"We have settled the lawsuit over Scrolls and Mojang are Bethesda are friends again," said Mojang in a blog post on Saturday. Managing director Carl Manneh made the announcement, which confirmed that "yes, Scrolls is still going to be called Scrolls." It's the end of an argument that's been rolling on since summer last year when Bethesda first claimed that Mojang's card collecting/battling game infringed on the Skyrim trademark.
In fact, Mojang still don't have the "Scrolls" trademark, but they have the right to use the word as the name of their game. "For us this was never about a trade mark but being able to use Scrolls as the name of our game which we can" says Carl Manneh. "Yaaaay!" added Notch on Twitter.
The Minecraft creator originally invited Bethesda to settle the dispute with a game of Quake 3. In the end the challenge was settled with lawyers. Rocket launchers played no part in the process, as far as we know. "The actual document I signed was like a billion pages, so at least we know a bunch of lawyers got rich. Good, wouldn't want them to starve," said Notch on Twitter.
In the end it's a win for both parties. Bethesda's real concern was the security of the hugely valuable Elder Scrolls trademark that's formed the centre of their business for 18 years. It sounds as though they've kept that intact. “Nobody here enjoys being forced into this," said Bethesda's Pete Hines shortly before lawyers began negotiations. "Hopefully it will all be resolved soon.” Finally, it has. Now we can all look forward to seeing how Scrolls actually turns out.
