Quoting: uglyTheir mark was registered in 2003 (they might have earlier registrations, but I didn't check). So, a good question would be whether Choose Your Own Adventure was being used to describe video games by other people prior to 2003. Just because they had a Choose Your Own Adventure mark for books in the 80s, doesn't automatically give them the rights to the mark for video games.

One point here, Chooseco didn't exist in the 80s. The books at that time were published by Bantam Books, who would have held copyright and any trademarks that were registered on the line. Chooseco wasn't founded until 2003 as a vehicle for the author and his wife to re-publish the old books and create new material.

As mentioned earlier, they are notably litigious, suing Chrysler for an ad campaign whose tagline was "Choose Your Adventure" (noting they didn't even use the whole phrase) and Netflix over an interactive Black Mirror film.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'm planning to get Spiritfarer when it comes out, so I'll hold off on the demo. Seriously looking forward to it though.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This one, I'm kind of interested in. Mostly because I've been hanging back from getting Cities: Skylines for a really long time now.

The question is, are these the better DLC for it? Or would I need more for a quality experience?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: F.Ultra...a large AAA "Choose Your Own Adventure" game...

Detroit Become Human

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: SalvatosPeople who make CYOA-like books and their derivative digital versions have already come up with a variety of non-infringing terms for them. Off the top of my head, there’s gamebook, adventure book, interactive fiction/story/adventure/novel, choose your own ending/story/path...

The CYOA company is probably just angry because unlike Kleenex and others, a lot of people don’t even realize that it’s a brand and not a generic term, so they don’t get as much promotional value from other companies keeping the term alive.

Keep in mind too that the lawsuits and threatened lawsuits are pretty recent. The books themselves were published back in the 1970s and 80s, and it wasn't until about 2003 that the original author started a company to re-publish them and make new ones that it became an issue. Notably with a lawsuit against a car company for using the phrase "Choose Your Adventure" in its advertising.

All that makes it look like something a bit more shady than due diligence.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

It's a pity that "Varytale" was already used by an interactive Fiction engine. That would have been a great genre term.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

It's notable that they're picking on smaller creators without the financial resources to resist a lawsuit over the issue.

I do note that they're also going after Netflix, which suggests the company might have gotten involved with a lawyer (or firm) that's using this as an opportunity to grab some settlement cash.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: KimyrielleI still have a very low opinion about developers trying to milk their customers in that way.

Come, come now. It's not like they're connected to the people who made Fortnite...OH WAIT!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Oh, it's got support now? For quite a while it didn't have the Linux icon on it's coming soon page on Steam, although the original demo ran great.

Guess I'll have to re-add it to my wishlist.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Mosaic is that soon? Tempting, so tempting...

View this comment - View article - View full comments