In August, small but popular game developer Mojang, the creator of the hit sandbox game Minecraft, found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from big game publisher Bethesda Softworks. The lawsuit claimed that Mojang was violating Bethesda"s trademark by using the name Scrolls as the title for its next major game project, a free-to-play card-based fantasy tactical strategy game. Bethesda said the name was too close to its own Elder Scrolls franchise.
Mojang and its leader, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson, pledged to fight the lawsuit. At one time Persson even suggested Mojang and Bethesda settle things via a Quake 3 match. However, in the end things were settled the old fashioned way by signing a piece of paper. In posts on his Twitter page this weekend, Persson announced that the settlement would allow Mojang to continue using Scrolls as the game"s title.
Persson wrote, "The settlement is that we give them the trademark, get to keep the name, and won"t make an elder scrolls competitor using the name." In a later post he states, "The actual document I signed was like a billion pages, so at least we know a bunch of lawyers got rich. Good, wouldn"t want them to starve."
As far as the game itself, which was announced a year ago this month, Scrolls is still expected to launch sometime in 2012.