Electronic Arts has withdrawn a trademark application it filed for an unannounced property called “Ghost” last week, possibly to avoid a legal dispute with Ubisoft, which claimed the filing would infringe on a copyright of its own. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Electronic Arts relinquished its claim on the trademark, which would have covered an “on-line computer game.”
Ubisoft filed a request in January asking the office to deny the application because a video game called “Ghost” might cause confusion among consumers when compared to Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon franchise. According to Ubisoft’s dispute, the product EA called “Ghost” would be “identical and highly related to the goods and services offered by [Ubisoft] in connection with the GHOST RECON marks.”
Electronic Arts’ withdrawal comes less than a week before the March 9 deadline for Electronic Arts to “respond” to the complaint, at which point the dispute might have gone to court, if the two publishers were unable to negotiate an amicable solution themselves. The company initially filed the trademark for the game, as well as a second for media related to the property, in March, 2015.
Video game publishers’ preference for short, broadly evocative titles has led to a few odd trademark battles over the years. Candy Crush: Saga developer King pursued legal action against indie developer Stoic over the use of the word “Saga” in their norse-themed strategy game, The Banner Saga. Similarly, The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda sued Minecraft developer Mojang for making a card game called Scrolls.
Though the “Ghost” skirmish did not last long enough to earn itself a place as one of the gaming industry’s essential silly copyright disputes, it highlights how overly minimalist marketing may lead to AAA developers running out video game names before too long.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.