No sooner than did GaymerCon gather enough financial backing to organize its first ever meeting in 2013 did a trademark issue—something that pisses off gamers of any orientation—arise with the name. "Gaymer" has been trademarked by the guy who owns gaymer.org, and he even sent a cease-and-desist letter over to Reddit for its r/gaymer subreddit. That didn't bode well for GaymerCon.


While the convention's organizers negotiated with Chris Vizzini, the trademark's owner, for a shared-use agreement they strongly disputed that "gaymer" was anything more than a generic term with a long history of use in gaming's vernacular. Vizzini insisted on a licensing deal, and the convention's argument evidently means little under the law, as organizers have said the convention now will be called GaymerX. The community's site, which has just launched, also is called GaymerConnect. There's more of an explanation in the video above.


[Update] We're hearing that this name change is to get GaymerCon/X clear of a trademark owned by Gam3rCon, and has nothing to do with Vizzini. There's no mention of Gam3rCon in that video or on GaymerX's official blog, but the name change is a little more understandable in light of this information.

The remainder of the original post follows.

While I'm not entirely sure how changing "GaymerCon" to "GaymerX" gets this off Vizzin's radar, unlike everyone else with Internet access, I'm not an expert in copyright and trademark law. Whatever the case, GaymerX is slated for Aug. 3-4 in San Francisco.

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GaymerCon Renamed GaymerX [GamePolitics]