Life as a successful game developer would be pretty sweet you’d think? Spend all day earning money by developing the thing you’re most passionate about. Well it’s not always that way, sadly there are sometimes lawsuits involved.
Creator of the super seriously successful game Minecraft, Markus Persson (A.K.A. Notch), continues to fight a possible lawsuit over the rights to the game title ‘scrolls‘. Elder Scrolls developers Bethesda are suing Mojang over the use of the word as the title for a separate project in development. Initially replying in his famously humerous style, Notch laid down this challenge instead;
I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins. If we win, you drop the lawsuit. If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with. Regardless of the outcome, we could still have a small text somewhere saying our game is not related to your game series in any way, if you wish. I am serious, by the way.
Well it appears Bethesda declined his challenge. In a recent blog post Notch mentioned the continued communication between Mojang and Bethesda’s lawyers, citing;
Lawyers have been sending papers back and forth, threatening each other with deadlines and court dates. “Why don’t we settle this in a mature way?”, one party asks the other. “Your MOTHER settles things in mature ways”, the other party cleverly retorts, “because of her age.”
Last thing I heard, we were a couple of weeks past a “super seriously, we will sue you for real this time” deadline, and letters are still being sent back and forth.
It seems a trifle petty of Bethesda to be pursuing this with such aggression, but when you have a franchise as widely known as theirs i guess you need to defend your turf. Even from those pesky indie developers. With any luck Bethesda will accept Notch’s quake challenge and settle the issue in the most honorable of ways, and not have to resort to litigation.
Your move Bethesda.
