Bethesda vs. Mojang: 'Scrolls' case going to court

@Epoque

Scrolls of Elder Scrolls!

But seriously, whilst I love me some Elder Scrolls (and plan on making my wife a Skyrim widow) this type of douchebaggery just reflects so poorly (and unjustly) on the dev team. The legal guys are seriously blowing this out of proportion and giving the entire Bethesda team a bad image.

@Epoque

I can tell you one thing, If Mojang wins this

'The Elder Card' would make a fine expansion pack for Scrolls.

Hurry Notch, to the TrademarkOfficeMobile!

@(Unverified)

Agreed. I don't even know anyone that has ever referred to any of their games by their full title. Marrowind was Marrowind. Oblivion was Oblivion. And Skyrim is now Skyrim, it's not Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

Furthermore, it's 'Elder Scrolls' not 'Scrolls.' So even if people did use the full names of their titles, it's hard to believe that people are going to mistake Scrolls for an Elder Scrolls title.

@(Unverified)

"this type of douchebaggery just reflects so poorly (and unjustly) on the dev team. The legal guys are seriously blowing this out of proportion and giving the entire Bethesda team a bad image"


HA... HA... HAHAHAHA.... am i reading this right?!?

so let me get this straight, Bethesda is suing Mojang over something stupid but its NOT the devs fault, or Bethesdas fault in general, its their LEGAL DEPARTMENT who is being d!cks about this.

BUT...

If EA or Activision would do the same with a game called "Duty Calls" the blame would be 110% on Activision and the COD devs. right? because we hate them.

if you are gonna say "F*** Bathesda" for their stance on this matter don't go soft and then blame a department of the company that only takes orders from the company itself. You get me?

thats what wrong with alot of you people, you put devs and some of these companies up in these pedestals, praise them, blindly defend them and when they do something like what bethesda is doing you become all confused and sad as if a person you love is cheating on you, "No it can't be true" you say.. "it must be (insert excuse here)"... "yeah thats it" * cradles self to sleep*

@PR0F3TA
Because Todd Howard himself said "Let's sue Mojang!"?

Herp Derp.

Remember when all of those developers were spiting Langdell by taking their existing games and adding 'edge' to the titles? I think Joystiq should do the same.

Scrollstiq.

There, I saved you the time and effort, just be sure and give me a bit of the credit.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks

Bethesda dev team =/= Bethesda legal team.

@The Scout Development team does work under the same Bethesda umbrella as the legal team, so kinda the same thing. Still going to purchase all future content used. I don't feel sorry for the development teams one bit.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks

Dude. Notch himself asked people repeatedly on Twitter not to boycott Bethesda over this, as he knows it's just lawyer bullshit. He fully plans on buying Skyrim, and doesn't want other people to screw over the hardworking devs on his account.

From Tumblr: "First of all, I love Bethesda. I assume this nonsense is partly just their lawyers being lawyers, and a result of trademark law being the way it is."

@The Scout

True that Bethesda Legal != Bethesda Devs

But (Bethesda Legal != Bethesda Devs) != Bethesda unscathed

in corporate are only as good as your weakest link.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks
People are downvoting you so they'll feel better with themselves about buying Skyrim and supporting this dickheadery.

@Colin The last time I checked, the lawyers work for Bethesda, not the other way around. If Bethesda didn't want to go ahead with the lawsuit, then they could have reined in their dogs at any time, but they haven't .

With that said, I totally look forward to buying the game of the year edition of Skyrim used so that Bethesda can't use my money to fund a legal team that they apparently can't control.

@Lucky48Oh, I read his post and he's basically using what Notch said to make himself feel better for buying Skyrim despite the fact that Bethesda are a bunch of pricks. True, it may have been the lawyers who initiated all of this, but ultimately it's Bethesda who followed through with it. Like I said before, the lawyers work for Bethesda, not the other way around. If the company had really wanted to not go through with it, then they would told their legal team to back off. Going by the title of this article, I'm guessing Bethesda decided to go ahead with the lawsuit.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks
I find it hilarious that a random person on the internet is getting more offended at the lawsuit than the person being sued himself.

Internet overreaction at its finest.

@FinalFantasyXIIIsucks

dude i love you. Look at all these pathetic mindless zombies not knowing how to react to news that their precious company they have praised and loved for so long can actually be a huge effing d!ck like EA or Activision.

look at them.. they blame EVERYONE and ANYONE. They think that Bethesda's legal team is independent and their checks aren't signed by the same guy who signs the devs checks. Let them upvote themselves, i feel its the only way they will be able to sleep at night.

@Dahlius
I think you're underestimating how much money Mojang have. Not to mention the fact that Bethesda are trying to stop them using a very common word that isn't even closely associated with their game.

Scrolls isn't even remotely the same genre either, so there's not much chance of confusing between the two.

Bethesda don't stand a chance of winning this.

@Dahlius

I only see two things that are quite moronic here: Bethesda trying to trademark a single common word, and your comment.

@bigwhiteyeti
Biased and clearly defensive. My comment just pointed out the plain fact that going against a giant company such as Bethesda is financial suicide. Calling my post 'moronic' was uncalled for.

@Dahlius

Your post was really silly. Your point is just because Bethesda is really big then nobody should challenge them. lol what a douche bag.

@Dahlius

Both these companies have money to burn.

The case appears to the layman (me) to be pathetically weak and Bethesda should probably consider hiring a fresh new legal division after this snafu. Maybe a replacement PR division as well because this is not going to end well for them IMHO.

I'm sorta crossing my fingers for Mojang and hoping that they don't only win but that Bethesda is held accountable for all legal fees on both sides.

@Dahlius Since when is bending over synonymous with "the adult thing to do"? Adults stand up for themselves, kids get bullied.

I think a word that exists in the dictionary, a lone word, should not be allowed to be trademarked. If there is any justice Bethesda will lose this because it's an asinine request.

@Dahlius
Or Bethesda could've just played Mojang in Quake 3, we all know who would've won, the people who own Id.

@Scuffles
I guess I don't quite see where Dahlius's comment is completely invalid.

Mojang doesn't have the financial resources of Zenimax. If Bethesda wants to win badly enough, it will. This is a role playing game at it's best, except instead of hit-points, it's dollars available to spend on lawyers. And I'm pretty sure Mojang's the weaker player here.

Is this lawsuit asinine? Absolutely. It's admirable that Mojang is standing up to them, and the fact it's actually going to court may work in Mojang's favor. But in the end, it's going to come down to how much Mojang has budgeted for this, and where they should spend their money: On lawyers to defend some arbitrary word that Zenimax/Bethesda thinks they own? Or development of new products. Long term existence of the company probably sides with the latter.

Twisted Pixel didn't go after Capcom for a similar reason during the SplosionMan/Maxplosion fiasco. They're a smaller company that would rather spend their money on developing new products.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the effort. Let Bethesda suffer the PR damage of bullying an indie. I'd rather see Mojang think of a better name than Scrolls, and invest the money in development rather than participate in some idiotic legal pissing match..

@Rain

lol

Just don't buy from Gamestop.

@bigwhiteyeti /concur
Sounds like the lawyers just want a payday. Give us money to sue somebody for no good reason.

@Prince David It's his personal twitter account, not a press release.

@slickie That is true, but there is something off about the way he is handling this. Challenging Bethesda to a Quake 3 deathmatch, only to back out when he finds out they own the Quake franchise. This is a ridiculous lawsuit but treat it as such, not some kind of game.

@Prince David I don't think there's anything off with the way he's handling this. He's not the first person to joke about stupid lawsuits. Penny Arcade getting sued by American Greetings for drawing Strawberry Shortcake was one of the funniest sagas in the comic.

@Prince David
Way to be uninformed bub.
He didn't back out of it, he offered the challenge then joked about how Bethesda owns the people who started the Quake series. Bethesda obviously never agreed to it, and are now pushing the case into the courts, it isn't exactly by Mojang's decision.

@Prince David

What? He didn't "back out when he finds out they own the Quake franchise." He was joking - handling the situation with levity, as opposed to Bethesda's too-serious take-him-to-court response to his game's name.

For one thing, they never accepted his proposition - and I'm sure he knew they never would, because if they were going to be that light-hearted and friendly about it they wouldn't have attempted to sue him to begin with. For another, I seriously doubt he just "found out" that they own Quake, it's not like he hadn't heard of them, or of Quake before. It was part of the joke, along with challenging them to a game they own in the first place.

Humour is not the same thing as immaturity, not when making casual comments, nor when being a public personality. He may be indirectly mocking their dead seriousness with his jokes, but he hasn't attacked or slandered Bethesda, he's been fairly civil about something that most of the public seem to agree is a frivolous and somewhat insulting lawsuit.

If he doesn't take this seriously once he actually gets to court, that will be a different story. He'll have his chance to state his case, or rather have his lawyers state it for him, but for now he's afforded some levity.

@slickie But Penny Arcade are professional satirists. Notch is a game maker. Maybe he should be letting his legal team handle this. Anyone who's caught the last half hour of an episode of law and order is familiar with the Miranda warning, right? He's making a mockery out of the process with comments like these. Frivolous law suits happen every day, but no matter how you look at it, he isn't approaching the case with any sense of maturity. That might come to bite him in the ass. Weee!!!!

@Prince David

Maybe part of him is actually looking forward to the court battle. I mean it could be kinda fun and the worst that happens is that he has to change the name and loses money he can easily afford to burn.

@linjesender What case?

@linjesender

The idea that owning a trademark "The Elder Scrolls" Entitles you to veto any game containing any part of your trademark name (that consists of three common words) is not a case. They are throwing lawyers at someone to hinder development knowing that they have a pile of lawyers that are paid anyways, and hoping that the case never goes to court.

Anyways, heres hoping its thrown out. And that one of the cards in the game is titled "The Scroll of Elders"

@Dahlius The word "Scrolls" is not a well-established trademark in the industry. The only game I know of called "Scrolls" is Notch's game.

I'll eat my hat if anyone in the history of man has ever gone around saying "HEY MAN BETHESDA'S MAKING SCROLLS 5"