by ·Comments Off on Quick Comment: Games for Good

To add another footnote to the “games are actually quite good for you” argument, read the last part of this news post from Penny Arcade headed “Dad Stuff”.

I am fully aware that Minecraft is a fairly unique game and equally aware that if I had it at a younger age, there would probably be a lot less Lego in my attic, but this is a beautiful example of how children can benefit from playing games.

Penny Arcade are probably the most incredible example of a force for good in gaming culture and from the content of a lot of their comics, I doubt many people saw it coming.  They truly are amazing people and whenever I hear someone criticise a webcomic of “just trying to be like Penny Arcade” I fail to see the criticism.  If the world was more like Penny Arcade, it would quite frankly be a better world.

by ·3 Comments

A Trademark Troll is a term applied to someone who makes money by relying on the revenue from legal action that they take against anyone creating something that they can link to one of their registered trademarks without really providing anything of any value.  This can be a lucrative course of action with some people seeming to make whole careers out of this and is particularly rampant in the technology industry.

Most recently, Markus ‘Notch’ Pearson, creator of the runaway success Minecraft, has reported that his recently minted development studio, Mojang, has received a letter from the lawyers of Bethesda concerning a trademark infringement.  Mojang’s in-development title “Scrolls“, according to Bethesda, is too similar to their long running RPG series, “The Elder Scrolls”, better known to gamers as Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and the upcoming Skyrim which should be released in November.

The argument is that the name Scrolls could confuse gamers into thinking that it’s associated with Bethesda’s series.  If successful, it would mean that Bethesda would essentially own the word scrolls.  Based on legal precedent, it seems unlikely that they will succeed.

Continue reading