So if you pay attention to tech stories at all, and knowing the people who will/might read this i know you don't, you know that in the world of tech, mostly in the phone market, the saying is sue first, ask questions later. The likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung, Microsoft, and many others are suing the crap out of each other. Mostly Apple suing HTC, Samsung, Motorola, ect and then them counter suing but still. the suing is getting crazy, making Google go so far to buy Motorola to get their 17000+ patents they currently have, for 12.5 billion dollars. Yes i did say billion. Anyways the reason i am telling you this is to get you up to date, so i can lead into what i really wanted to talk about.
Joining the fray of the sue happy is Bethesda. If you know know who Bethesda is they are the creators of the likes of Morriwind, Oblivion and soon to be released Skyrim, among many others, like quake and doom. Who are they suing you ask? They are suing Markus "Notch" Persson, the man behind Minecraft and head of Mojang. Notch has a new game in the works called Scrolls, a card based game, to my understanding. it is kinda like Magic the Gathering or Pokemon but for the computer, or possible the phone. Bethesda thinks Scrolls infringes on their name "the elder scrolls". Many people find this kinda crazy however, since for one, hardly any one calls it the elder scrolls and simply it second name, like Oblivion or Skyrim. Then second, because "scrolls" is nothing like "The elder scrolls". If it was the accident scrolls, ok maybe. But just the one word should not be a trademark infringement. Then thrid, the game are nothing a like either. One is a RPG and the other is a card based game. If they were both RPGs even, maybe i would understand, but it is not.
However because of this, scrolls has got a bit of media, mostly tech blogs. Notch being the brilliant man he is has turned a bit of news and a potentially costly lawsuit into a thing of genius. He has come out and challenged Bethesda to a game of quake 3 deathmatch. A two round, 3 on 3 Quake 3 arena deathmatch, highest frag count wins. With each side picking a map to play on, so to be fair. If Notch wins, he keeps the name and they drop the suit, if Bethesda wins Notch will change his name, with no costly suit for either side. This is a beyond genius move. The likelihood of Bethesda agreeing is probably slim. However, if they did the PR, for both Notch and Bethesda, would be off the charts amazing, no matter who wins. It could even be live streamed so anyone could watch it. If Bethesda doesn't agree to this however, it is still a good move for Notch. He gets the support of thousands of people and gets his game out there in the news. He would be the bigger man, that a big bad company is trying to squish, more so then the image is already there. Even if he backs down and changes his name, or takes the case to court and loses, that is all going to be covered and is more about his game, with its new name as well. Or if he wins, it is a triumph for the little guy, or so it will be reported, and his game will still be put out in the news. Either way Notch wins in a PR move, it is only a matter of how Bethesda comes out of this looking. They have a chance to take an amazing PR move and run with it.
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