Sandy’s Rant Blog

We at Scorptek were recently passed a tip saying that Sandy Duncan operates a rant blog. He calls it his RLOG (Rant Log), and it contains vehement posts about all sorts of topics, mainly centered around environmentalism, people he doesn’t like and sports.

The RLOG is infrequently updated and can be found here: http://myduncanspace.com/ (Explicit Language Warning)
Duncan also has two other websites, http://theduncanspace.com/ and http://sandyd.com/.

Please note that this is the last installment of GMRumors. The site will be left open for comments, but no new posts will be made.

GMTV?

Dan Eggers is eagerly looking towards creating a dedicated GMTV network with a series of shows discussing and reviewing GM Games. The youngster plans to have a similar format to an already existing G4’s “X-play” show where approximately 3-5 games are reviewed in a single episode.

So far the support looks encouraging, and it could (with some work) become a success. However, will the young programmer of only 14 years of age be able to pull off such a feat? That is the question.

Technical Difficulties

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with the GMRumours blog. We are working with WordPress to resolve these issues. Please be patient while we restore the sidebar widgets and correct other problems with the site.

Game Maker Trademarked? Unlikely.

According to the YoYo Games website, the name “Game Maker” is a registered trademark, denoted by the (TM) symbol beside it on their website.

I am not one to speak for English or Netherlands’s law system (wherever the company is now said to be located).. however, what I do know is that in most western living style countries (Canada, USA, Australia etc.), it is no longer possible (if ever possible) to register a trademark for a phrase of non-innovative words in regular English that describe a product or service.

For example, you cannot register a trademark for “Food Chiller”, “Wood Carver”, “Screen Cleaner”, “Game Maker”, “Foldable Chair”, “Chocolate Peanuts” etc. because these are all short descriptive phrases using common words that have no special meaning, and no extraordinary significance.

At this point, even if the company was able to find a copyright/trademark or lawyer’s office that would issue a registered trademark certificate for the “Game Maker” name, it would be no use, since it would never stand up in court.

The judge would see that there are many other programs out there called “Gamemaker”, “GameMaker”, “Game Builder”, and probably even “Game Maker” and this would indicate to him or her that the name had no particular innovation if he/she hadn’t realized that already. That is enough grounds to dismiss the claim and trademark.

I speak from experience, a company I was involved in, semi-recently had a legal dispute over a couple of trademarks they owned. Despite having the actual trademark certificates and such, the trademarks were dismissed and seen as irrelevant in court. To give an example, I believe one of them was “Ice Chiller”.

YYG Site Terms Preview

An anonymous user from Europe writes to tell us of the possible changes in the new terms of use policy. Although the terms and conditions are by no means final,  here is a compact summary of the current version:

In plain English, some of the [leaked] terms outline how users are waiving some of their rights to the game and giving them to YoYo Games when the game is submitted and uploaded to their site. Essentially YYG would have rights to use a submitted game in most cases, however it wants. They are even able to request that it is modified to their liking, and if you can believe it, possibly even sell your game! It appears as though this wouldn’t require any permission on your part, although it is unlikley YYG would do this without your permission.

In summary, unless you want to give many of your rights to your creations up to YoYo Games and let them benefit from using the game everywhere, changing it, and possibly even making money from it… you may want to choose an alternative site to host your games.

Opinions?

Note 1: The source of this news cannot be confirmed as the user was anonymous. However, a moderator later confirmed that the terms that are being referred to in this article are genuine [ see comment below ].

Note 2: The terms and conditions have many similarities to the terms found here http://www.perplexcity.com/about/terms/. This may either indicate YoYo Games is planning to base their license off of this current one.

Welcome to GMRumors

Welcome to GMRumors

The purpose of this blog is to make article posts about rumors (related to Game Maker) which haven’t been confirmed yet. When an article on GMRumors has enough reliable sources to back up its claims, it will be bumped up to the (main) GMNews blog. Feel free to discuss and contribute your rumors on this blog. We encourage all users to share what they know and have open discussions about their thoughts on Game Maker related issues and what they predict may happen in the future.