ZDay's Response to GearBox SoftwareTrademarking 'Z-Day'

(By Chris Gosling)

 

As you are probably aware by now, GearBox Software has trademarked the name "Z-Day" for use in video gamesand movies.

A few days ago we received an email from Brad Nicholson, a videogames journalist writing a story for Giant Bomb who asked the following questions...

It appears that Gearbox Software, makers of Borderlands, has trademarked the name "Z-Day" for use with videogame software. I know that you guys are using that very same name for your zombie MMOFPS. Would you care to share some thoughts about this matter on the record through a return e-mail? Were you aware that Gearbox trademarked the name? Did you try to trademark it? How does this make you feel? Will development stop?

 

This was my response:

Thanks, for giving us the opportunity to comment on GearBox trademarking the name "Z-Day".

What I think what counts is the game, not the name. If Gearbox does it right then good on them. They have the financial backing and potential to make a game far better than we can. We're only a small indie/garage development team with no budget working in our spare time. We also know it's an ambitious task that we've taken on to make the zombie MMOFPS game that we've always wanted to play. If GearBox does this before us then they will save us the all the development pain and we can start fighting the zombie hordes with more than just 4-8 survivors.

I don't think that anyone on our Dev team will hold any animosity against Gearbox for wanting to make a game that a lot of people want to play. In fact I'd like to think that our ZDay may have been an inspiration for other development studios for both ideas, and to draw attention to the market demand for a zombie MMOFPS. Although I do know that there have been other indie developed teams that have also tried to make a zombie MMOFPS.

As for stopping our development, only if Gearbox (or anyone else for that matter) make the game we're after. L4D and L4D2 have come and gone, yet while they were great games, they weren't a MMOFPS. Gearbox isn't threatening to shut us down nor do I see what they are doing as a move threatening to us. It's always been our aim to release ZDay as a free to play game and I doubt if GearBox would have the same aim and so our market sectors are probably quite different.

I think that for us it's been more about the journey and experience than the end goal. We aren't even planning on making pots of money out of ZDay, but aim to at least generate enough to cover the cost of running the game servers.

As far as the actual trademark goes, The word "Z-Day" has been used in popular zombie culture for a while. Max Brooks used it in "The Zombie Survival Guide" and it is also referenced at the end of "Shawn of the Dead". We have never tried to trademark the name 'ZDay' and we can easily come up with another name that may, or may not include the word 'ZDay'.

Also, the Arrowhead Games that you've linked to in your news item is another studio. We do not have a company website as such.

 

For now our website and forums will remain as it is, however when the game is released it will not be under the name "ZDay". We'll tell you what it will be called when we take out our own trademark. ;)