The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

What's going on there? Just a little promotional game? The patent specimens have screen shots of it too...

I found some background information from the developers (http://blogs.iocainestudios.com/?p=6). Combining the fact that this was a rush job (4 days from Atari requesting it to delivery!) with the recent renewal of the "Star Control" trademark, I suspect this is Atari legal manoeuvring to avoid losing the trademark.

As for the game itself, while the gameplay resembles Star Control melee closely, it ignores anything that could be construed as TFB IP. Given Accolade's attempts to get rid of TFB's ideas from Star Control (see SC3 and the cancelled StarCon), and the "Star Control Preview" bit in the title, there is also a distinct possibility that Atari is planning to revive or reimagine Star Control without TFB, but aren't willing to commit quite yet.

Edit: It seems Star Control (http://www.atari.com/us/starcontrol/) is only one of many games on Atari Play (http://games.atari.com/), a bunch of official Atari retro remakes. The rest at least seem to be reasonably accurate remakes (or possibly even emulations; haven't looked that closely).

I am 99% convinced that this indeed a ploy to keep the trademark safe from abandonment claims.
Commisioning it to be created in 4 days, "pretty lenient requirements", putting it on a site with "classic games" without even the slightest attempt to make it look or feel like the original, there is little room for doubt that they just wanted to have "something" there.

And there's no sign that they're seriously planning on making use of the trademark; you don't go damaging a brand formerly used by big computer games by associating it with a 2-day rushjob if you're intending to use it for real later.

Given that, maybe TFB may still stand a chance of challenging Atari's trademark, but it hasn't gotten any better.

I do wonder why the rush. Does Atari suddenly have any reason to expect a challenge in the very near future? Has anyone from TFB contacted them about the trademark? Or did they just suddenly found out that they still had that trademark lying around and realised that it still has value?

The contrast between a rushed Flash game that only vaguely resembles the original (Star Control) and a Java-based emulation of the original (the Missile Command applet seems to spend much of its time doing low-level bit manipulation on a 64 KB memory dump, and the rest, that I haven't examined in detail, all look very much like the originals) is quite clear.

In any case, examining the trademark documents (http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/portal/tow?SRCH=Y&isSubmitted=true&details=&SELECT=US+Serial+No&TEXT=75095591#) is quite interesting, in particular the "Combined Declaration of Use In Commerce & Application For Renewal of Registration of A Mark Under Sections 8 & 9" of Tuesday 2007-09-18. As ptx mentioned, the specimens used to demonstrate "use in commerce" are, in fact, this particular Flash game (or to be exact, a printout of the webpage showing the title screen of the game!) that, according to HTTP header info on the Flash file, was last modified on the server on 2007-09-21. This looks a lot like the game was written over the weekend so that Atari's legal department could prove on Tuesday that they are using the trademark, after which the game was "released" by adding it to Atari Play.

So what? That's why this project is called the Ur-Quan Masters. I mean, Atari has done enough to drag "Star Control" through the mud, not limited to this little stunt, that an official sequel by TFB could be named "Fwiffo's Revenge" and be just as successful. Possibly more so with a title like that.

Still, it's a decidedly puerile move on Atari's part.

I tried it. It was bad. A little better than E.T., I guess. Not as good as SC3. I wouldn't hold it against the contractor, due to the time constraint, though it seems kind of numbskulled of them to make a new game in a language they had never used, in two days. But I wasn't there. Maybe flash is just really good for putting out crappy games like that really fast even if you don't know what you're doing, but too limited to use for anything serious.

Given the ridiculous time limit imposed by Atari on Iocaine, I'm surprised the game is playable at all. I suspect Flash just happens to make it easy to do things like this, but pulling this off in two days of development is still impressive. Actually, come to think of it, it does remind me quite a lot of Star Control... on the ZX Spectrum. With prettier graphics.

I was reading the Iocaine Studios Blog (http://forums.iocainestudios.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=787&hilit=%26quot%3BStar+Control%26quot%3B) and someone mentioned the REAL Star Control, and when someone asked about the 4-day deadline, they replied with a "confidentiality agreement"



I'm glad that they aren't giving up on their goals and they seem like very nice people.  I just hope that the Star Control universe does not become butchered by their "Not Control".

I wonder what would've happened if they had missed the deadline... I might have... on purpose. Ooops.

Gameplay could've been more even with just 2 days. There are speedcoding contests where people crank out very impressive stuff in 48hrs. However, the interface around this game is pretty polished, something which is usually not the case with speed coded games afaik.


On a sidenote, I'm not really worried about Atari or TfB doing a terrible Star Control sequel. What I'm worried about is a moderately bad/good one which isn't as easy to dismiss as say, CD-i Zelda or SC3 was. 

Nice game, especially for what 2-4 days work. Clearly it was just somethin to keep the trademark. Would have been nice to have seen asteroids or planets too.

As dire as this action might be, the game itself isn't horrid. It's bland, sure, but within a 4 day deadline it is still impressive, albeit more could have been added to it than what is currently in (also, sound samples are glitchy). Atari have never been very good with developers, ever since their 2600 days, when they wouldn't credit individual programmers on games. I wonder what TfB think on this matter.

Hell, it might actually boost the chances of them making a comeback, what with them trying to keep control over the name. Someone is bound to write about this eventually. Infact it might be a good idea to inform the Kotaku staff about this, they'd sure as hell post about this on their blog (they did so with the Iranian properganda posters).

I have actually mailed with PR3 about this. He found it extremely *weak sauce*.

He also asked what the fan base thinks, but in the context of his mail I'm not sure what part exactly he's asking us about.

I'll post more once I have received a reply on my request for clarification.

Some other things. Here's Atari's "Code of Ethics (http://www.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/66/66845/governance/ATARcode_ethics.pdf)". Really.

And here's a theory I had about why Atari would do this: It's possible that someone was only interested in the short-term numbers on their quarterly results. And removing the trademark from their assets would produce bigger negative numbers than the cost of making a little something which they hope would qualify as "use" of the trademark.

As much as I'd like to say "BLACKLIST ATARI", games with their logo stamped across them tend to come from smaller developers. I like The Witcher. If a sequel came out, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I expected there to be a point to this link. Yup, it looks like a corporate code of ethics. No mention of things like this, nor would I expect there to be. Corporate codes of ethics are to protect the corporation from embarrassment or litigation due to actions taken on the initiative of its employees; they are not there to tie the corporation's hands back from squeezing every last little bit of juice out of the legal system.

Must there be a point beyond having a bit of a laugh a bit at something which in this context reads like a work of satire?

Well, I guess I kind of never expected a corporate ethics statement to prevent this kind of thing. Atari isn't Ben and Jerry's or Asymmetric.net or something like that.

Exactly. When you find out that a company like Atari has an ethics statement, you know that it's going to be, well... a big joke.

And I'd think that even for Ben & Jerry's it will be a matter of time; it's already a big company, owned by Unilever, with the founders no longer in charge.

This is pathetic. srsly.

You mean the "game", the code of ethics or our discussion? The first two are supposed to be pathetic for business reasons, what's our excuse?

Well, first of all, the Star Control name deserves to be in the hands of PR3 & Fred Ford.  Second of all, Activision needs to give TFB more freedom when they say that they are ready to rekindle one of their original game franchises.

Also, I don't want Atari hiring a game developer to make a random game in space only to slap "Star Control" on it.  They did that to Jenga and it is one of the worst things to ever turn into a video game.

It's great that Iocaine Studios started doing contract work and even made the deadline of a 2-day game.  If Atari decides to touch the Star Control name again, I wish they could ask TFB to join in, but their contract with Activision could complicate things.

As far as I'm concerned, I consider this another example that no other developer can recreate the magic of Star Control that TFB has created.

Err... I don't see how that answers Novus's question. o_O
Nor do I see why Censored would call the discussion pathetic. O_o
Stop confusing me, people. :(

Anyhow... this knavish trick is really disappointing. I was hoping that one day the name Star Control II would be attached to the game Star Control II. Looks like it's not going to happen. :-\

I wonder though, why would Atari care if the project used that name? Wouldn't that make their brand more popular, if anything?

I think Censored meant the stunt pulled was pathetic. And I agree. This is like some sort of cyber squatting, sitting on something you don't want to use but don't want anyone else to use either.

As good as the 'Game' is for only a few days work it is ridiculous that they can just slap a name that is already attributed with a successful series onto it. I mean if i made a game in two days and slapped the name Starcraft or something like that on it people would go mental (assuming i had the rights to Starcraft).

 I liked Atari's code of conduct thingie it basically said we follow the laws to the letter and not an inch more and that we can be the biggest bastards in the world at our own discretion. I understand they have the trademark on the name but i don't think they should be allowed to use it for something that is only remotely linked to the other successful games (and while SC3 was hated it was still moderately successful).

Um yeah im angry and thats all there is too it

Lets march on Atari HQ! (any idea where it is?)

I meant Atari's behaviour, of course. And the "game" as well, I tried playing it. It's a disgrace.
Sorry for not elaborating much, it was 1am and I've been pulling 8-8 (12hrs) studying sessions in the library all week, for an upcoming test. I'm quite beat.

Sigh, the game was lame, it wasn't even challenging, just stay where you are and the AI will keep circling and can't hit you at all. This is probably something to stop any IP doubts or flexing Atari's muscle. The music even started error looping then shut out completely.

*frumple*

Funny, I found the AI impossible to beat. Maybe I'm just lousy at melee. Most likely!

I just took a closer look at the .swf file of this game. I have found that some of the the .jpg files which are part of this file have a last modification date in their meta-data. In all cases, the date is either 2007-09-16 or 2007-09-17, giving even more credibility to the theory that this game was indeed only created so that Atari could put it on their "Declaration of Use In Commerce" submitted to the USPTO on 2007-09-18.

I'll leave you with this snippet from http://www.trademarkedge.com/resources/glossary/t.htm:

How does one "challenge a trademark on the grounds of abandonment"?

With lawyers, of course. Basically it's a counter-argument to defeat a trademark infringement suit, as far as I can tell anyway.

I wonder whether you have to infringe the trademark and be sued and then successfully defend, or whether you can sue to have the trademark dismissed first. The latter would be a lot safer, but the legal system can be weird. Like, an old unenforced law that's absolutely horrible can't be struck down by the court until someone tries to enforce it, because no one would have standing to sue.

Sounds like a weird gray area to me. Most likely it would simply alert the trademark holder to do something more substantial with their IP while the suit is going on, in order to render the verdict moot, since nobody had actually tried to infringe upon it yet.

I just came to the same conclusion.. It's up to TFB to get their lawyer in action and challenge this trademark! That is, if they are really interested in obtaining it again.

If anyone's interested, I've started a discussion about this phenomenon on gamedev.net . It appears that no developer has trouble with making bogus token trademark use games to keep the stove burning.
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=546849

I was reading Wikipedia, they have mentioned this "game" and I wanted to play it again. Guess what - it's no longer on the Atari site anywhere.
Does this mean that Star Control brand is open? Or the fact they had something by the name Star Control for some time enough for them to retain the trademark?

Wow, take a look at that. The last post in this thread (before Alvarin's last post) was posted roughly 8 years after 9/11. XD

WAYYYY off-topic, but I just had to mention that. :P

They needed to show use of the trademark to be able to renew their registration of the trademark.
Once renewed, the own the trademark for 10 years.
But it's doubtful that their registration would stand up in court, were anyone to challenge it.