Konami gets In the Groove

Dance Dance Revolution publisher ends court case with Roxor; settlement sees Konami get rights to In the Groove franchise.

As often as gamers and critics cry "copycat" over titles that share visual styles or gameplay mechanics, it's rare for the publishers themselves to take such issues to court. And when they do, there's no clear pattern of what can happen. In the early 1980s, Atari successfully had the Magnavox Odyssey game K.C. Munchkin pulled from store shelves because it was ruled too similar to Pac-Man, for which Atari had the exclusive home license. In the '90s, Capcom sued Data East over the Street Fighter II-like Fighter's History, but it failed to secure a victory in court.

The latest in the long line of legal clone wars has concluded, as Roxor Games announced on its Web site yesterday that it had reached a settlement with Konami over its In the Groove franchise of dancing games, which bears a striking resemblance to Konami's own Dance Dance Revolution series. The terms of the settlement state that Konami gets the rights to the In the Groove series, and Roxor will respect the publisher's intellectual property rights in the future.

As of press time, Konami and Roxor had not returned requests for comment.

40 Comments

  • -Nintendude-

    Posted Nov 26, 2008 1:04 am PT

    DDR is just dated in my opinion. I actually prefer Pump It Up Pro over ITG now, it's from the makers of ITG but is naturally much complicated game because of the PIU pad. There still is a ITG2 arcade machine quite near here and I play it once in a while also.

  • Shirokani

    Posted Aug 14, 2008 6:37 pm PT

    Agreed. There's so many more options and the backgrounds aren't distracting. If only I could find a copy...

  • MixMaxDancer

    Posted May 3, 2008 4:25 pm PT

    I find ITG Style of Gameplay MUCH more fun than DDR Style of game play.
    DDR arrows kind of blends into the background of the game making it hard to see. ITG you can change the Arrows so the stand out

  • banzaigtv

    Posted Feb 21, 2008 8:17 am PT

    It appears that Konami is learning from RoXor. They have finally released an ITG-wannabe boss song done right: Pluto Relinquish. It's superhard, but the stepcharts are actually good. In fact, this song was done much better than FaxX, FELM, HDV, and Chaos. Download link: http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v4/viewsimfile.php?simfileid=2947

  • sword_stalker

    Posted Sep 29, 2007 2:17 pm PT

    Starfox said: "Goes to show that when you rip from someone else's idea, you're putting yourself in a big legal crosshair. And Konami took that shot. They had every right to sue Roxor Games. Now the Andamari suit, they didn't have to do that. The only thing PIU and DDR has in common is the concept of stepping on arrows. There were a few songs on PIU that was in past Bemani games, but no reason to sue. As for Roxor, their own fault. I applaud you Konami, you have every reason to go for it!" I disagree with him. In The groove is better game engine with a better gameplay. I can do about 600-700 steps on ITG in 2minutes, and I can barely step 100-200 steps on DDR... The pad response is disgraceful. ITG rules.

  • krillinish

    Posted Sep 11, 2007 1:10 am PT

    Sad face comment.

    Come back, ITG!

  • Janzu93

    Posted Sep 6, 2007 11:56 am PT

    Konami didn't like ITG cause ITG1 was made to DDR cabinet
    and Konami cancelled ITG3 but just wait for next DDR to see how much they did copy from it

  • perfectchslemon

    Posted Jun 28, 2007 12:17 pm PT

    If only Roxor could've stayed just a little longer to release ITG3. I really don't think Konami cared at first when Roxor made ITG. It was active for 2 years. I do agree that Roxor should have gotten permission to make an extra dance game, but It seemed like Konami might have been jealous of ITG because it was so much better. Now that Konami had made SuperNOVA, they tried to make steps harder than ITG steps, and they sucked. Healing D Vision oni sucked and so did Faxx oni.

  • CdWafflez

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 3:05 pm PT

    I've never played DDR but I have played In The Groove so yay for them

  • _Sam_

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 1:58 pm PT

    I didn't know about this lawsuit

  • anamnawshad

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 9:11 am PT

    Never played a dance game......

  • zenntench

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 2:03 am PT

    ahh. and now i want to know what would happend if i told this to my friends that loves and plays itg. hmmmm

  • DGFreak

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:46 pm PT

    LOL@LAZZOR's comment.

    A ddr-style dance-off in a court of law. Could you imagine?

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 8:14 pm PT

    i predict that it will not be successfull

  • nintendorocks

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 7:37 pm PT

    What does this mean? In the Groove will never again see the light of day. R.I.P. In the Groove-You kinda sucked.

  • starfoxmcleoud

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 7:10 pm PT

    Goes to show that when you rip from someone else's idea, you're putting yourself in a big legal crosshair. And Konami took that shot. They had every right to sue Roxor Games. Now the Andamari suit, they didn't have to do that. The only thing PIU and DDR has in common is the concept of stepping on arrows. There were a few songs on PIU that was in past Bemani games, but no reason to sue. As for Roxor, their own fault. I applaud you Konami, you have every reason to go for it!

  • pie_guy

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 5:27 pm PT

    ...Not cool konami....not cool...... :'(

  • -CR7-

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 4:25 pm PT

    Boom headshot! I never really liked ITG. DDR FTW!!!

  • paranoiasurviva

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 3:36 pm PT

    Stedmister:

    Work on your English.

  • Stedmister

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 2:16 pm PT

    korean publisher's pump it up is another copy of DDR, go looka at video, DDR and PIU are different and similar in many was, but the man difference is PIU uses five "arrows" while DDR uses 4, and PIU is degined for freestyling whille DDR is not, research people, research, and from what I saw of ITG, i'm glad it got pawn the graphics looked horable.

  • paranoiasurviva

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 2:07 pm PT

    Mit_Man: You don't like the SuperNOVA interface? I love the SuperNOVA interface. It owns.

  • Mit_Man

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 1:58 pm PT

    Lame. This disappoints me, especially with the direction DDR is going. The menu designs are getting worse and worse (citing SuperNova here), and that god-awful Dance Master Mode is terrible for anyone except for people completely new to the series. ITG stuck to the roots of DDR, enhanced it, had better skills at making stepcharts (although Konami tried very hard with SuperNova and pumped out some decent charts, not that I get to play them that often due to this damned Dance Master Mode). I want to just play songs to unlock more songs, not do tons of ridiculous goals that are based off of luck half the time, and are just tedious rather than fun.

    I also wonder what will happen with the series in the arcades. The arcade machines make tons of money from the hardcore dance community (who Konami has failed to appease with DDR any longer). There was also a planned ITG3. I cannot see Konami doing anything with the franchise though, besides letting it die, and only keeping DDR up. I'm sad for Roxor though and the developers of the series, as unless they're working for Konami, they're pretty much out of their jobs.

  • GuardianofRice

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 1:25 pm PT

    Whooaaaa... Never thought this could happen. It's a great plus for Konami. But I'm disappointed, since ITG did indeed have better songs, stepcharts, scoring system, etc.

    Hopefully Konami can learn something though, and churn out even greater songs/stepcharts. I'll be waiting, don't disappoint Konami! I have faith in you!

  • paranoiasurviva

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 1:13 pm PT

    lol. ITG and DDR are the same thing.

  • Poost

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 12:58 pm PT

    This really sucks. In the Groove has had better music and step patterns than DDR. Now Konami can make In the Groove just as lame...

  • WolfSkill5544

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 12:21 pm PT

    good for Konami

  • DarKaoZ

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 12:05 pm PT

    timts:
    korean publisher's pump it up is another copy of DDR, I hope they can sue the hell out of those koreans. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    What?? PIU a copy of DDR?!? Geez... did you know they both were released the same year with only a month in difference? Also PIU is supperior to DDR in lots of aspects, atleast the Koreans put a lot more of work in the game than Konami, because PIU has a lot more music variation, is also way more harder, better presentation and the game actually makes you do free style to be able to pull out some moves with no problem.

  • liversnot

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:58 am PT

    both of these games are pretty lame......i mean who needs another version of DDR? DDR is the worst music based game ever......besides beatmania...also made by konami.........i am sad because there is not many music games, but the ones that are there are way better.

  • VixDiesel

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:36 am PT

    Wow, how lame.

    There's goes a great game series.

  • timts

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:36 am PT

    korean publisher's pump it up is another copy of DDR, I hope they can sue the hell out of those koreans.

  • michelle_moraes

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:26 am PT

    I've played In the Groove and honestly, I see no loss at all, DDR is far superior in my opinion...

  • DJGeki

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:16 am PT

    Whew...thank goodness this didn't happen to Feet of Fury (www.cagames.com)

  • LAZZOR

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:10 am PT

    This could've been settled with a simple dance-off.

  • punkindoubt86

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:57 am PT

    "I guess there really are not too many ways to make a different dance-pad-based game. Hopefully publishers be forced to be creative now. "

    Actually there is.. I've seen this game called "Exceed" in the arcades and its similar to DDR but NOT DDR, so I agree.. this will force publishers to be creative.

  • mr_squibble

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:53 am PT

    I guess there really are not too many ways to make a different dance-pad-based game. Hopefully publishers be forced to be creative now.

  • punkindoubt86

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:53 am PT

    Well.. I own an "into the groove" copy for the PS2 published by Roxor.. and believe me its not that good.. so I'm glad Konami go the settlement.... Roxor was copying from Konami.. and didn't even do it well.

  • kinglink2

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:51 am PT

    That was so obvious it was going to happen. Too bad ITG, that's why you don't charge for emulators and you don't act like you are completely original when stealing ideas like this. Nice try.

  • nix6six6

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:39 am PT

    come on, just release DDR for 360 already!!!!

  • Nyaar

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:37 am PT

    OWNED!!!

  • Toadstool1969

    Posted Oct 19, 2006 10:35 am PT

    Ouch! Sucks for Roxor.

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Related Game

In The Groove Boxshot
In The Groove

Game Stats

Full Game Details »Close

Related Games

Site Blogs