Edited 10/13/2021 02:36:07

im so confused

I mean ‘Warzone’ is a pretty lame name and with the popularity of COD Warzone it makes it almost impossible to naturally find this game when googling Warzone. Definitely wouldn’t back down if Warzone was using the name first but a name change to something more fitting would potentially boost the player base.

Since this began, COD: Warzone is the first hit in a search.

This Warzone maintains the .com but the title is not simply Warzone, it follows with, "Better than Hasbro's RISK® game - Play Online Free".

Imho, War Room is more descriptive and appropriate.

My $0.02.

Or even War Arena

Well, there's a weird double-standard here, right? There's a bunch of indie games named "Warzone" made since the 1990s, including a very small turn-based strategy game of the same name that came out almost exactly a month before this Warzone (https://www.indiedb.com/games/warzone2/images/warzone-kea-games11). They got knocked out of the top spot in Google search results when Warlight rebranded; no one saw this as troublesome- after all, almost everyone understood at that time that this was just fair competition, that Warzone was "an actual english [sic] word" and not some word for those prior users to exclusively claim and demand money for.


If we're going to talk about the big guy steamrolling the little guy, there's a bunch of "little guys" this game did the exact same thing to. For years until Call of Duty: Warzone, Warzone.com never seemed to entertain the thought of asserting that trademark, even as several other new and existing "warzone" games operated (https://www.igdb.com/search?type=1&q=warzone). Indeed, back in 2015, when the top search result for "warzone" was another indie game, the question was brought up of whether those other, smaller indie devs had unregistered "warzone" trademarks (like what Warzone.com claims to have today) but that thread was never picked up:


It's not only Activision that's used "warzone" to market its games. If you search for "warzone" on the Play Store today, you'll see that the top result isn't Activision but yet another small indie "Warzone" game:



The only difference this time was that Activision went for the "warzone" trademark themselves, claiming that the word itself isn't special but their usage of it has caught hold in consumers' minds, and so they should be able to go after knock-offs (not prior users like Warzone.com, who get grandfathered in under trademark law). Then suddenly "warzone" stopped being a real word

but instead an exclusive trademark for Warzone.com to claim among not only video games but for software in general. Suddenly, the act of creating a new "warzone" that overtook the existing ones in search rankings and popularity became a transgression. Why do those other small indie games not count when Warzone claims "first to use" and seeks to register the trademark to an actual English word? Because they're small and- like Warzone until 2020- didn't bother asserting some trademark to the word "warzone"? Where do we draw the line? Not legally- that's the court's ballpark- but philosophically. If the first "little guy" to start calling itself "warzone" gets the right to that word, deserving of protection against getting overtaken in Google search results, then Warzone.com has at least a dozen little guys like that to answer to. This isn't some novel insight- some variation of "what about the 'warzone's before this one?" comes up all the time when someone tries to foster sympathy for Warzone.com off-site:


It's just a form of special pleading that the Warzone playerbase (for obvious reasons) has been a little bit blind to. Does history start in November 2017? Why does this Warzone get to demand money from others for using an actual English word? From reading the GoFundMe and associated marketing, you'd think Activision was the one going after Warzone for money and to make them stop using the word "warzone":



But they're not (the handwritten/crossed-out stuff above is obviously done in jest)- they're just suing to have the court make those claims (like the above) by Warzone.com go away. Even back in the halcyon days of this thread, when questions about why Activision would concoct a cease-and-desist out of thin air (the legal record now shows they didn't) got downvoted to the point of being hidden, no one really questioned why "we" (they're suing "us", right?) get to be David instead of the even smaller guys to whom we look a heck of a lot like Goliath.

Activision did the same thing that Warzone.com did. They just did it well. Now Warzone.com wants to get the law to say it's wrong to launch a "warzone" game and muscle out smaller guys from the search rankings.

Edited 10/16/2021 19:59:17

First of all, I'll second myself, but if I do ever need a lawyer in the US, I don't call one, I call Knyte :d (but because he'll be rich as founder and CEO of a next GAFAM, I'll have to pay him a lot, on top of begging for his time :D)

Knyte, I'm worried you may have done all these researchs, not only for our curiosity and information sakes, but also for Activision lawyers (and maybe expecting something in return from them ? Not insulting you here, true question, and "not your business" would be a fair enough answer) ?
If so, please bear in mind that the game you may (still ? ...True question) love, or have loved once upon a time, giving you probably like the rest of us, at any point, hours of good time and enjoyment, and great people to "meet" and to talk to. All that may disappear eventually, shall Fizzer lose the case. I mean, in the worst case scenario, and possibly along with making Fizzer in debt possibly for the rest of his life (I'm not adding jail though, being only realistic), and breaking the toy of thousands of daily players. So, are you ready for all that ?

I understand you feel justice must rule, whatever it takes. Plus you feel betrayed. And probably as a gifted person, those feelings are stronger for you than for any common people. But still, let's be aware of all these possible consequences.

On the betrayal part btw, we could debate on the reasons you originally raised to feel betrayed, the legitimacy of these reasons, and the legitimacy to feel the way you feel, despite other things.
Other things such as despite Fizzer being on Activision's back for money, and hidding the truth to his community (that's your point right ? Well this has, so far, still to be proven), he probably makes way low money in relation to the quality of the product he made (as an indie, compare to what giants in the gaming industry would have made with the same great product, just with massive marketing budgets), or than the amount of time and quality (as in skills) of work he has put in his product, and so on.
Nobody should be happy in case of a lie from Fizzer to its community, but what if this was the only way for Fizzer to raise enough money to defend its platform against Activision attacking its brand ? Maybe telling the less dramatic truth would have raised less money, not enough, and prevented him from defending its work ? And keeping in mind that a failure to defend himself may cause the end of 15 years of work, his baby creation, his living material, and maybe his life (nobody knows how a human being may react when losing everything ; and double effect, after having tasted success thanks to it) ?

On another subect. How would you feel, as an indie app developer, or for indie app developers, who can't afford to trademark their brand name until they have reached some amount of benefits, but in the meantime, a big guy comes, sees the marketing opportunity of stealing some of the indie customer base, just by registering the name first ? Not every indie developers was born in a rich west coast family and can afford to avoid such situation.
Fortunately, this does not happen, as law was well written, and protects not the first user to have registered a name, but the first one to have been using it (or using it widely).

That being said. Coming back to the points you are raising today.

What Fizzer may have meant when saying "Warzone being an english word" to convince the disappointed users, may be that it is the composition of 2 words having a meaning when put together, of which common sense is enough to understand : "a zone where there is a war". You can not tell the same for "Warlight" (a light where there is war ?).

Also, can this line, that Activision's lawyers must be in possession by now, thanks to their own research or not, be accountable against Fizzer ? Fizzer did not seem to be talking about legal terms, but about strategic, and own perception terms. Now, if he used a legal term in the past, without knowledge of the law on this specific subject, and using it in a hypothetic wording, what value would this have in a court ? Or to a jury ? And how related to the subject would this be ? I would therefore object this argument.

Now, showing Fizzer saying exactly the opposite in your next screenshot, may not be necessarily by dishonesty, but this time simply starting using legal terms. Legal terms, or law, was born to protect businesses. Shall we blame Fizzer for starting using legal terms once a trial is under course and being here to defend himself ?

You're raising the question why Fizzer would ask for Warzone to be registered for him and not for Activision as being using it before, despite plenty former Warzone platforms exist ? And that as such, it makes no sense.
Well it does make sense, Fizzer (maybe with his lawyers help) explained : Activision may plan to prevent any former users, including Fizzer's platform, to keep using it. And without the possibility to find another domain name related to its product that he can afford, this may mean the end of Fizzer's world. Without mentionning all the accumulated marketing effort from Fizzer around the current name that would be lost and to start over.

Of course, you may wonder how, if the threat of destroying former platforms using the name was a good enough reason to grant Fizzer with the name, could this be granted since the same could then happen by Fizzer towards other former Warzone platforms ?
Well, apparently, they are all (or is it most ? Or all of those with a significant active user base ?) discontinued. So that's one difference with Fizzer's Warzone.
Second, Fizzer did mention he would not go against previous platforms. As far as we can tell, he only goes against big giants coming after his own platform. And if word was not enough, I have very little knowledge about laws, but this may well be added in written in a court decision, if needed.

Next you're asking -and you are right, but with your obviously high intellect, you already have the answer, so are you being totally neutral ?-, why, as an existing platform using a "Warzone" name before Activision did, would Fizzer gain cause from the court, when there are (were ?) plenty other platforms prior to Fizzer using the same name ?
Well, Fizzer has been the first ever, and before Activision's, to reach a valuable number of users, or MAUs, in a "Warzone" named platform. That's a difference with other former platforms.

For me, this last point may be the key (reading what follows of your message, I think that's exactly what you mean with "drawing the line", so we may agree at least on that principle) : from how many MAUs (monthly active users) does a plaform "acquire" the "right" to register a name that has been in use by others in the past ? Or how many MAUs (and maybe countries covered by its customer base) make a name "descriptive", as in giving it a "second meaning", or reminding the platform just by its name (if I finally understood this term correctly, this is what it is about at the end of the day) ?
- If it's 50 millions, then Fizzer can't beat Activision to it.
- If it's say 100 000, then Fizzer can, and former Warzone users can not.
- Maybe even 10 000 users is already enough, and maybe Fizzer's Warzone has been the first ever "Warzone" platform to reach such a number. These estimations, giving the win to Fizzer, do not seem too unrealistic to me.
- Maybe the popularity worldwide is part of the criterias too ? If so, Fizzer matches it, and I doubt former platforms do.

Maybe this is not even that. Maybe Warzone is the only currently still active platform using that name before Activision did ? And that may be an enough reason already.

Anyways. If things were so simple, how lawyers would not know (appeal from money, rather than winning a case ? True question about lawyers' integrity), and how a court case would take so long to be decided ?

(sorry for my english, not mother (nor father :p) tongue)

Edited 10/16/2021 23:31:48

Knyte, I'm worried you may have done all these researchs, not only for our curiosity and information sakes, but also for Activision lawyers

If my forum musings tell them something they don't already know, then they need to hire better clerks. Activision's counsel, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, is a law firm that routinely argues in front of the Supreme Court; they've done high-profile IP law cases before, including ones that helped take out services like Napster, and appear to hire some pretty good lawyers (based on credentials- in the United States, there's only about 12-16 good law schools. All of Activision's lawyers seem to have gone to them).

If my last post impacts the case, then that'd be especially concerning as they contain zero new information- only this community's blind spots that have been brought up by others on other platforms (or in court). There is virtually no chance anything you or I say or do would have an impact on the outcome of the case, especially given court evidentiary requirements (like the rules against hearsay). Nor is there much risk of impact to third-parties' behavior: our posts are too long to actually change anyone's opinions, and those coming to this thread have already made up their minds.

All that may disappear eventually, shall Fizzer lose the case.

This is highly implausible; see https://www.warzone.com/Forum/543174?Offset=365.

making Fizzer in debt possibly for the rest of his life

This is similarly implausible; beyond that tacked-on legal fees demand, Activision isn't even asking for money. Warzone, on the other hand, not only similarly asks for attorney's fees but also has more substantive monetary demands: they seek punitive damages from Activision simply from using the word "warzone" in the title and marketing of a game. Unlike in Europe, lawyers' fees in the US are almost always paid by the each party to its own lawyers, not by the loser (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule). The worst-case scenario here is a world where Warzone.com has no power to regulate others' use of the word "warzone" (or demand funds for doing so), while Activision is able to go after Call of Duty: Warzone knock-offs that use the word "warzone" to market themselves- but not after good-faith prior users like Warzone.com, who got grandfathered in.

If the priority were to simply avoid a bankruptcy scenario and protect the future of the game, all of that (plus money) has already been rejected by Warzone in settlement negotiations. Not only that but Warzone.com has more financial resources than most players realize. I can't explain why directly (due to a chilling effect), so let me do so obliquely: Have you ever been to Seattle? If you go on a seaplane or boat tour of the city, one of the places the tour guides really like to show visitors is where many of the super-wealthy Seattleites (like the Microsoft millionaires and winners of the dot-com boom) live, in mansions on the waterfront. They're some really majestic places, with varying architecture styles and all sorts of trappings of luxury- yachts, of course, but also "keeping up with the Joneses" arms-races over silly little things that normal people can't afford, like sophisticated lake trampoline systems. This place is called Mercer Island.

from how many MAUs (monthly active users) does a plaform "acquire" the "right" to register a name that has been in use by others in the past ?

This isn't how the law works and just seems like special pleading so we can draw an arbitrary line and call a leopard seal David to a killer whale's Goliath, as if the penguins further down the food chain don't matter. I'm not making a legal argument or anything in my last post, just wondering why one side calls itself the little guy when there's a lot of littler guys that could make the same claims toward it.

how lawyers would not know (appeal from money, rather than winning a case ? True question about lawyers' integrity), and how a court case would take so long to be decided ?

Cases take long in general because American courts are backlogged. So far, between April and now, all that's transpired has mainly been the parties sending documents (of claims) back and forth, about once a month. It will not be until December that even the motion to dismiss- where the court decides whether the countersuit even has legal merit if we take all the fact-claims for granted- will be heard. These motions only get heard one-at-a-time by this judge, on only one day of the week (Friday). Once judges hear these motions, they try to provide a decision within some window of time but functionally they can extend this forever, so after that next step this case could even just be in limbo while Judge Aenlle-Rocha catches up on all his work.

Cases are just slow. This one even had a 1-2 month delay simply because a lawyer went on vacation. Absent a party settling, regardless of the merits of the case, we'll most likely not see it conclude for some time.

Two tangents:

he probably makes way low money in relation to the quality of the product he made

Value and quality are somewhat arbitrary terms; the closest we have to a general mechanism for determining "value" is the market, where individual decision-makers have to constantly weigh trade-offs and decide how much they are willing to give up to acquire other things. For example, I may feel that the the quality of my labor has some value, but the realistic arbiter of that is simply just its price in a competitive market: when people pay me a certain amount, they on aggregate have communicated exactly how much they would be willing to give up in exchange to reap the benefits of my labor, by actually making those choices. Is there a much more valid measure of "value" than that already communicated in a price-coordinated competitive market? We can say anything about how much we value this game, but empirically, the value I place on my enjoyment of this game is around a few thousand hours of my life that I spent on this rather than on their alternative uses, as well as a few hundred dollars that I traded for marginal improvements in my enjoyment of this game (rather than how that money could have otherwise been spent). You could probably find similar measures for how much you have actually valued this game.

If so, please bear in mind that the game you may (still ? ...True question) love, or have loved once upon a time

I still enjoy the game and care for its playerbase. I don't believe the future or interests of either are actually at stake in this case, although- to be clear- my latest forum posts are simply case updates for those following along and musings made purely as musings, not out of concern for anyone or any party in this case. In some ways, I believe the interests of the community, player base, and the future of this game conflict with those of the company presently running it. IOW, if you don't buy the claims about this case being an existential threat to the game (see: prior discussion in this thread), it's worth considering whether the player base loses from Warzone.com losing and wins from Warzone.com winning. In the extreme case, how would Warzone.com be functionally different if it were owned and operated by Activision Blizzard? The complaints people have about big game dev studios- lack of responsiveness to user feedback, unaccountability and intransparency, arbitrary and unpredictable adverse treatment of random players, focusing on the cash cow parts of the game, making things increasingly pay-to-win or pay-to-use, introducing gacha-game addictive mechanisms where players are nudged into generating revenue through mild frustration punctuated by short dopamine hits- already apply to the status quo. It's like how mom-and-pop corner stores are supposed to be better than big supermarkets, but in practice that's just a bias because they've got faces- they tend to pay their employees less and generally don't provide the same quality to consumers (this is why they get outcompeted on the market). They operate under the same incentives, minus some of the competitive advantages of scale that often allow companies to serve consumers better. Mom-and-pop shops try to claim the moral superiority of pretending care less about money, but being unprofitable does not a non-profit make. (Big companies are unfairly disparaged, I tell you! At least the ones that actually have to compete, not ones like Comcast or Disney that get to dodge competition. Coincidentally, supporting the idea that someone should have exclusive rights to an actual English word requires making a trade-off against instead having more competition.)

As some counterpoints, consider that: People who win retirement money in legal windfalls sometimes tend to retire, and people who donate money to others' legal funds had alternative uses for that money. Reality is not really the black-and-white, we're-under-threat, David-and-Goliath yarn of the GoFundMe.

Edited 10/16/2021 23:34:18

Just to clarify, are you drunk ?! If you wrote all this the same way Zuckerberg did according to The social network, whatever your business is, I want to be part :)
Because there are connections with my message but, lol, you've been deep, especially toward the end :d (but still as interesting as usual indeed)

Your previous message you linked does mention you notified Activision lawyers about findings. Here is where my brain got this assumption from. But that's more down to legitimacy of feeling betrayed by Fizzer.

Also, I can't believe until now, I've been fooled in thinking Fizzer was residing in Washington city.

But ok. Maybe Fizzer is a millionnaire (with his skills -not sure which one is the most impressive, but I definitely can't ignore his confidence and success in nailing his SEO- and a past experience at Microsoft, I would not be surprised after all), then again why would he ask a $50k from his user base ? Why would he struggle with a domain name at $60k (I don't remember where I recall this number from) ? And why would he be after a retirement money from Activision ? I mean $1M, a lot of people don't even make this much in a whole lifetime.

Greed ? Can't you feel or just trust Fizzer as a passionnate and genuine (honest) indie developer that just wants to enjoy his time with a baby creation that is sucessful and please a massive community, rather than making much more milions working back for a GAFAM ?

Edited 10/17/2021 00:11:19

does mention you notified Activision lawyers about findings

I don't know which message you're referring to, but if it's the one I think you're referring to, it was a joke. Was it something like "(after notifying Activision's lawyers about my findings, of course)"? I remember saying something like that because there's an inside joke about me secretly working for Activision, but in general I don't believe I have anything to offer them of value.

he is a millionnaire

That wasn't the implication, nor do I want to dive deep into Fizzer's personal finances (or Mercer's), but it certainly would not be surprising. Last time I sampled, top-of-market pay for software developers 15-20 years deep into their careers easy breaks into seven figures. Plus Microsoft stock from around when Warzone was created has increased in value by a factor of 19-20x since then. So his skill set certainly can be lucrative, assuming he can pass the interview bar and whatnot, but that's neither here nor there- and to be clear, he doesn't live on Mercer Island (afaik).

$60k (I don't remember where I recall this number from)

The Washington post article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/06/04/warzone-name-lawsuit/):

“At the very least, I would like to be made whole,” he [Fizzer] said. “I spent about $60,000 on the domain name and legal fees, plus three years of my life into this brand and it hurts business to have to change the title.”

And why would he be after a retirement money from Activision ? I mean $1M, a lot of people don't even make this much in a whole lifetime.

My speculative working model of the case is that it's essentially a game of Texas Hold 'Em. The two parties don't perfectly know the other's hands (i.e., strengths of their legal arguments) and don't know the other's risk-reward profiles (e.g., size of their respective war chests), and every legal event is like flipping over a communal card, adding more information about how things might go. You have to decide whether to call, fold, or raise the stakes. Sometimes it makes sense to be bold so as to not leave any money on the table; sometimes, being bold can backfire when you bluff (or think your weak hand is actually strong). Although I suspect, in this game, the parties have radically different ideas about how strong their respective hands are, but that's especially pure speculation. This game will most likely end in a settlement- there's a lot of communal cards left, so odds are one or the other will fold when they find a comfortable spot in the zone of possible agreement.

If you view the case from this lens, I think you understand my risk-reward profile (w.r.t. the impact of this case on the future of this game and community) and start seeing this as more of a minor curiosity where someone else will either shoot themselves in the foot or receive a variable windfall due to a quirk of the legal system, rather than an existential threat to something we value.

Greed ?!

I think this unnecessarily personalizes things. The higher the stakes get, the faster people's behavior tends to converge to match the incentives available to them. "Greed" and "kindness" are common explanations for specific actions by people, but imo they're usually not parsimonious explanations.

Just to clarify, are you drunk ?!

Thank you for the (unusual) compliment. I'm sure, if we were having this conversation in French (of which I presumably have far less command than you), I would be awed by your command and communication of ideas. Not to say your English is bad (no need to apologize for it), rather that I just have experience (unsurprisingly) of writing and communicating a lot in this language and so I'm able to come across well, often simply by recycling others' ideas rather than having particularly deep insights of my own.

Edited 10/17/2021 00:46:52

I am not much familiar with US law, but I would not deny the possibility of negative financial outcome for Warzone.com LLP, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/movies/clint-eastwood-wins-cbd-lawsuit.html

However even in such scenario, if Warzone fails to pay what's awarder by court, the game should not end but rather be sold to another owner, who most likely will continue or even hire Fizzer to develop. Or maybe some IPO or just new share emission. I think there can be max 200 shareholders, but not sure.

I didn't know about the inside joke so indeed, I'm happy to have misunderstood this line.

Ok, Fizzer may be playing some kind of real life poker, or even Warzone :D, with Activision, for real money, and since he may not need money, possibly for fun. Well, the good news is Fizzer is one of the best strategic player at WZ, and an incredibly clever person. I would also bet he is a terrific poker player for some (or same) reasons.
And giants not always win against smaller guys they are trying to rip off (the example I have in mind is the twins vs Zukerberg who apparently inspired from their idea for FB).
Ofc, only future will tell.

In this link (originally posted by Norman) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark, it does say "the owner of a trademark registered by the USPTO can enforce the trademark in all U.S. states, sue for damages (including lost profits), and significantly, recover attorneys' fees and costs incurred in protecting the trademark against infringement"
So technically Fizzer may have to refund Activision lawyers in case of a loss in this civil "war". I'm not sure how much we are talking, and I definitely can't be sure whether Fizzer could afford such liability. Even with the help of yet another crowdfunding ;-) (may crowdfunding somehow be part of business models btw ? True question).

The same article also says "a common law [unregistered] trademark owner's remedies [to defend himself] may be limited to injunctive relief (a court order for the defendant to cease and desist the infringement)"
That would justify the need to send such letter to Activision. This is defense basics in said situation. Not sure why Fizzer would hide this letter though, or was he just not aware of his lawyers doings ? And why not, I mean, each his own job ; otherwise, why pay them in first place ? And how to deal with your own daily job if you also have to shadow your lawyers ? Or hear from lawyers on every single move from their part ?
So, was this necessarily a lie from Fizzer ? I doubt so. Well, I can't be as affirmative as you have been.

This article also says "Some U.S. states follow a first use rule when determining trademark ownership (such as California). Significantly, under the first use in commerce rule an unregistered trademark owner can defeat a later-filed federal or state registered trademark, if the unregistered trademark owner can show first use in commerce before the date of the registered trademark"
According to this only line (but this is Wikipedia, not a law article indeed), I don't see Fizzer losing.

However, the article also says "States that do not follow the first use rule resolve trademark ownership disputes by determining who first filed for registration of a trademark. Regardless of use in commerce, if a business or individual later files to register the trademark, the filing to register will take precedence over an unregistered common law trademark holder's use of the trademark. The first to file is declared the owner of the trademark"
That's not a good news for Fizzer, but apparently, I'm not sure why, this does not seem to be a subject at all in the current case. Anyways, that illustrates what risks Fizzer wanted to avoid with the name registered by Activision. Was Fizzer really lying, or wrong, in saying Activision, after registration of Warzone, could go against Fizzer's name, and thus harm (to what extent ? New marketing is money, money is not unlimited) his product and business ?

Regarding the timing of the will to register (now, and not before) for Fizzer.
- We can imagine before, Fizzer could not afford (do we have an idea how much it costs roughly btw ?).
- Or that Fizzer didn't know it was possible to register a "common english name".
- Or that Fizzer didn't know that "Warzone" was actually not a so common english name.
- Or that Fizzer was afraid to lose, and / or didn't know it was possible to win, the registration battle, as not being the first ever platform using this word in its name, until Activision went for it.
- Or that Fizzer was waiting to meet the necessary criterias to be able to register a name that he is not the only one to be using. Criterias for doing so are still unclear and to be defined, but possibly still active, with economic goals, with enough MAUs and / or with global presence ? Again, for me, key to this case is definitely how we define decriptive, and draw the line, among those criterias.
All that to say, Activision should not use the "opportunist timing" as an argument against Fizzer.

For me, for these reasons, I don't see the court giving the win to Activision. So I expect Activision to settle for a $1M to buy back both the brand and domain name. If I was Fizzer, I would take it. Maybe Warlight owner refused $60k, but not sure he would refuse $100k, and Fizzer could then afford such amount.
Warlight would be "unique" (as not at all a common english word :D), and in many cases, it is even better to have a brand that has no real meaning, but is just recognizable (Google, Instagram, TikTok, and so on).

As you speculate, such big money may have been Fizzer main plans from the beginning.
I still doubt so as I doubt he spent 15 years creating a game hoping to gain retirement money in a trademark infringement. For me, his plan was just to defend his 15 years and next 20 years occupation. But ofc, nobody can tell for sure. I assume you tend to think malicious behaviour in Fizzer from the day you realised Fizzer may have been lying at some point, and was not the kind guy you were expecting and trusting. Well, as described above, all the lies are also not proven to me.
Still, even if that were the case (not proven), would you not do the same ? And if lying (not proven) were required to achieve this, but in counterparty, gaining a lot of money allowing also to invest back and improve even further the product, for its community, and maybe even refund subscribers to the crowdfunding ? Why not at the end of the day ? So, your other hypothesis of community losing is also not this obvious. And the alternative being letting your product suffer (or die, we don't know how a product lives without finding new users, as existing ones may get bored with no new stuff, including players), would you do differently ?

We're getting into uncomfortably speculative territory w.r.t. that discussion of motives. At this level, there are probably lawyers or those in the know skimming through these threads, advised not to comment themselves, either amused or frustrated by how off the mark the discussion here might be. (Conversely, there's also non-lawyers who seem to think that the law is some special domain so completely disconnected from our mundane lives that even simple questions of fact require must highly specialized legal insight to answer.) So I would like to stick to non-legal discussion (especially since your remarks about what might happen in court retread what was already discussed on pages 9-12) and chiefly focus on the credibility of public statements made about the lawsuit, the David-vs-Goliath we're-under-attack narratives from April, and how they match what is currently on the public record.

This present discussion- starting on https://www.warzone.com/Forum/543174-activision-suing-?Offset=445- is emphatically not about what might happen in court. A case like this isn't going to come down to what is or isn't in the Oxford English Dictionary, which isn't even a dictionary of American English. Nor does a forum statement from 2015 have any bearing on whether "warzone" is an "actual English word" (not some special legal question), only on the credibility of the narratives involved in raising funds for this case.

the owner of a trademark registered by the USPTO can enforce the trademark in all U.S. states, sue for damages (including lost profits), and significantly, recover attorneys' fees

Neither party claims to own the registered trademark right now, so they can't assert these rights. The case is in large part about who gets to own it. Either way, as Aerial Assault pointed out on this thread on 04/24, attorneys' fees getting awarded is an "exceptional circumstances" thing.

Not sure why Fizzer would hide this letter though

To be crystal clear, the current stance of Warzone.com is not that they sent no letter(s) between Nov. and April; in court, they do acknowledge numerous communications in that time period. We also don't need to speculate about what the lawyers did or didn't tell their client- that knowledge is already on the public record (see: the WaPo article).

Warzone.com simply disputes the characterization of the communications- i.e., whether the letter they sent on 11/20/2020 should be labeled "cease and desist" (not a special term defined by the law). They do not maintain that "All [Warzone.com] did was file opposition to the trademark" (as claimed by /u/fickerra on reddit when raising funds).

Let's walk back to the early days of this thread, when Farah asked:

They make it sound like you started this all, by sending a cease and desist letter. Now don't get me wrong, I'd have sent a ton of those already, but is this simply them trying to shift the blame to you, or is this the actual reason they're suing you?

This question touches upon whether Warzone.com "started it all" and poked the bear, rather than just whether they would specifically call the letter they sent, warning Activision about the consequences if they did not ̶c̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶i̶s̶t̶ stop in their use of the alleged "warzone" mark, a "cease-and-desist" letter. Responses like "That's a flat-out 100% lie." and "they're lying about that. All I did was file opposition" are, for lack of a better term, provably false: Warzone certainly did more than file opposition between November and April. A "flat-out 100% lie" does not sound like it would refer to merely a semantic dispute about how to label a letter.

A reasonable person reading Warzone.com's fundraising communications about the lawsuit in April and taking them at face value would have likely concluded that Warzone.com had simply filed to oppose the trademark with the USPTO (on 11/03/2020) and then got taken to court half-a-year later, in April, after just going through the USPTO's usual dispute resolution channels.

I suspect that the people comforted by the denials of sending that letter would have been quite surprised to learn that Warzone.com indeed had sent Activision a letter warning them about potential legal ramifications ("massive damages") for Activision's use of the word "warzone" in their marketing materials, that this had sparked at least one round of settlement negotiations (in which Warzone did actually ask for what would amount to millions of dollars), and that indeed the collapse of these negotiations (triggered by Warzone.com's refusal to entertain further offers) had spurred Activision to put this dispute in front of the courts.

I assume you tend to think malicious behaviour in Fizzer

Again, I'm not interested in the intent of either party or their states of mind, only the veracity of claims and the credibility of the narrative made to persuade people to donate to a legal fund, as well as alerting you invested observers when new events occur (on the public record). In a way, you can accept that some statements just aren't that... consistent with other actions and aligned with reality, without having to point fingers at someone, guess their motivations, and call them a liar. The question of "Does this person tell the truth?" unnecessarily complicates and personalizes much narrower and simpler questions like "Is the logic of their claims sound?" and "How believable is the simplified narrative?" If you conflate the latter questions with the former, you find yourself making awkward and complex explanations like, "Sure, what was said clearly isn't actually true, but here's a charitable explanation of what they might have actually meant that helps us maintain an image of them as a 'good guy.'" Reducing everything down to a conversation about the people involved- unfalsifiable and speculative claims about the motivations of various parties and of us in discussing their actions- gets nowhere.

We could get lost trying to figure out who's the "good guy" and the "bad guy" here, or we could simply focus on whether the framing people are being given about the case, when asked to donate funds, actually matches reality.

Two fun tangents:
The law firm representing Warzone.com as of April, Newman du Wors (now seemingly Newman Law - maybe because of https://johndduwors.wordpress.com/) outlines its strategy at https://www.newmanlaw.com/how-we-win/ and https://www.newmanlaw.com/what-we-do/:

We’ve earned a reputation for razor-sharp and aggressive representation. We’ve represented plaintiffs and defendants in hundreds of intellectual-property cases in federal courts across the country—trademark, domain-name, patent, copyright, trade-secret, and publicity-rights lawsuits.

Most of our cases are in federal court, where battles are usually won or lost based on written filings. Our goal is always to win the case before trial.

An aggressively-worded cease and desist letter to bluff hard and win fast, escalating to aggressive demands and deadlines in settlement negotiations, all backfiring hard and triggering an expensive legal case, sounds right up their alley.

In the Washington Post article, Warzone.com says:

I thought we would strike a deal that would at least give me enough money to buy a new domain name.

This was in response to Activision's early offer of $10,000. Domain names can cost anything from $0 to ~$15M, but in this case perhaps the cost they're talking about is around the stated latest purchase price of warzone.com ($60,000). If that's the target, it might have been simpler to just raise $50,000 to buy a new domain . Legal fees really add up! Activision might've already spent more than that on its lawyers.

Edited 10/17/2021 19:58:23

If I'm following you (I got that from before, but it's always good to synthetise a bit the tl/dr for anyone, so as to refresh minds in details like you do, plus to make sure we / I get this right),
- Fizzer is saying all he did was "file opposition to the trademark" (on top of sending a letter to "stop in their use of the alleged "warzone" mark", which was not a "cease and desist letter"), after Activision trialed for "Warzone" registration, and that Activision "sued Warzone for the name" (from his original post starting this thread), so Fizzer says he only responded to an Activision initial attack.
- And this may be wrong, according to Activision, the letter did was a cease and desist, and this letter was the beggining of any legal action between both parts.
So either Fizzer or Activision seems to be lying about that.

Well first of all, whether Fizzer lied (not proven) on these medias (Reddit, Twitch, Gofundme, his WZ forum), this may not be appreciated by his community (unless other reasons are brought up to explain eventually). But could this be accounted against Fizzer in a legal court ? I mean, what value "some lines on the internet" could have ? And also, what value would a "lie to a community" (about who started the legal battle, with actual legal action against the counterpart) have, in an infringement case, and against a giant like Activision ?

If this is actually about justice in regards to the community fooled, we can always question about why (I gave a possible explanation before). But on the community interest, maybe they would not stop playing the game even if they knew the truth, as they play it for its quality, not for its creator. Maybe they would still help Fizzer defend himself, to protect not the creator, but their beloved game. So yes, if so, community was lied to, but maybe nothing would have been different in their behaviour and support.
Ofc it's hard to speculate for "all" funders, and if only 1 funder had changed his mind knowing the truth, may be a problem already. But not for the current court case (IMO) though.
But I would go for the "all". They didn't help as a charity for Fizzer, they helped to keep their game alive. And again, even Fizzer attacking Activision first doesn't necessarily mean he went for retirement money, but possibly just to defend himself before Activision gets the power to attack prior users of "Warzone" in their name. So the truth (or "correct statement" shall I say, as it may not be because of a lie, but possibly for other reasons, see below) is only about "did Fizzer attack first" and not "did Fizzer attack for retirement money"

Secondly, when Fizzer says in starting this thread "Activision is suing Warzone for the name", maybe he meant "Activision is going for "Warzone" as a registered name", assuming that "then they probably will sue former "warzone" users to make them stop using it".
So what if he messed up the wording of this line ? Plus I don't recall he has since corrected the wording. Either way, could a mis wording have a legal impact on such case ? And can mistake of good faith be used in this example ?
Also, this line possibly happened prior to the legal case (I don't have the exact timeframe), if so could this be used in a court ? In movies, we always hear "whatever you say may be used against you", so lines from before a court may be used. But I would imagine it does not until the suspect is explicitely warned by a person of law and order (so judge, policeman, ...) of such threat.

Whether Activision only went for "Warzone registration", and Fizzer started the legal battle, fearing for his business (or smelling cash opportunity according to other hypothesis), with a formal cease and desist letter, after Fizzer admitting in court this was the actual facts. Would this be a problem ? How else was he supposed to defend himself, against such a threat for his business ?

"you find yourself making awkward and complex explanations like, "Sure, what was said clearly isn't actually true, but here's a charitable explanation of what they might have actually meant that helps us maintain an image of them as a 'good guy.'" Reducing everything down to a conversation about the people involved- unfalsifiable and speculative claims about the motivations of various parties and of us in discussing their actions- gets nowhere." (sorry I don't see how I can quote with italic format)
Lol spotted, that's exactly what I am doing. But I'm doing so as wondering what legal impact could these "unconsistent statements" may have in a court. Also for me, "intention" in a crime, fraud, mistake, or whatever court case, does (or should) have an impact. Because when you hurt someone unintentionnally, you don't get the same sentence as when it is premeditary. So this may (or may not, since this case is not about murder) have a legal impact, so this aspect of the discussion may be relevant, I don't know.

About Duvors tl/dr. If you did read it all, too bad you didn't sum up. But also, your amount of research on this case subject, going into lawyers status, is incredible. I hope you are using these researchs also for an education paper in your law course :-).
On a totally separate subject, I don't think this is right (I read the begining) to make (not talking about you right ; the webmaster) a "public trial" on a person, one because he can't defend himself on such website (or social network in other cases), second because there are courts for that, and guilty people, for not judging him correctly, are judges in first place, they should be the ones to be exposed like this. This guy is disgusting, but if everybody was doing so against people they don't like, there would be a lot a suicide, after they lost their social, professionnal and / or family lives.

"An aggressively-worded cease and desist letter to bluff hard and win fast, escalating to aggressive demands and deadlines in settlement negotiations, all backfiring hard and triggering an expensive legal case, sounds right up their alley."
I agree (but that's only speculation). Speaking of which, maybe Fizzer is not lying when saying "All I did was file opposition", by talking for him ("I") and not about whatever his lawyers did. Well, that would be bold from him if Activision did accuse the whole Warzone organization (so both him and lawyers) and not just him. His community may not check at first indeed, but up to thinking it would never come up eventually.

"This was in response to Activision's early offer of $10,000. Domain names can cost anything from $0 to ~$15M, but in this case perhaps the cost they're talking about is around the stated latest purchase price of warzone.com ($60,000). If that's the target, it might have been simpler to just raise $50,000 to buy a new domain . Legal fees really add up! Activision might've already spent more than that on its lawyers."
I don't agree. Fizzer said $60k was a bargain, such a good one that he "jumped on it" [without long thinking before someone else grabs it]. So any other name was a less good quality price ratio. Also, changing a brand name is not just the cost of a domain, but also the marketing investment around it. And if he feels he is fraudulently stolen the brand by someone else, why would he just comply, losing his invested marketing on it, making his community repair (pay for) an injustice (well ok, that's actually a bit what he is doing, fair enough), and without claiming damages (maybe he was "in love" with this name and will have to pick a less lovely name, maybe he chose this name because it reminded him a specific memory of his childhood (sorry can't figure more relevant examples right now lol), and so on that a new name could not replace).

Edited 10/18/2021 14:33:38

@Mike: I think we're speaking past each other a little bit. Your focus seems to be on the intents, motives, and objectives of the parties. Since those are unknowable, my focus is instead on the stakes, potential outcomes, and impacts for observers. There's also some things getting lost in translation- when I said 'retirement money', I referred to the amount (enough to retire on), not the intent. Ironically, I'd considered clarifying this in an earlier post but removed the explanation to try to scale down my legendary verbosity.

Using those Du Wors allegations as an analogy, that site makes a lot of unfalsifiable allegations of ill-intent. However, none of those allegations need to be evaluated when weighing results for clients. One discussion would require psychic insight; the other only requires examining and analyzing facts on the record.

Similarly, I'm looking at the reliability of claims and narratives made about this case. We don't need to (and indeed, can't) know why these parties seek the "warzone" mark(s). To reiterate, these intents also have little to no legal bearing (beyond assigning punitive damages); our present discussion is not about what might happen in court, which has already occurred in spades on this thread.

My claim is simply that statements were made and narratives were presented, in the process of raising funds, that stand on shaky ground and contradict facts. As a result, reasonable donors and observers- like those in this thread- have made dubious inferences, ill-founded assumptions, and false or faulty conclusions, such as those about the risks of this case, the strength or "absurd"ity of various parties' claims, the stakes for Warzone players, the chain of events preceding the case, what the parties are actually asking for in court, and what's going to happen to this game.

For example, an observer of this case in April (based on GoFundMe, forum, and Reddit comments) may have concluded that the successful registration of a "warzone" mark might have led to the forced sale of the warzone.com domain or the taking down of Warzone.com's apps. However, since May 5, the word mark "warzone" has been registered in the EU (https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/018339690) for downloadable video game software and entertainment (providing online video games and associated content), and the catastrophic end-of-Warzone scenario has yet to occur in Europe. Indeed, a rough investigation of the processes involved would lead a reasonable observer to find them exceedingly unlikely. Regardless of whether claims are made and stories are told in good or bad faith, they can be true or false, probable or improbable, misleading or not. The former discussion would mainly serve the purpose of rendering judgement on the claimant, while the latter has far more utility. We don't need to analyze claims on trust. For example, when someone claims $60k is a bargain for a domain name, we can check actual prices (presently, two-word domain name "warforce.com" retails for $3k; "warmaps.com" for $20k; "wardoom.com" for $400) and even watch a live sale tracker (https://namebio.com/live) to realize that two-English-word domain names typically retail for much less than $60k, although domains that are just a single actual English word can easily reach that amount.

We don't need to speculate as to the intention of someone making a claim or crafting a narrative in order to determine whether we should believe it. We don't need to speculate as to why someone makes a set of decisions in order to determine whether they are wise or unwise, whether we should help enable them, whether the things we care about stand to gain or actually lose from our doing so.

I believe our perspectives are compatible.

(As an aside, I intend to retire from Warzone, so hopefully this will be the last response you get from me on this thread- maybe my final forum post ever, since one can dream. Cheers, and thanks for the thoughtful responses- and unusual compliments.)

Mike, are you mimicking knytes posting style?

You can never beat a master at his own game.

Seriously, Knyte will always out word you.

Mike, I can help you out. I have absolutely no problem saying out loud what you think Knyte is thinking. First let me make something clear: I can't read minds and I don't know everything that has ever happened. So what comes next is merely my philosophy based on what I do know.

It looks Fizzer has been dishonest in some ways. He has mischaracterized the events that led to where he currently is. He has, in various ways, misled his player base into believing things that aren't necessarily true. Ultimately, these lies (of omission and commission) have led to thousands of dollars in donations on his behalf to fight a frivolous lawsuit that he himself brought on. At the end of the day, it appears that Fizzer may have acted in these ways for less-than-honorable reasons.

Sadly, as Knyte pointed out, this means that there are people here who are finding out that they may have been ripped off or conned by Fizzer. They don't want to believe this, because that wouldn't make them feel good (understandably). As a result, they have a vested emotional interest in denying that Fizzer could have done this. Unfortunately, this means that they'll do whatever it takes to believe that he had altruistic motives. So when other people say nice things about Fizzer, they latch onto that. Inversely, when people claim that Fizzer has ulterior motives, they deny it - and worse, they question the motives of the people making these claims. Ironic.

To be clear: I'm not saying that everyone who is defending Fizzer and his actions believe they have been wronged. I'm also not saying that all those who feel as though they were scammed have been lying to themselves and acting argumentatively. But I am saying that this is true for some people in both instances.

I've been scammed hardcore a few times in my life - sometimes when I had desperately needed the money that I lost. It's one of the worst feelings ever (as anyone who's been there will tell you). You end up feeling sad, stupid, and guilty all at the same time. This all leads to shame, which is the head honcho of negative emotions. I can certainly understand that some people would rather just refuse to entertain the theory that they had ever been cheated. I think every time I get swindled, though, I end up a tiny bit wiser. As Modest Mouse once said "A fake Jamaican took every last dime with that scam -- It was worth it just to learn some sleight of hand."

So in conclusion, while Knyte avoids speculation, forgive me my conjecture: Fizzer saw an opportunity to make boat-loads of cash and he acted on it. It didn't work. As a last resort, he lied to his loyal supporters to fund a lawsuit that he hopes will end in his favor. If he loses, things will be okay. But he doesn't want you to think that - because without urgency, he would have to fund the lawsuit himself. And as his lawyers proclaim on their own website:

We're not cheap.

-Newman Du Wors Durrance (https://www.newmanlaw.com/how-we-win/)

Strange that there is no opposition filed in Europe. Does that mean that Warzone might only used by Warzone.com LLC in USA?

Who would be sick enough to SUE a game that not only is much better than theirs, but who took the copyrighted name first? I mean seriously... their lawsuit is absurd.
If you need motivation to donate, just use your money to buy things in-game, like coins, and you can actually get warzone coins out of your donation. Notice I used Warzone instead of the old Warlight because that's just simply what it is now. Nobody can change that!
May the WZ army prevail! :)
get it
since you use armies to play this game
haha not funny at all
anyway, activision is lame and has lost any past support I had (which was none)