Most people are probably aware of the lawsuit [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113339-Mojang-and-Bethesda-Are-Going-to-Court] that Bethesda have taken up against Mojang AB and there's a few threads already discussing it, but I just thought I'd encourage anyone who, like me, is angry and disappointed by Bethesda to send them a letter/email to let them know how we feel.
I think it's got to more effective telling them directly in a coherent and intelligent way than general raging on the internet. Hell they might even start to believe their playerbase has enough intelligence to know the difference between the juggernaught that is "SKYRIM: The Elder Scrolls V" and an indie game called "Scrolls" but that's probably too much to hope for...
Here's Bethesda's contact form [http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/contact_email.php] and just as an example, here's what I sent them earlier, though I'm sure you can all come up with better arguments:
Dear Bethesda,
Firstly I would like to say I am a great fan of many of your games, I have lost a large chunk of time to the worlds you have created and I greatly appreciate your contribution to gaming.
However today I?m writing to you in disappointment about the upcoming lawsuit with Mojang AB. I understand the importance of protecting your IP and would fully support you if I believed it to be in any danger, however in this case I am entirely unable to do so.
There are already plenty of people expressing why confusion would be ludicrous (not least Notch himself) but suffice to say, I find the implication that a single word similarity could confuse your audience between two such obviously different games to be borderline insulting, especially since your games are more widely known by their individual names i.e. 'Skyrim' rather than the 'Elder Scrolls V.'
While there are numerous other things within the industry I could complain about, the reason I am compelled to write to you is because I think that Bethesda has done far more good to the industry than most and I find it so disheartening to see this bullying behaviour coming from a company I have so much respect for. It is particularly upsetting to see a disagreement like this between two developers I like so much.
I appreciate that my own feelings are hardly important in the grand scale of things and that I cannot be entirely informed of the details, but I cannot even understand this from a business perspective. The general bad press and negative feeling that this has generated is likely to lose you far more sales and cause more upset than any confusion with the name Scrolls might.
Despite this, I still intend to purchase both Skyrim as well as Scrolls, whatever the outcome, but I wish (rather naively) that good sense could prevail and this disagreement can be dropped without further damage to either party.
Thank you for reading this, I hope that my argument and the numerous others that are being expressed have at least had some attention paid to them.
Yours Sincerely
I think it's got to more effective telling them directly in a coherent and intelligent way than general raging on the internet. Hell they might even start to believe their playerbase has enough intelligence to know the difference between the juggernaught that is "SKYRIM: The Elder Scrolls V" and an indie game called "Scrolls" but that's probably too much to hope for...
Here's Bethesda's contact form [http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/contact_email.php] and just as an example, here's what I sent them earlier, though I'm sure you can all come up with better arguments:
Dear Bethesda,
Firstly I would like to say I am a great fan of many of your games, I have lost a large chunk of time to the worlds you have created and I greatly appreciate your contribution to gaming.
However today I?m writing to you in disappointment about the upcoming lawsuit with Mojang AB. I understand the importance of protecting your IP and would fully support you if I believed it to be in any danger, however in this case I am entirely unable to do so.
There are already plenty of people expressing why confusion would be ludicrous (not least Notch himself) but suffice to say, I find the implication that a single word similarity could confuse your audience between two such obviously different games to be borderline insulting, especially since your games are more widely known by their individual names i.e. 'Skyrim' rather than the 'Elder Scrolls V.'
While there are numerous other things within the industry I could complain about, the reason I am compelled to write to you is because I think that Bethesda has done far more good to the industry than most and I find it so disheartening to see this bullying behaviour coming from a company I have so much respect for. It is particularly upsetting to see a disagreement like this between two developers I like so much.
I appreciate that my own feelings are hardly important in the grand scale of things and that I cannot be entirely informed of the details, but I cannot even understand this from a business perspective. The general bad press and negative feeling that this has generated is likely to lose you far more sales and cause more upset than any confusion with the name Scrolls might.
Despite this, I still intend to purchase both Skyrim as well as Scrolls, whatever the outcome, but I wish (rather naively) that good sense could prevail and this disagreement can be dropped without further damage to either party.
Thank you for reading this, I hope that my argument and the numerous others that are being expressed have at least had some attention paid to them.
Yours Sincerely
