?:

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What exactly is The Blackstar Chronicles? Blackstar is a futuristic massively-multiplayer game that features both ground -based character combat as well as space-based ship combat on a massive scale. The developers at Spacetime Studios say it's based on the single-player traditions of "Wing Commander" and the multiplayer feel of "Descent." Lofty goals, but when your team is packed with Wing Commander and Privateer veterans you've got a good shot at getting it right. The IP fell into a bit of trouble after a 2006 publishing agreement with NCsoft fell through earlier this year, but the team at Spacetime has just announced that they've acquired the rights from NCsoft to soldier on, and that's a damn good thing. I would have hated to discover that the amazing character designs seen above and at their official website were never going to come to fruition. This is exactly the type of game I've been craving since the disappointment that was EA's Earth and Beyond.

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NCsoft is stepping up the battle against IP theft, in this case targeting illegal servers in eastern Europe (concentrating on Greece and Russia). Last year, they successfully brought a suit against a Greek company who was profiting from the use of illegal Lineage II servers; they're continuing the global fight. Full release after the jump.

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Ubisoft are focused on many things. Milking the Raving Rabbids for all their worth, for one. Another is that they don't want to rely on sports games, or movie games, or games relying on externally-licensed content to succeed. No, that way is not for them. What they really want to do is conjure up new IP:

One of our corporate goals is to create new IP, and we've been very successful in launching some of them in the past few years. It's something we're very keen on, at a global corporate level.

The new issue of Develop Magazine has a great interview with Bungie Studio manager Harold Ryan on the split with Microsoft. In it Harold admits that Bungie has a new IP in development - a game that was prototyped by 20 employees alongside the development of Halo 3. He also has this choice quote on why Bungie is better than "other developers that publish with Microsoft"

We want to be seen as different from the other developers that publish with Microsoft. As far as we believe it, we make better games and they are better quality in user experience across the board.

Factor Five's Julian Eggebrecht, following what's started as a shaky response to Lair, has reassessed his position on licensing IPs. Addressing a crowd in roundtable discussion, here was his experiential advice.

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