Bethesda Parent ZeniMax Forces Indie Game Name Change

The largest and most successful games publishers/developers enjoy the advantage of existence able to beget a team of lawyers. If some other company attempts to exercise something they don't like, the lawyers get to piece of work. And that's exactly what Bethesda parent company ZeniMax merely did to a three-person indie studio attempting to develop the game formerly known as Casualty for the Gods.

ZeniMax didn't take a trouble with the game No Matter Studios is developing. It's a Kickstarter-funded project that'due south very reminiscent of PlayStation 2 game Shadow of the Colossus. Gamers liked the idea plenty to pledge $500,000 towards its development, which is going well if the latest newsletter is to be believed. Withal, the game's proper noun is no longer Prey for the Gods. It's Praey for the Gods.

No Matter took the step of attempting to trademark the proper noun of the game like whatever responsible company would. In fact, they originally intended to telephone call the game Praey for the Gods, but changed the showtime give-and-take to Casualty knowing it would exist much easier for people to discover and call up. So both names were submitted for trademarking, merely Prey for the Gods came back as disputed past, you guessed it, ZeniMax.

The reason is a unproblematic one. ZeniMax/Bethesda own the Prey IP and are about to release a new Prey game, so they are very sensitive to anything that may confuse the market. That includes using the word Prey in whatever game name. Ridiculous? Yeah. Surprising? No.

No Matter admits they could accept fought the trademark dispute, simply "trademark opposition can exist long and depending on how far someone wants to fight it can be very expensive. We didn't desire to spend our precious Kickstarter funds, nor did we want to have to ask for additional funds to fight this in court."

I retrieve they made the right determination as ZeniMax probably wouldn't back down. The visitor took a like line back in 2022 when developer Mojang (Minecraft) was creating the game Scrolls. Bethesda is best known for its Elder Scrolls games.

So if y'all were looking forward to playing Prey for the Gods, you'll take to adjust to looking forward to playing Praey for the Gods. Beyond that, nothing else has changed.