If you haven’t heard the news, Bethesda is complaining about the name of a card game from the makers of Minecraft, Scrolls. Even worse, they’re sending in the lawyers.
I like to work on indie game projects. The first that I released was BlokPanic, on the App Store. I’ve got other game ideas, but I’m always worried. It’s become common practice for game developers to sued each other. I was going to post some links, but I was overwhelmed by the number of cases I can find on the Internet.
As I understand it, to get sued because of similarities to another game, the similarities must be such that a consumer might get confused between the two products. In the case of Scrolls, this might be complicated. However, the definition is vague enough that lawyers don’t need to aim that carefully when firing law suites. And how can a part-time Canadian indie game developer defend himself from a law suite in the states?
I’ve say it before, I’ll say it again, law suites stifles creativity. There are cases when law suites are needed. However, using law suites to bludgeon competition is unethical and immoral.