Bethesda Trademark Bullying Results In Indie Game Adding A Whole Letter To Its Name, But Not Its Logo

from the a-for-effort dept

One of the most infuriating aspects of typical trademark disputes is how often the dire nature of the supposed infringement is ratcheted up in the threat rhetoric, while the eventual settlement reached seems laughably inconsequential. Bethesda, which has built a reputation for itself in terms of trademark bullying over its video game franchises, has been an example of this sort of thing in the past. When it decided that it owned the term "scrolls" generally after trademarking its Elder Scrolls franchise, it launched a dispute with developer Mojang over its game which was titled Scrolls. Much was made about the potential for customer confusion, except the eventual settlement allowed Mojang to keep the name for its game. One wonders why such a settlement would be agreed to by Bethesda were its original assertions remotely accurate.

But where Mojang's settlement was at least cut and dry, such is not the case with indie studio No Matter Studios. No Matter held a successful Kickstarter campaign for its game Prey for the Gods, but ran into trouble when it tried to trademark the name for its title.

In a post mostly about updates made to the game following its successful Kickstarter, No Matter Studios also announce that the project will now be known as Praey for the Gods after Bethesda "chose to oppose our [trademark]."

"We could've fought this and we did think about it for quite a while", the statement says. "Something like a trademark opposition can be long and depending on how far someone wants to fight it can be very expensive. We didn't want to spend our precious Kickstarter funds, nor did we want to have to ask for additional funds to fight this in court."

Instead of fighting, No Matter reached an agreement with Bethesda, and that agreement carries with it a hilariously meager name change for No Matter's game. Instead of calling it Prey for the Gods, it will instead be titled Praey for the Gods. A single lower-case "a", it seems, is all it took to satisfy Bethesda's hunger for trademark protection. I would submit to you, dear readers, that any potential customer confusion is unlikely to be alleviated by that single character.

Particularly when No Matter is allowed to keep the original name in its logo for the game.

"While we disagree with their opposition we were able to come to an agreement", No Matter say. That agreement means that they can continue to use a logo that says Prey For The Gods, with a stylised "e" that's actually the silhouette of a woman praying, but must use Praey for the Gods every time the game's name is written.

And that might actually be confusing, but not in any way that points gamers to Bethesda. For the name of the game and its logo to be different is going to strike everyone as odd, all while the actual name change rings as wholly inconsequential.

I'm not sure what kind of billable hours get generated for this sort of thing, but I give Bethesda's lawyers an A for effort when it comes to justifying the timecard.

Filed Under: praey for the gods, trademark
Companies: bethesda, no matter sudios