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Mojang’s Next Game Can Still Be Called Scrolls
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Good news!
Hell, I don't even like Minecraft but Zenimax/Bethesda should go . The whole thing was just as bullshit as Apple's patent war, just with a happier ending.
In other news, I'm going to sue anyone who starts a sentence with "Hell". Hell, I use it more than anyone, why shouldn't it be mine?!?! Hell, people might mistake completely different comments from other people as my own.
I keep forgetting that anything you type in triangle brackets doesn't show up so imagine these regular brackets as triangle ones;
"Hell, I don’t even like Minecraft but Zenimax/Bethesda should (do something obscene to themselves)"
Except that it hasn't ended at all.
On the most basic of level's essentially mojang has been granted bail.
They are currently free to name their game scrolls(Move around in public) but if they lose the lawsuit, they will either be forced to rename the game or pay royalties to Zenimax as a result.
the only reason this interim injunction is granted, is because otherwise zenimax could win without finishing the court case.
Seeing as it could take 1-2 years to get this all resolved, Without this injunction if Scrolls were to launch in 6 month's time they would have to launch under another name. At which time Zenimax has won by default and can drop the case, re-opening it if mojang tries to pull a fast one and re-name the game back to scrolls.
The injunction is a good thing for them now but if they loose the case in the long run it could become costly.
"Hell, its about time."
As an imaginary representative of Blizzardtavision I must incist that you cease all use of the word "Hell" as that is indicative of our recently launched Starcraft 2 game. Failure of compliance will result in immediate court precedings at your expense.
I'm just waiting for the massive three way lawsuit where Lucas arts, NBC and Blizzard all sue each other over their exclusive right to use the word "Star" in their major IP's.
Obviously people could easily confuse Star Trek, Star Wars and Star Craft much more easily than Scrolls/The Elder Scrolls XX: XXXXX.
It's a timebomb waiting to go off.
I mentioned this on GameIndustry.biz but the Escapist went into the other side but basically to sum it up, the Only reason ZeniMax is filling against Mojang and Scrolls is so they dont lose the copyright to the Elder Scrolls, now they dont lose the copy right but if they dont defend it no matter what it opens grounds for others to argue "but they used it why cant we" and that could lead to in this case to the possibility that a future western rpg by gamesloft being called the Older Scrolls: highlands for ios can be made.
This is the most likely and logical reason, because ZeniMax would of let this slide if they could because Notch and MineCraft have such a strong following that include a large chunk of there consumer base they still make quite a bit of money off and dont want to piss off.
You'd think the way to do that without being dicks would just be to offer to licence the name to Mojang. for $1. That way their IP is respected, Mojang can use the name and it's less of a feeding frenzy for the lawyers.
Problem there is if they gave it to them for $1 they set a precedent for anyone else that wishes to use a similar name to scrolls. They would be obliged to liscence the name for similar pricing and to more people.
Not at all, it's their property, they're allowed to licence it to whoever they like for whatever price they negotiate with that other party. It doesn't set any precedent at all.
Stephen King sold the rights to his short story The Woman In The Room to Frank Darabont for $1. He gave JJ Abrams an option on the film rights to The Dark Tower for $19. That doesn't mean he was obliged to sell the rights to those or any of his other stories to any other film makers for the same prices.
Lets finish this... Todd Howard AND Notch interview each other:
http://youtu.be/G8jT476BA8Y
A small victory for common sense.
OH GOD YOU TASTE SO GOOD NOTCH PLEASE LET ME LAP UP MORE OF YOUR DELICIOUS EFFLUENT BOOO I HATE BIG COMPANIES EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TOO AND TAKE HOLIDAYS EVERYTIME YOU CODE ONE LINE OF CODE. STUPID EA.
Its funny, cause you're a fucking imbocile.
It's funny coz it's 'mostly' true
Notch is a fairly big tool at times.
And sadly, I'm pretty sure the holiday comment is true. :\
All this Scrolls news makes me wish they'd just focus on Minecraft insted of Scrolls, seeinga s they are a company that has not released a full game to date.
I never understood why they started another project when they hadn't even finished their first, to me I get the impression cause Minecraft was so good they think they do no wrong, however what type of gamer does Scrolls cater to?
oh no...how will I even tell the two games apart if they both have the name Scroll in them.