Slashdot Mirror
Hall of Fame Game M.U.L.E. To Be Ported To PC
DebateUSA writes "If you ever played the game M.U.L.E. on the Atari or Commodore computer
systems in the early 1980's, there's a company producing a new version for
the PC.
" Ah, resource allocation.
"Inspired by the 1980's classic, M.U.L.E" they say, which is just about the most stupid thing they could have done. It's clearly not licensed, it's a commercial product, and they've just tried to make money off of EA's trademark. Arguably, they are flat out passing off, something that Slashdot has just happily contributed to by calling this a "port". Note that Gamespot are very careful not to do this.
It is possible to produce a commercial "inspired by" version of a classic game if you're careful to not make any claims about what you're emulating. It doesn't matter if every magazine in the world calls your version a "XYZ clone", as long as you don't try and leverage someone else's trademark, you're safe. But it looks like Shrapnel reckon that the M.U.L.E trademark is abandonware, or they just don't understand what they've done. EA's nose has been tweaked, and now they can either throw a lawyer or ten at protecting their trademark, or they can admit that it's lapsed. Which is more likely?
At the very least, EA will be able to get Shrapnel to stop mentioning M.U.L.E. And if EA can show that they have any plans to produce their own port, they can ream Shrapnel for cutting into their market, even their potential market.
I don't necessarily think that's right or fair, it's just what's going to happen. EA can make Shrapnel dance like organ grinders' monkeys now just by throwing a few lawyers at them. It looks like Shrapnel doesn't have any big corporate backers to fight their corner for them. Damn shame, but they've kind of brought it on themselves.
And incidentally (or otherwise), isn't that an AT-ST walker they're using for cover art? Now they're tweaking the nose of Lucasart? Oh dear. :(
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