[JD bernal]

Two people have just become mods, that usually only happens when there's going to be a big increase in activity on the forums. What would cause a big increase in activity? A game announcement, especially one for TES V. The mods probably wouldn't know if an announcement was coming, but they were probably told by an admin to recruit new mods. And an Admin would know if an announcement was coming soon, especially Gstaff, as he frequently talks with Todd.

Just my two cents.

This is interesting... How can you tell there are new mods?

[Marcia Renton]

snip

According to that, I think there's a possibility Skyrim was trademarked to simply protect it. They may not be using it after all. Who knows.

Then again... No. They have the trademark for video games and merchandise, and manuals. Can't be.

Then again, they could file for all three types of those Skyrim trademarks to protect it anyway. I don't think it automatically means they're using it.

:shrug:

[Sarah Knight]

10/19/2006 for the WiFi mark, so kinda close.

As for protecting the interests (copy and paste email from Pete re: new Skyrim mark):


As a general rule, we protect any existing marks we have on our properties we own. We do what we can to protect our properties and anything we may or may not do with them down the road.





From: Removed for privacy
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2010 12:15 PM
To: Pete Hines
Subject: Trademark Application



Hi Pete,

If you are reading this, then you are looking in your spam folder I bet I know that there is nothing you can say about any upcoming plans for TES, so I am not even going to go there. What I would like to know is why Bethesda has had a history of applying for trademarks and going into their final extensions and then applying again for virtually the same marks with slightly expanded definitions? It happened with Oblivion, and yes I know it recently happened with another mark which will remain out of this conversation; but I wanted to know the rationale behind this.



So sufficed to say, I realize this was written more as catharsis than anything else, since it will likely never get read as I am sure you are inundated with thousands of emails like this and there just isn't enough time in the day.

So there is no evidence that the next TES game is in Skyrim :confused:

[Brian Newman]

According to that, I think there's a possibility Skyrim was trademarked to simply protect it. They may not be using it after all. Who knows.

Then again... No. They have the trademark for video games and merchandise, and manuals. Can't be.

That would be what they would use the trademark for in the future, no? They do not want Skyrim Wifi making video games called Skyrim so they made those trademarks. Does it work that way?

[Peter lopez]

Then again, they could file for all three types of those Skyrim trademarks to protect it anyway. I don't think it automatically means they're using it.

Protect Skyrim video game merchandise and manuals from... whom?

[Nana Samboy]

Protect Skyrim video game merchandise and manuals from... whom?

There is already a company named Skyrim, so that can be a precaution :shrug:

[Cheryl Rice]

Is it possible that the "Skyrim" name was trademarked just for protection as Hungry Donner mentioned, after that wifi company opened its web site as named skyrim? http://www.skyrim.com/ Do the dates match????

No, Trademark only works for specific products. Skyrim Wifi would in now way have much anything to do with "Skyrim" the game unless they were planning on somehow making a game. Then again you never know with lawyers, they could have just been very cautious.

[Isabel Ruiz]

So there is no evidence that the next TES game is in Skyrim :confused:

There never was any 'hard' evidence, hence the term speculation. However the circumstantial evidence certainly provokes ideas such as the game having some sort of relation to the province known as Skyrim.

[Genevieve]

I think that it is safe to assume the next game be it TES 5 or a travels game will be called Skyrim. I am having my doubts though now.

[FABIAN RUIZ]

According to that, I think there's a possibility Skyrim was trademarked to simply protect it. They may not be using it after all. Who knows.

Then again... No. They have the trademark for video games and merchandise, and manuals. Can't be.

Then again, they could file for all three types of those Skyrim trademarks to protect it anyway. I don't think it automatically means they're using it.

:shrug:

My question is: why don't they have a mark for Hammerfall? Or Valenwood? Or any other provinces? If it was just to protect their assets, and not actual use, then they would try to protect these as well.

[Lindsay Dunn]

My question is: why don't they have a mark for Hammerfall? Or Valenwood? Or any other provinces? If it was just to protect their assets, and not actual use, then they would try to protect these as well.

No one has made a company called "Valenwood" or "Hammerfell".

Skyrim is a wifi company that was established in 2006 or so. Bethesda might have felt threatened?

[Dominic Vaughan]

No one has made a company called "Valenwood" or "Hammerfell".

Skyrim is a wifi company that was established in 2006 or so. Bethesda might have felt threatened?

They however do still need to make a mark for a game, guys, you are reading way too deep into this whole thing, just let it die.

[Sun of Sammy]

No one has made a company called "Valenwood" or "Hammerfell".

Skyrim is a wifi company that was established in 2006 or so. Bethesda might have felt threatened?

Still seems strange. A wifi company making video games? Skyrim focuses more on the communications end of computers. A very quick browse of their site leads me to believe that they mostly set up wifi and related comm devices in businesses.

It is much more likely that the soon to be announced game is TESV and it will be set in Skyrim.

EDIT: The site also works like crap.

[zoe]

There is deffinitly a possibility for this. But i still think its going to be Skyrim, why protect it if they aren't going to use it?

[Rob Smith]

My only comment to this is, imagine the staggering amounts of money Bethesda would rack up from a new Elder Scrolls game. Most every magazine or article states that Oblivion is one of the top ten games of the decade, if not, ever. The simple financial gain Bethesda would get from a new, improved title would cement them as one of the greatest video game companies of all time. Why they haven't already pounced on this is an absolute mystery to me. The idea is to make money, isn't it? Why delay that? Their fans are loyal (if not, rabid), so I see no reason in hyping up a game that, quite literally, needs no hype. Finish the game, release it, cash in your ginormous paychecks, and call it a day. Seems like a winning business plan to me.

[Logan Greenwood]

Still seems strange. A wifi company making video games? Skyrim focuses more on the communications end of computers. A very quick browse of their site leads me to believe that they mostly set up wifi and related comm devices in businesses.

It is much more likely that the soon to be announced game is TESV and it will be set in Skyrim.

I believe, the trademark was for merchandise like clothes, hats, etc.

[oliver klosoff]

I believe, the trademark was for merchandise like clothes, hats, etc.

They have several live trademarks for Skyrim, and while apparel is certainly one of them, they have them for manuals and the video game itself. While it is possible that they trademarked Skyrim because of another mark and to protect their interests, one would think that by now, with as far along as they are on their secret project, that they would have trademarked this new game... and unless it is called Deathmark, then it is called Skyrim... so don't worry about it. All of the others had their marks in place well before the two-years in production that they are currently at.

[Adam Baumgartner]

My only comment to this is, imagine the staggering amounts of money Bethesda would rack up from a new Elder Scrolls game. Most every magazine or article states that Oblivion is one of the top ten games of the decade, if not, ever. The simple financial gain Bethesda would get from a new, improved title would cement them as one of the greatest video game companies of all time. Why they haven't already pounced on this is an absolute mystery to me. The idea is to make money, isn't it? Why delay that? Their fans are loyal (if not, rabid), so I see no reason in hyping up a game that, quite literally, needs no hype. Finish the game, release it, cash in your ginormous paychecks, and call it a day. Seems like a winning business plan to me.

You must remember that Bethesda Game Studios has also bought the rights to the Fallout series. Your "winning businesses plan" has already been gone through with. In other words, BGS had the same idea as you and they thought of it first. That and they all loved the original Fallouts and they wouldn't miss the opportunity to make one of their own. (source: The Making of Fallout 3 Video)

[El Khatiri]

This is interesting... How can you tell there are new mods?

Well considering that in Community Discussion there is a thread welcoming them as moderators....

[QuinDINGDONGcey]

Is it possible that the "Skyrim" name was trademarked just for protection as Hungry Donner mentioned, after that wifi company opened its web site as named skyrim? http://www.skyrim.com/ Do the dates match????

That's very interesting.


In general the title of a game/movie/book can't be trademarked. One could conceivably make a movie called "Star Wars" or write a book called "Lord of the Rings." There are protections in place to prevent copying, so a "Star Wars" movie about missile defense systems may be fine but one about futuristic spaceship battles wouldn't be - then it's too close to Lucas' IP. This can get very complex and is certainly beyond my understanding of the law but it's still an important point.

If someone wanted to make a fantasy game called "Black Marsh" and Bethesda felt they were copying the Elder Scrolls they could take them to court, maybe it's an RPG with a dominate race of lizard people fighting for their freedom against a kingdom of evil elves. However if it was a surival horror game about a small town terrorized by an undead hippopotamus that's probably fine.

Taking out a trademark for Skyrim probably means they intend to use it. On the other hand I could see their reasoning for protecting the name in case Skyrim wifi wanted to move in to gaming. It might not prevent them from calling a game Skyrim but it would give Bethesda some extra legal protection if it was an arctic themed RPG.

[Sherry Speakman]

That's very interesting.


In general the title of a game/movie/book can't be trademarked. One could conceivably make a movie called "Star Wars" or write a book called "Lord of the Rings." There are protections in place to prevent copying, so a "Star Wars" movie about missile defense systems may be fine but one about futuristic spaceship battles wouldn't be - then it's too close to Lucas' IP. This can get very complex and is certainly beyond my understanding of the law but it's still an important point.

If someone wanted to make a fantasy game called "Black Marsh" and Bethesda felt they were copying the Elder Scrolls they could take them to court, maybe it's an RPG with a dominate race of lizard people fighting for their freedom against a kingdom of evil elves. However if it was a surival horror game about a small town terrorized by an undead hippopotamus that's probably fine.

Taking out a trademark for Skyrim probably means they intend to use it. On the other hand I could see their reasoning for protecting the name in case Skyrim wifi wanted to move in to gaming. It might not prevent them from calling a game Skyrim but it would give Bethesda some extra legal protection if it was an arctic themed RPG.

Hungry, I gotta say that Skyrim is all over the place... when I first started looking into the trademark, I put a Google Alert on the word "Skyrim" so that I could build my database with factoids (yes I'm weird like that), and each and every day my email gets several Skyrim references out there in the interwebs. 75% of what I get back has nothing to do with TES, and the other 25% are people on forums who post the word or ask a question. There are books, properties (lots and lots of properties), things in Norway, artists, poems, and numerous other things out there bearing the name. There were some things that were kinda close to what Skyrim could be that I read (some chick talking about her Icelandic father and his life on the snowy tundra), but I suspect that there have always been these things going on and that the wifi company was coincidentally trademarking around the same time. What is funny is that a lot of the alerts are people in Florida complaining about the wifi service Set one up and you'll see that it was probably not a thought in their corporate hive mind to protect themselves against this internet access upstart.

[Jose ordaz]

Two people have just become mods, that usually only happens when there's going to be a big increase in activity on the forums. What would cause a big increase in activity? A game announcement, especially one for TES V. The mods probably wouldn't know if an announcement was coming, but they were probably told by an admin to recruit new mods. And an Admin would know if an announcement was coming soon, especially Gstaff, as he frequently talks with Todd.

As I later mentioned in the welcome thread the search for new mods was instigated but the mods, not suggested by the admin. Dogsbody stepped down recently, several of us have gotten busy with other things, and we have several new sections which are starting to get more active (Brink in particular). It is quite possible that Gstaff was also thinking about a big announcement down the road but that could be months away as easily as it could be weeks away.

Todd's recent comments certainly suggest that we're nearing an announcement, although again it could be months away or weeks away. I don't think adding new mods changes this at all.

-Completely open world. It CAN be done, and on the 360/PS3. Alan Wake looks great, and was originally an open world game. Red Dead Redemption and GTA 4 are both completely (well ok a lot of buildings are sealed) open world and look great. With any luck they'll have gone all out for this as their primary goal.

Do these worlds have lots of detailed objects you can interact with and lots of NPCs? Also are they just as large? Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 have separate interiors and exteriors so the game doesn't need to keep so much stuff in the buffer - if the game has less stuff (or simpler stuff) the divide may become unnecessary and a zone system is sufficient by itself.

Hungry, I gotta say that Skyrim is all over the place... when I first started looking into the trademark, I put a Google Alert on the word "Skyrim" so that I could build my database with factoids (yes I'm weird like that), and each and every day my email gets several Skyrim references out there in the interwebs. 75% of what I get back has nothing to do with TES, and the other 25% are people on forums who post the word or ask a question.

That certainly gives us more evidence that this could be a purely protective move - it seems far more likely that someone would try a "Skyrim" game than an "Elsweyr" game

[carrie roche]

I don't buy the idea that they were simply protecting their assets from this Skyrim company. I just don't see why they would only trademark Skyrim. Surely they know that anyone can file a trademark for any of their provinces at any time, and only need to register new ones as the old ones expire to keep the trademark from them. Hell, if someone hated Bethesda enough and also had the funds for it, they could go and trademark the name of every single province, and as long as they kept registering for news ones as the old ones expired, Bethesda couldn't do anything about it outside of bringing them to court.

There's also a live trademark for High Rock made by High Rock Ginger Ale Co, though it's been live since 1967. Why haven't they bought High Rock trademarks yet? Perhaps High Rock Ginger Ale Co. is looking to expand into the videogame market? It's about as likely as Skyrim Wireless doing so.

Come to think of it, if Bethesda actually trademarked Skyrim to keep it out of the hands of the nefarious Skyrim Wireless company, wouldn't that actually make it even more likely that they were working on a game set there? If they weren't working on one, they wouldn't care, as they clearly don't care about their other provinces. But for some reason they care enough to keep Skyrim trademarks away from this company.

[Victoria Bartel]

By itself, this comment is not definitive. But, paired with the rest of the evidence, this comment is a bit more illuminating. Paul Oughton does not own Bethesda, but he is a publishing exec. He would know about future titles coming down the pike.

What bothers me about the Oughton comment (other than the problems it caused here on the forum!) is the timing involved. Let's assume that their next game is TES V - well presumably they would have known early in it's production whether they were going to upgrade the TES IV/FO3 engine or overhaul it. We know how that they went with the overhaul, or perhaps even a fresh start with a newer version of Gamebryo, and therefore would have known the game would take a while. Therefore the 2010 comment seems out of place.

I think after TES IV was released the developers started working on a design document for TES V and Oughton, knowing the developement process of Fallout 3, applied this to TES V and then unfortunately speculated openly about this. However a design document doesn't mean that production is imminent, Redguard 2: The Eye of Argonia has a design document as well and that game never went in to production.

I do have to admit bias here because the Oughton comment caused no end of headaches for us here. Still while this can easily be evidence that TES V was being considered I wouldn't give any weight to his time frame speculation.

True, and I sort of forgot about the rest of what I was going to say here. Todd has been talking about not announcing because "they don't want fans to get mad if something changes..." You could take this like the crossbow in AC, but I read into the fan part. A new IP doesn't have fans yet. Elder Scrolls does, and they would definitely let Beth know if they weren't happy with what the game looked like it was becoming.

I think he's referring to changes made during developement rather than between titles. Rather than the crossbow example from TES IV I'd use the shadow system: Bethesda initially showed off a very dynamic and detailed shadow system and then later replaced it with something much simpler. Despite the game being months off this causes a furor and even long after TES IV was released there were people who brought up Bethesda's "bait and switch tactics" and "false advertising" concerning the shadow system.

As for FO4, it would very much so surprise me to find them working on it. There is little reason for them to want to make the third FO game in 3 years (if it is released in Oct/Nov 2011). Not only would it T-off all of the TES fans, but it doesn't really make business sense for them to ignore a very successful, highly anticipated, and more-rested series in TES in favor of saturating the market with FO stuff.

Definitely, and given the time involved it seems unlikely that they could announce an Elder Scrolls game by someone else and really sate the fans.

[Sarah Knight]

And now nu_clear_day is a moderator. That's three moderators in less than week. I know that they say that an Admin didn't tell them to recruit more, and that they don't know when an announcement's coming but...That makes three new mods in what, two days? Surely you can see why I'm slightly suspicious that there's more going on than what's being said...