Last week, Activision Blizzard officially unveiled the Overwatch League, a major new esports initiative that will bring the best Overwatch players from around the world together in head-to-head competition. But the league’s logo could lead to legal troubles of its own.
The logo for the Overwatch League uses the same tried-and-tested formula as branding for the likes of the National Basketball Association (NBA) or Major League Baseball (MLB); a two-tone background underneath a bright white silhouette of a player. And MLB feels that the similarity is too close, according to a report from Deadspin.
A trademark on the logo was approved on March 28, at which point the image was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — a standard practice that allows other entities to determine whether it infringes on their intellectual property. At that time, other companies have 30 days to register a complaint, according to a blog post from law firm Morrison/Lee.
After 29 days, MLB requested a 90-day extension so that it could further investigate the matter, and its request was approved. That extension expires next week, so it remains to be seen whether the baseball league will follow up on the matter, or leave the Overwatch League be.
MLB could conceivably gain authorization to force Activision Blizzard to drop the current logo and replace it with something else — which wouldn’t be ideal for the fledgling league, since the imagery was just unveiled to the public. However, it’s not yet clear whether the logo actually qualifies as an infringement from a legal standpoint.
While there is a definite similarity between the two emblems, MLB has to demonstrate that the Overwatch League’s logo suggests that the two entities are affiliated, or otherwise weakens its brand. Given that the more prominent NBA already utilizes a very similar logo without any major detriment to MLB, this could be a tough sell.
In any case, MLB only has a matter of days to decide if it will pursue further legal action against the current form of the Overwatch League logo. By next week, we should know whether or not Activision Blizzard has to consider going back to the drawing board.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.