Activision said millions, so maybe higher than 1mil

i don’t know exact profit lines but i’d think it’s more than 500 million easily

Yeah, it's somewhere south of $2B/yr since that's about the combined revenue of COD:MW and COD:WZ. Beyond that, we can only speculate. But going off of 0.25% * $2B/yr, Warzone.com, LLC's opening ask was less than $5 million/year. This was just their opening ask, though, and not an amount they can hope to win in court (because in court they're asking for 3 x the damages that they've suffered from Activision's alleged trademark infringement).

Once you get into the territory of "who's asking for how much?" it's just pure speculation. We only know that Warzone asked for 0.25% of CoD:WZ profits sometime in late 2020, that Activision offered $10,000 (unclear on what terms), that Activision claims Warzone at some point was asking for millions, and everything else is only known to the parties in the case and their legal teams. Past a certain point, we'd just be making up numbers.

The thing about cases like this one is that you very quickly run into the limit of publicly available information, as you wait for the next court document filing, and it's tempting but counterproductive (if your goal is to get informed + help others get informed) to try to push past that point. We honestly have no idea what's going on in the settlement negotiations at this point or if they're even still going on at this point.

yh ik what u mean. I was thinking of the bare minimum of what fizzer would want.

All that because Seph did a joke

Except it wasn't a joke. When changing name from WarLight to WarZone, Fizzer and Mercer explained that the goal was to get more traffic because the word 'WarZone' was way more searched than 'WarLight'.

When you try to grab too much, you end up dropping everything

Mercer. is this another developer?

EDIT: head cannon is that mercer was a developer that turned to the bad side and was turned into rafflebot like a weird parody to five nights at freddy's

Edited 8/8/2021 16:34:35

Mercer is/was a major investor in Warzone who was involved in at least an advisory position at the time of the Idle launch.

The renaming to Warzone was claimed to be Mercer's idea.

There is much more information about Mercer out there, on the public record, but to seek it is forbidden. Be warned!

Except it wasn't a joke. When changing name from WarLight to WarZone, Fizzer and Mercer explained that the goal was to get more traffic because the word 'WarZone' was way more searched than 'WarLight'.

When was this? On one of the Twitch AMAs? Or on the site somewhere?

Edited 8/8/2021 18:36:47

@Sanmu I didn't know you were an appointed judge in the united states, maybe you can give us some more inside tips on how this case is going to pan out or how American law works

You realize he's an actual lawyer, right?

psssst Sanmu think of all the rep u could gain if u helped fizzer for nothing

Minor update for those following at home- here's the next 3 dates to mark on your calendar:
- 2021/08/20: Warzone.com, LLC, deadline for responding to Activision's Motion to Dismiss
- 2021/09/03: Activision's deadline for filing a reply supporting their Motion to Dismiss, once Warzone responds
- 2021/10/01: Hearing date (at 1:30 PM Pacific Time) if the Motion to Dismiss gets that far

This deadline change (Activision originally asked for 2021/08/27) was agreed upon by both parties.

I like Fizzer as a person a lot actually. He's fun to play with in Small Earth quickmatches and he's pretty nice.

I just don't think the case is very strong at all. There are situations where the dispute is far more ambiguous and arguments can be made on both sides. I just don't think this is one of those situations.

lol you played Fizzer in rt SE?

Oh yeah, tons of times. He's pretty highly rated in RT Small Earth, and he plays it a lot.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27785949
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27624146
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27513528
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27504033
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=27503697
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26902639

Court filing update: On Thursday, Warzone.com, LLC, filed their response to Activision's motion to dismiss their counterclaim.

You can find it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Uhh878GWZUn6r2brvH5104q3YduUidx/view?usp=sharing

To survive the motion to dismiss, basically all Warzone.com, LLC, has to do is to convince the judge that the case isn't already clear-cut decided in Activision's favor by some matter of law- i.e., that a jury's input as finder of fact might have value. Even if the court doesn't think a jury would realistically side with Warzone, they would/should deny the motion to dismiss as long as they think the case has enough merit to get argued in court and deliberated on by a jury.

It's a low bar.

Activision's deadline to respond is September 3 (2 weeks from today). After that, there may be a court hearing on this motion in early October at the latest. Just to avoid getting hopes up, don't expect this case to wind up in front of a jury anytime soon.

Whats the endgame in all of this anyway? Does Fizzer want damages or just to be left alone?

The endgame is that everyone can move on and go back to levelling up our accounts.

Whats the endgame in all of this anyway? Does Fizzer want damages or just to be left alone?

From https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/06/04/warzone-name-lawsuit/:

“At the very least, I would like to be made whole,” he 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.”
...
“I’m just interested in making sure my business doesn’t get destroyed, since this is my only source of income,” Ficker said. “I want to get back to making video games. That is what I enjoy doing. I hope to work on this game for the rest of my life.”

From Warzone's Prayer for Relief:

Counterclaimant... requests that this Court enter judgement in its favor for the following relief:

1. Dismissal of [Activision's] claims against [Warzone.com] with prejudice;
2. ... restraining [Activision]... from:
a. ... making unauthorized use of the WARZONE Mark;
...
4. Requiring [Activision] to pay over to [Warzone.com] monetary damages caused by its wrongful acts, and directing that such profits be [tripled] due to [Activision's] willful actions.
5. Requiring [Activision] to pay [Warzone.com] monetary damages for reverse trademark confusion, and directing that such damages be [tripled] due to [Activision's] willful actions.
...

They're going for the trademark to the word "Warzone" + for $, but unclear what amount. 3 times damages could be anything, because it comes down to how you calculate damages**. More than $10k, less than 0.25% of Call of Duty: Warzone profits. Pretty broad range between a one-time payment of $10,000 and up to $5,000,000/yr.

If/once the counterclaim gets closer to trial, we'll have more concrete numbers, although the ask might be an enhanced royalty rate that we can't convert to dollars without knowing CoD's profitability. The trial might also be bifurcated (liability phase, then damages phase), so we might not know the ask until/unless it gets to the damages phase.

* bonus:


** see Google v. Oracle for an extreme example - Oracle sought $8.8 billion based on some very aggressive calculations based on the # of Java licenses Google would've had to buy if they didn't reimplement Java for Android. Of course, no court was going to grant anything close to that in damages. For reverse consumer confusion theories (like this case), the question of how to calculate damages is even harder than for trademark confusion in general (where the rule of thumb is lost profits).

Edited 8/24/2021 01:49:55

thanks for the convenient updates, knyte.

who is @drill

Edited 8/24/2021 12:26:15