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Last post: 17 May at 17:34
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:42 |
Turns out Trench and Trenched can not co-exist
Those of you in Europe may have been wondering this past Wednesday, "Where is Trenched?" The latest arcade title from Double Fine debuted to stellar reviews and continues their incredible track record of critically acclaimed, smash-hit downloadable titles. Unless of course, you live in Europe, and a pesky trademark issue is hindering your ability to download and enjoy Trenched.
That's right, it is a trademark issue keeping Trenched out of Europe. It is not, as one of the rumors stated, because of a Nazi salute present in the game. Double Fine went on record to deny that particular rumor. Eurogamer did some digging around the issue and discovered that Portugese board game designer Rui Alípio Monteiro has the title "Trench" trademarked for European markets. The trademark covers board games and also computer games, of which the XBLA Trenched falls under, creating the not so small problem of Double Fine violating a trademark.
Trench, the board game, also is set during World War 1. It does not however, involve mechs with six Gatling guns. Double Fine and Microsoft are working on a solution, which may include Trenched receiving a different name for the European market.
Credit goes to imnotGEOFF for this story |
Last post: 17 Jan at 22:55
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:46 |
| I hope they get it too. it's a fun game :) |
Last post: 03 Oct 11 at 11:58
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:46 |
| WOW You put that up quick |
Last post: 18 Apr at 16:44
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:47 |
| Well crap. Delay-oh-shittiness. |
When life gives you lemons, rinse them for as much gamerscore as possible. |
Last post: 09 May at 12:27
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:48, Edited on 30 June 11 at 12:51 by albajos |
Well, it is on the norwegian marketplace, and last I checked we were still part of Europe.
So this is a first :p
edit: But there have been similar battles before, Donkey Kong vs King Kong, Screams vs Scream. As you can see everybody got to keep their name, so this can't be to difficult to solve. |
All work and no play makes Jos a dull boy. |
Last post: 15 Apr at 19:36
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:49 |
| Haha, my buddy Dearn will be pissed! He was talking about getting this the other day |
Aim to please, shoot to kill. Wakarimasu ka? |
Last post: 16 May at 07:53
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:55 |
| What a lame reason. Shoot that guy to the head D: |
Last post: 17 May at 17:34
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:56 |
albajos said:Well, it is on the norwegian marketplace, and last I checked we were still part of Europe.
So this is a first :p
Yeah, I know it's only "Certain areas of Europe" but trying to nail down a definite listing of markets was a bit difficult for this Yank. I went with the overall "Europe" instead, assuming that if it's not available in your market, well, now you know.
....and I guess it's available in Norway as the Portuguese board game designer did not think of Norway as part of Europe for the trademark. Individual country laws could have an impact as well, so this gets really complicated, really quickly on the business side.
At the end of the day, everyone will eventually get a chance to play Trenched and there was nothing malicious on Double Fine's part keeping it out of people's hands. |
Last post: 11 Jun 12 at 12:11
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 12:59 |
| To bad this licensing issue is preventing the game from being released in Europe but I'm sure they'll work something out |
Last post: 09 May at 12:27
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:14 |
| Dog of Thunder said:....and I guess it's available in Norway as the Portuguese board game designer did not think of Norway as part of Europe for the trademark.We're not part of the European Union. Always a good thing :) |
All work and no play makes Jos a dull boy. |
Last post: Today at 04:01
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:17 |
Good to finally know the real reason for this. I hope they settle it soon, as the hype and sales potential will die down a bit as time goes on. I would hope they could just issue another patch, one which contains the changed title screen graphic and text for the Euro market. Then again, since this data would still be absent from the core game, that might not cut it legally. They would have to re-distribute the core game, and force anyone who already owns it to re-download the title (similar to when Bomberman LIVE was re-issued on the day that the NXE and avatars were introduced.)
In that, their better option might be to release a separate version for the EU market (like when they made multiple releases for the two Dead Rising XBLA titles.) That would make the stackable achievement people happy, but at the same time it would suck for most of the online features. When truly-separate versions of the same game are released, these versions are not compatible with each other online. This means that people in most of Europe would not be able to play multiplayer with people living anywhere else in the world. This and, their leaderboards would be segregated from everyone else's. This is the problem that existed with Ninety-Nine Nights II, which had truly-separate versions released for each region (US, JP, ASIA, EU.) |
Last post: 14 May at 21:08
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:37 |
| I guess this means we can expect a fatal car accident involving Rui Alípio Monteiro to hit the news this evening. |
Last post: Today at 12:03
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:45 |
| You can have a trademark on a word now? Me remebers Microsoft sueing a company for having the word window in their name... and losing. |
Last post: 04 Jun 12 at 11:32
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:46 |
I'm surprised this didn't come up sooner. Having an entire region go untapped; almost 1 billion people, because of something decided upon likely over a year ago is seemingly a very costly mistake.
I don't really like the name Trenched, it doesn't make sense to me. The game does seem interesting though, it's certainly reviewed well. When it does drop in Europe I'll probably pick it up.
And I could be wrong but I feel like names that similar have existed before without such issues. |
Last post: 19 Dec 12 at 15:36
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:54 |
| Gotta love TMs. |
Last post: 29 Apr at 19:23
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:57 |
albajos said:Well, it is on the norwegian marketplace, and last I checked we were still part of Europe.
So this is a first :p
edit: But there have been similar battles before, Donkey Kong vs King Kong, Screams vs Scream. As you can see everybody got to keep their name, so this can't be to difficult to solve.Norwegian is in europe but not a part of EU so i think that is your answer |
Last post: 22 Jan at 09:39
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 13:57 |
| Could be good news if they give it a EU name, double completion? |
Turns out i am infact human after all :( |
Last post: 30 Apr at 03:34
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 14:00 |
whaaa? I'm Portuguese and I don't know that board game. Wtf... I really wanted to get Trenched :o
Hope they change the name or something. :) |
Last post: 25 Feb at 22:03
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 14:00 |
| So how the Big Microsoft did not check it months ago? Someone is fired right now... |
Last post: Today at 12:32
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Posted on 30 June 11 at 14:00 |
TerreBullet said:You can have a trademark on a word now? Me remebers Microsoft sueing a company for having the word window in their name... and losing.It depends on how much the similarities go beyond the word. In this case, both are called Trench(ed), and both deal with World War I. That's usually enough similarities to say someone is ripping off your copyrighted idea.
An example of this is Apple Corps (the company founded by the Beatles to record their music) v Apple Computers. Apple Corps threatened to sue Apple Computer over a copyrighted name, but a small settlement between the two companies allowed both to continue if Apple Computers assured Apple Corps they would never go into the music industry. As we all know, Apple Computers repeatedly entered the music industry which led to frequent lawsuits and complaints from Apple Corps.
I'd call Apple Computer the ultimate winner of that example however, seeing as they now have the digital distribution rights to Apple Corps entire catalog |
I miss the good old days of WW2 Call of Duty |