It has come to this. The digital gauntlet has been thrown down. (noclip is off, no worries) Fedora icon and Q-bert world generator Minecraft creator Notch has responded to decreasingly open-world RPG creators Bethesda's trademark infringement lawsuit against his company Mojang with a challenge on his blog.

"I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

Regardless of the outcome, we could still have a small text somewhere saying our game is not related to your game series in any way, if you wish.

I am serious, by the way."

The dust-up started when Bethesda filed a trademark lawsuit against Mojang based on the name of their upcoming CCG-style game (redundant, I know) "Scrolls" as they felt it infringed on their "Elder Scrolls" series of open-world RPG games (again redundant, I know) and people might get confused.

This is where letting your lawyers set up Google search alerts for keywords can go a little to far. I have created a poorly drawn and written comic to illustrate this.

*note, I'm no SIDT, but I get by.

As much as I wish on Gygax's grave that this ACTUALLY happens...we're still going to be in the same spot 6 months from now.

If anyone needs me until then, I'll be trying to build the entire Daggerfall continent in Minecraft

For those of you who are lost in all the geekery, a little informational linkage:

Mojang

Scrolls.

Minecraft.

Bethesda

Quake 3

CCG

RPG

noclip