Bethesda Legal Team Pressures ‘Fortress Fallout' Devs to Change Name

@xsonicchaos @Zoberk Yes! This is like Tolkien suing William Golding cause he wrote "Lord of the Flies". Very similar names, yet completely irrelevant gameplay. Fallout is just another word with a meaning that can be applied to a lot of things.

Take a look:

1) a: the often radioactive particles stirred up by or resulting from a nuclear explosion and descending through the atmosphere; also : other polluting particles (as volcanic ash) descending likewise

b: descent (as of fallout) through the atmosphere

2) a secondary and often lingering effect, result, or set of consequences<have to take a position and accept the political fallout— Andy Logan>

@purplestone6988 @gaealiege @TJSpyke Actually you can't, as the Candy Crush Saga case proved.

You're entirely wrong, child.

@Darion350 @acp_45

The concept of suing a company for the use of a word that has been in the dictionary long before the company even existed is what took this thing "off the rails". Even the game fallout is about nuclear fallout which is what the word means.

I wonder if they planned to sue the director of the movie "oblivion" It's just as absurd.

I'm wondering if they sued the director of the movie "Oblivion"

This is truly shameful. They don't own the rights to a word that has had meaning long before the company even existed. Hell even the game fallout is about what the very word means.

@VMaven You realize your whole post is irrelevant to the discussion?

Plus, you fail to mention that the jury in the Stac case concluded Microsoft did NOT intentional infringe on the patent. The only reason the amount was so large is because they awarded $5.50 per copy of DOS (about 21.8 million copies). The jury also concluded that Stac stole a trade secret from Microsoft and put it in the new Stac software.

@TJSpyke @MJV1989 MS didn't make Halo, Bungee did. The game was a PC game and MS stepped in bought the exclusive for XBox and it's now history. Console finally had a online shooter for themselves. Like it was a big deal. MS has stolen before... here's one time....

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-02-24/business/fi-26671_1_software-patent

In a nutshell, MS has Stack make a software for them, then "changes their mind", then uses the code to make their own version. MS get's sued, they lose, they charge people for an update to take off the code, redo their version, charge again for the new version.

Wow.. i'm seriously considering never buying another Bethesda game again. When the Susan G. Komen Foundation or whatever it's called started doing this crap, me and my wife stopped supporting anything they touched. If we want to support breast cancer cause, there are other ways.

I understand protecting your IP to some degree, but really most stuff flourishes when you give people freedom. Starwars has so much fan content, you probably could never watch, read, listen to it all.

Decent article but it's needs amending, the video was made by Jordan Maron (a.k.a CaptainSparkelz) he isn't part of Xreal, he's only working with them to make the game. Jeez gaming journalism is dead.

Maybe their first ever press conference at E3 will detail who they plan to try to sue next.

Outfall Vegas would be a funny alternative

I don't think I'll be buying another Bethesda game until they own to this mistake. It's downright shameful.

Fortress : FALLUOT
For Always Loving Liberal Use Of Trebuchets

Let Zenimax have fun with that one

I would go with Bethesda Asshats, sounds good to me.

Trademark ? they used the word Vegas.

Wrong name, Its Jordan Maron not Howard Sparks, You really have no idea who Captain Sparklez is?

This is incorrect. The creator of the video is Jordan Maron and the company owner is Howard Marks

They should change the name to "Team Fallout Fortress 2".

@jski Sometimes the application of certain laws (if not the laws themselves) is stupid and wrong. This is one of those cases.

@jski Yes it's a common legal practice, but it still doesn't make it right or sound. The reference to "Droid" you speak of is a very, very different scenario. "Droid" is not a word, and thus Lucasfilm created the word. Fallout is a normal word. The ONLY thing these two games have in common is that they are both games. There is no other relation at all, not even their platform. And to say the indie dev knows every title of every game is ridiculous. It's just like another poster said - explain how there can be a popular game called "Might and Magic", yet Bethesda can use the "Magic and Mayhem" name. This is an example of a developer overreaching, and would not have stood up in court. Unfortunately, the indie devs don't have the tens of thousands of dollars, or more, to battle someone like Bethesda in court, when they can just change the name. But again, doesn't make it right, and certainly doesn't mean Bethesda should go after any game maker who happens to have an English word in the title of their game that Bethesda uses.

Hopefully Bethesda doesn't get sued by the creators of Might and Magic for their Magic and Mayhem games.

@frigginjoe @greaseman1985 Most mobile games are free and the developers make money based on how many times it's downloaded. A lot of people just download anything that sounds like a game/franchise they like just to try it later or ignore it forever. That doesn't happen if the dev doesn't use a name associated to a more popular game/product regardless of relevance.

The more games are named similarly to a popular IP, the more that original trademark loses value because the market gets flooded with similar titles which makes it less and less likely to be directly affiliated to their game. It's like if you have a successful website and I buy a domain that shares almost the same name and then when people google search that name, they find my shitty website listed before yours or just find dozens of links flooding the search results making it ever so less likely for people to click your web link and more likely to click mine.

That qualifies as riding off of your success.

@Darion350 @kr4q3picdemix So you mean just like in this case? Where the only similarity is in the word itself.

The guys who made Ultima Online should sue Bethesda for The Elder Scrolls Online.

3 add for them though. :D

what ?!

So in a few years from now companies will buy the words that they use in their product names and then forbid people from even saying them.

Bethesda's executives are all children.