The Darkness Game

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 7:23 pm

I have been working on a game using the cross platform .net wrapper. You can see my progress here and comment on the blog.

http://netgamedeveloper.blogspot.com/

QuantumDream · Post by **QuantumDream** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 7:57 pm

Looking good, but you should really change name as The Darkness is registered trademark of 2kgames.

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:45 am

I didnt realize that. Thank-You. Anybody have any decent name ideas? The game is supposed to be kind of hellish.

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:25 am

"kind of hellish" sounds like a good name to me :-)

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:38 am

"what the hell!!" anyone used the name before?

Frank Dodd · Post by **Frank Dodd** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 10:00 am

You seam to be making very good progress on that game, good luck with it. Naming a game is very tricky in my opinion, it has to be in character with the game and to draw the attention of casual observers, a good name can be the difference between getting a site hit or getting passed by.

SwitchCase · Post by **SwitchCase** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 11:12 am

Looks good man!

I'm guessing this is an RPG/adventure game of some sort but what's it about?

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:25 pm

well, i wanted to learn the engine. I have played with it before a long time ago. I never really gave it a name or a story line. I just started putting things together. I really should be outlining it though.

SwitchCase · Post by **SwitchCase** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:09 pm

Well I suppose that's quite a constructive way of learning the engine. All the best with it.

JRowe47 · Post by **JRowe47** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:59 pm

There's no way in hell a reasonable court would ever allow a proprietary claim on something as generic as The Darkness.

Frankly, it would be like my creating a soft drink and calling it Cola. I don't care who used the name first, it's a descriptive phrase in common use. I can use it to name and describe my product; so can a gajillion others so long as they don't use the name fraudulently or in the process of illegal activity.

Use it, and tell the lawyers to stuff it. There's no reason not to, so long as you don't intend to use the content of or misrepresent yourself as 2kgames.

QuantumDream · Post by **QuantumDream** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:59 pm

Well, I think you could use this name: Damned Souls

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:35 pm

JRowe47 wrote:There's no way in hell a reasonable court would ever allow a proprietary claim on something as generic as The Darkness.

Quick, look outside. What are you looking through? Now look back here. What is your browser running in, that allows you to resize it and drag it around? Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.

There's no problem with a game, a band and the contents of your underpants all trading under the name The Darkness. However, two games trading under that name might create a controversy.

It's easy to say "Let's you and him fight", isn't it?

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:05 pm

Except you named it The Darknezz.

JRowe47 · Post by **JRowe47** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:51 pm

There's a whole world of difference between overzealous M$ lawyer attack dogs who push the boundaries of ethics and law in their IP cases and a small time game company. Ethics should be the distinguishing factor here. If you try to call something micro software, you get in trouble, because microsoft lawyers have their heads up their asses. I think that's a poor example to follow, let alone propagate.

Now, if he were creating a game about a 21 year old demon posessed mafia hit man bent on revenge and domination, then I'd tell him not only to change the title, but the story itself, since The Darkness clearly covers that territory.

This guy's game is a RPGish dungeon runner with no similarity, to the extent that even upon casual perusal is an entirely different game.

I couldn't call my game Mountain Dew, even though there's no other game out there by that name. There are levels of differentiation that distinguish Brand names from product names and relative levels of popularity. The main reasons companies copyright or trademark names for their products are simple: protection against misrepresentation by a third party, and protection against claims of misrepresentation by prior users of similar or identical names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

That basically covers the whole gamut of issues.

The critical issue here is simple:

In most systems, a trademark will be registrable if it is able to distinguish the goods or services of a party, will not confuse consumers about the relationship between one party and another, and will not otherwise deceive consumers with respect to the qualities of the product.

If there is a reasonable possibility of confusing consumers about the product in question, then there is liability. I don't see a reasonable possibility for confusion, in this case. The title is too generic, and as a simple google search turns up, too commonly used for there to be any concern whatsoever about legal issues.

Quick, look outside. What are you looking through? Now look back here. What is your browser running in, that allows you to resize it and drag it around? Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.

There's no problem with a game, a band and the contents of your underpants all trading under the name The Darkness. However, two games trading under that name might create a controversy.

It's easy to say "Let's you and him fight", isn't it?

As well intentioned as you are, this is FUD, imho. And I don't mean to argue for the sake of argument, I truly think that a distinction needs to be made on issues like this, or rational behavior loses more ground. The more we let idiots dictate the rules of life, the more idiotic our lives become.

edit: I'm not calling you an idiot, I just think that it's idiots who force rational people like ourselves to wrangle over issues that are definitely not critical. It should be a non issue, but unfortunately, I suppose lawyers have a right to earn money.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:33 pm

I'm not an idiot? How delightfully condescending of you to grant it.

If the world worked the way I wanted it to work, I wouldn't be wasting my time typing this, since Alyson Hannigan would be bringing me a cold beer while wearing nothing but a frilly apron.

I stand by the last line of my previous post. In the abstract, I agree with you. But when it comes to changing the world, I'd like to think that I'd do it myself rather than inciting proxies to take the risk for me.