FreeCraft Cease and Desisted by Blizzard

mandreiana writes "As of June 20th, FreeCraft is shut down. The development team received a cease and desist order due to the name 'FreeCraft' causing possible confusion with the names StarCraft and WarCraft, and also some of the ideas within the engine were too similar to WarCraft 2. There will be no more updates to this game, and it is no longer available for download." Way to go, Blizzard, now the only competitors to worry about are the ones who can afford lawyers and actually hold competing market share. Of course, not using a *Craft for a game project might have kept it under the radar a while longer.

New name suggestion:

[vegetablespork]

"Whorecraft" Let's see them threaten over that being "confusingly similar."

~~~

Um . . .

[WalterDGeranios]

due to the name 'FreeCraft' causing possible confusion with the names StarCraft and WarCraft

Sorry if this is a stupid question--but which one of these was the open source game, and which were the Blizzard games? I can't ever keep them straight.

Not obvious at all

[SlamMan]

What did they expect? It's like starting a company called 'Appel' to sell a photo editing prodocut called 'ifoto'.

Still available...

[meringuoid]

# emerge freecraft freecraft-fcmp

Yep, here it comes. I'll cease and desist downloading this right now, of course...

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, um, yeah, but... shut up!

what bullshit

[dh003i]

So, because these jack-offs chose to put the word "craft" in their game -- a common every-day word, to describe something -- they get to sue everyone who uses the word "craft" as part of their game title?

This is fucking bullshit.

Re:Not obvious at all

[Dark Lord Seth]

That will get you trouble with the dutch division of Apple. Wether deliberate or not, you just managed to do a nice and flawless translation of Apple products from their english names to their dutch equivalents. :P

uhoh

[jesler]

Some personal projects I may have to rethink:

BarCraft - Can you restore the broken supply line of ale for the underaged teens lurking in the carpark outside?

DartCraft - The expansion pack for BarCraft. It's RTS darts, with uh... resources and stuff.

ParCraft - Play 18 holes of golf while repelling invading loons in golf buggies.

FarCraft - Like a regular RTS, but it'll take 3 and a half days to cross the map.

RarCraft - You have to play with all game data (gfx, sound, etc) still in compressed form.

LoreCraft - Get the Law School upgrade on your Fortress to produce a phalanx of patent-happy lawyers.

BoreCraft - The only unit is a peasant. Buy the expansion for female peasants!

C+D?

[caluml]

happypenguin.org is struggling to come to terms with Slashdots own form of Cease and Desist :)

Just so no one is confused

[TheDauthi]

Today is Saturday, and they haven't released a game/major patch in two weeks, so we hate Blizzard. Also, the time this was posted was well before 1:00 p.m., so this is BAD news. And this is Slashdot, I shouldn't have to remind you that we have to defend open source against closed source!

what's in a name?

[louzerr]

How about "FreakRaft"? Screw 'em!

Netcraft?

[ottffssent]

When should we expect to hear about Netcraft being sued?

Obviously, netcraft is Blizzard's next hit, wherein the few remaining human loyalists valiantly defend their networks from the hordes of Zerg viruses. Those survey folks are just confusing people.

Re:uhoh

[ConceptJunkie]

Don't forget:

LaraCraft - Twice the fun, twice the action, twice the legal troubles.

Coming soon...

[fluxrad]

A new on-line realtime strategy game from the makers of...um...food.

Build a cheesy empire with Velveeta! Sail into battle with ChipsAhoy! Or tear down your opponent's battlements with an oreo trebuchet!

Play as one of four exciting new races: Macaroni&Cheese eaters, The Salad Dressing-ites, StoveTop Stuffers, or People of the Jell-o!

WarKraft

who's up for doing the box-art?

Re:What do they expect?

[nagora]

"Windows" is not trademarked by Microsoft. "Microsoft Windows" is.

Yeah, right. Try this and call us back (if your prison allows outside calls): download Mandrake and write an auto-running script that boots off a cd-rom and installs the whole KDE system. Then box it and call it "Windows" and sell it for 20 dollars or so.

Obviously, you'll never hear any complaints from Microsoft about this. For good measure, release a boxed set of OpenOffice and call it "Office for Windows" (meaning your previous boxed set). Finally, get all your money and burn it before M$ takes it off you.

TWW

Re:Will You All Remember This?

[nuggetman]

Blizzard lost about 30 sales from that.

You showed them who's boss! I bet they couldn't sleep that night.

And Look Who Is Next!

[f0rt0r]

Witch Covens around the world are in a state of confusion after receiving threating "Cease and Desist" letters from Blizzard's lawyers for their product known as "WitchCraft"(c) which may be confused with "StarCraft"(c) or "WarCraft"(c).

When a coven leader was asked how they planned to respond to the threat, she replied "We are split between a rare disease and swarms of insects, though a natural disaster at Blizzard headquarters is not out of the question. Oh, the lawyers won't be a problem, they work for for the same guy (putting hands to each side of her head to make a symbol of horns ) we do."

In other news, Blizzard's CEO mysteriously hired a n exorcist to make a house call. More details at 11.

Re:uhoh

[suss]

AssCraft - you practice proctology on Orcs, even though they don't want or need it.

SlashCraft - you link websites on here and watch them blow up.

SCOCraft - you try to sue a Dark Templar and die.

The Craft - a movie with Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell who are witches'n'stuff.

C-Raft - Strom Thurmond, Ross Perot and a pig are put on a Raft in the middle of the pacific, with a live satellite feed present. (Slightly more amusing than C-Span)

DalCraft - you try and retry to connect to IRC servers while they are being DDoSed by the RIAA

And in a short press statement...

[SmackCrackandPot]

In a short press statement, Blizzard also announced that they had sent a cease and desist order to all American airlines, requesting that they no longer refer to their vehicles as "Aircraft", but recommended that they use the term "fossil fuel powered heavier than air flying machine" instead.