Posted on 08/22/2011 5:23:03 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Notch, the creator of Minecraft and upcoming game Scrolls, is having to deal with a rather problematic legal issue at the moment. Because his new game is called Scrolls, Bethesda has a problem with it. Notch received a 15 page legal document earlier this month asking him to refrain from using the name because it infringed the Elder Scrolls trademark somehow.
Bethesda is a big company with a healthy bank balance, where as Notch may be doing well from sales of Minecraft, but certainly doesn’t want to have to fund a court case. So he has come up with a solution to this problem.
Posting on his blog, Notch has challenged Bethesda to a game of Quake 3 instead of a lawsuit. He wants Bethesda’s best three players to go up against three from his own Scrolls‘ development team. There will be one level selected per team and they split the game into 20-minute matches. Whichever team gets the highest frag count across both levels wins.
Winning will decide the fate of the game’s name. If Notch’s team wins then Bethesda has to allow the use of the name Scrolls and stop all legal action. If Bethesda win, Notch will change the name of the game. It sounds like a fair and gamely challenge to me. The question is, will Bethesda risk losing by accepting?
If I were Bethesda I would agree to the challenge. It’s only going to generate good press for both opponents, and chances are they have some seasoned players working for the company. Even if they lose, everyone playing Scrolls will know it was only called that after an awesome battle on a classic id game.
Read more at The World of Notch
Minecraft is obviously trying to cash in on the Warcraft/Starcraft names. Wait until Blizzard drops the hammer on them!
Battle by champion!
Didn't Idi Amin, who was a boxer in the Army and weighed 300 lbs, offer to fight a neighboring head of state to settle some territorial dispute?
It would certainly prevent a lot of bloodshed, though. :)
Arbitration by computer generation!
Love It!
I think that Hasbro can sue Bethesda then, since the word “scrolls” appears all throughout Dungeons and Dragons, which Hasbro now owns.
I’m a fan of the Elder Scrolls games. But Bethesda does not own the word “scrolls” and this other game is a card game for crap sake. Silly lawsuit.
Legends have it more than one great real-world battle was avoided per the outcome of Chess or Go.
Terraria, A.I. Wars, Dwarf Fortress (free) are other indie games that that keep you up late. Buying indie these days and giving the putt to EA, Take-Two and Ubisoft.
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