Notch on the Bethesda lawsuit, in court and in Quake 3: "I will fight this for as long as it takes"

Recently, Minecraft creator Notch challenged Bethesda to settle their legal dispute over the name of Mojang's next game, Scrolls with a game of Quake 3. He's since spoken to Wired about his chances, with reference in particular to the fact that Bethesda own id, and therefore Quake, and are likely to have some quite good Quake 3 players on staff.

"If it came to a Quake 3 tournament, I have a feeling we just might have to change the name," he adds, but admitted that a contest would "bring both parties a lot of good PR."

As for the prospect of fighting for the name in courts, Notch remains determined.

"If we're going to court, I will fight this for as long as it takes,” he says. “It's a bogus claim, and [Bethesda has] several one-word-named games that share a noun with other games that precede [its] games.”

Notch says that both parties' lawyers are currently in discussions, but he doesn't know how far along the case is because he finds the legalities “terribly boring.”

Outside of the lawsuit, Mojang are continuing work on Scrolls and the upcoming Adventure Update for Minecraft. Notch has also created a handy poll to help clear up any potential Scrolls/ Elder Scrolls confusion.

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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.