'PRAEY for the Gods' News: Indie Dev Forced to Change First Project's Name to Avoid Legal Scuffle With ZeniMax, Bethesda
Independent developer No Matter Studios was forced to change the name of its first game in development, "Praey for the Gods," to avoid getting sued by the video game giant ZeniMax Media — Bethesda Softworks' parent company.
No Matter Studios' first game, "Praey for the Gods," used to bear the correct spelling of "Prey" in its title. However, when they submitted an application to trademark the original brand of the game, ZeniMax Media contested it and argued that they already owned the "Prey" trademark.
The issue was recently addressed through a blog post on the game's official page. "We didn't want to do this but we had to change our game name from Prey for the Gods to Praey for the Gods," the developers said.
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Luckily for the indie developer, they were allowed to keep the original logo for their game.
No Matter Studios further explained: "We could've fought this and we did think about it for quite a while. Something like a trademark opposition can be long and depending on how far someone wants to fight it can be very expensive. We didn't want to spend our precious Kickstarter funds, nor did we want to have to ask for additional funds to fight this in court."
As of writing, "Praey for the Gods" has gathered more than $500,000 pledges (their initial goal was $300,000) from over 14,700 backers.
Polygon noted it is not surprising that ZeniMax Media has shown willingness to fight for the trademark since the "Prey" reboot — published by Bethesda — is slated to launch worldwide on Friday, May 5.
According to official documents (via the United States Patent and Trademark Office), the trademark application for "Prey for the Gods" was filed by No Matter Studios on Dec. 18, 2015. It was on July 8, 2016 that then "potential opposer" ZeniMax Media requested for the "Time to Oppose" be extended. It was later on granted.
In early January this year, No Matter Studios withdrew their trademark application. A few days later, the application was rendered "abandoned." Thus ZeniMax Media's opposition was ruled "dismissed without prejudice."
For comparison's sake, ZeniMax Media is a video game company whose history dates as far back as the late 1990s. It has several successful subsidiary developers and game publishers, with Bethesda being just one of them. The company has also been in several trademark-related lawsuits in the past.
Meanwhile, No Matter Studios is a company "comprised of three lone developers working in the evening hours" that was established in 2014. With that, it is understandable for the indie developers to choose their battles and just prioritize the development of their crowdfunded game.
No Matter Studios aims to release "Praey for the Gods" by December this year on the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
