I mentioned my little web player minigames/demos (1MB maximum each) located on http://www.fugugames.com/ a while ago in a Gossip thread but figured I should announce it here, too (especially since I just received a letter from attorneys for Fubu saying my name is too close to theirs - so who knows how long this site will be up)
I polished the existing bowl/tilt/type games and last week added one that shows off planet textures from planetpixelemporium.com
With Unity, it seems to take me about a week to add a new webplayer (taking in account ideas that are abandoned or deferred). Biggest pain is testing on Windows (I have a backlog of bugs to report) I have at least a half dozen other little ideas to try out, in addition to enhancing the existing ones. Comments welcome!
Looks cool. Sorry to hear you’re having problems with trademark issues. I’m no attorney, but I honestly don’t see an issue between “Fubu” and “Fugu” and personally think you may have a shot at keeping it if you wanted to fight it. I had a very good trademark / copyright attorney when I had my business in San Diego. I can give you his name if you’re interested. Keep in mind an initial consultation is usually free, so it may be worth a phone call to see if it’s worth the effort.
Otherwise, I always apply for a trademark registration whenever I think I’ve come up with something worth protecting. It can save you a lot of money later on.
Since “fugu” is a real word totally unrelated to “fubu” (whatever that means), and especially since Fubu appears to be a clothes-label, I would have thought that they have a very thin case against you.
… but then, I’m not a lawyer.
And maybe you should be more worried about this thing
Fugu is a kind of japanese puffer fish like your logo. They can send letters all they want. They have no legal grounds there. Not to mention other companys use the name fugu.
Also since you go by fugu games there is even less chance of confusing the two. You could always go with Puffer-fish Productions. Or something if you really want to change it.
Personally, I’d send them a letter letting them know that you know you’re not violating their trademark in any way. But if they feel that threatened they can give you a large sum of money in order to change your name
The “pay me money”-part would be a really bad idea, as it would seem like he was trying to extort them. That would count against him in a court room, I’m sure.
I’m with Freyr on this one. When you get a letter from somebody’s attorney the first thing you need to do is consult with an attorney yourself. Like I said in my first post, first consultation is usually free, so go call a couple attorneys and find someone you can work with. Then let him do his job. I don’t think they really have much basis for their complaint, but only an attorney will know how to respond to this in a manner that won’t make things worse.
Yes, I know the business and legal world is far from that simple. My comment was meant only in jest. The reality is, that even though they have little to no legal grounds to stand on, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a large team of attorneys and an endless supply of cash to fight with…
I guess we’ll just see how it goes. I still regret caving in several years ago in a CG tools startup called Digital Chameleon when a group of (or maybe it was just one guy) Canadian comic book artists who went by the same name and registered a US trademark claimed our domain name. We gave up the domain, but they never used it (random other have registered it since), so I think it was just a bullying tactic.
Anyway, I don’t want to stop using the logo - I’m an art-impaired programmer, so I don’t want to give up any graphics!
legally, you could call yourself “fubu games” and they’d have no case against you, because the both the functions of the companies and the names are clearly different. Because you are called “fugu games” the only hint of a case they’d have against you is if they claimed that it’s easy to mistype b instead of g when using search engines - this would essentially be calling their customers stupid and they won’t want to bring that to court. You’re in no danger whatsoever.
On top of that it would mean potentially a slight increase in costumers for them (your “fans” makin the fubu typo), so in any sence that would just be plain stupid.
but then… so is sending that kind of letter out when you dont really have a case
… you understand that the only reason you got that letter in the first place is that you’re in California, right? “Land of the Lawsuit” is what we used to call it, lots of hungry attorneys there with nothing better to do. Granted the rest of the country has become the same, but California was the first.
Having owned a software company in California I will give you one parting bit of advice: if you plan on owning a business in California find yourself a good (ie. ruthless, bloodthirsty, nasty) attorney. He will save you a lot of money and grief in the long run. Otherwise, find yourself another state, like maybe Montana! Good luck!
Actually, FUBU and this particular law firm is in New York. No shortage of attorneys there!
You’re in Hawaii, right? How’s that as a place to do business (I do know some game developers there). Seems like everyone’s pretty laid back whenever I visit.
Add to that the typical New Yorker’s grumpy demeanor and you’re just asking for trouble. (Just joking, I went to skool there ).
Laid back, yes. But we have a real shortage of talent and clients here. Add to that we have amongst the lowest wages in the country and the highest cost of living and home prices… it’s paradise but it isn’t an easy life.
But on the other hand, I don’t ever have to worry about shoveling snow!
I finally got around to exporting a minigame as a widget and listed it on the MacOSX widget download page:
I have to say, it wasn’t clear to me when I started using Unity that the widget build option was all that useful, but it turns out to be a great promotional tool - in the past few days the widget has been downloaded a few thousand times (I expect that to taper off, but it’s a good incentive to keep the widget size small!), and I’ve even received some general game development inquiries.
So, great feature! And a search on the Dashboard download page for “unity” reveals 16 widgets listed so far.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it stays popular longer than you think. Personally, I haven’t updated either of my widgets in months and I still get a few thousand downloads every day.
Randy, I just track the downloads on my web access log (or rather, since I’m hosted, the stats provided online by my ISP). When you list a widget on the Mac download page, you still have to host the widget yourself and provide a download link to it.
Dan, good to hear! I figured since my widget was listed as one of the daily staff favorites (and I got a couple of extra days on top of the list since it was posted on a Friday), I’d have a good run for about a week. But I see your widget made it on the Top 50 (Banana Warehouse is there, too, I see), so I guess it could be there indefinitely!
Some interesting feedback: someone just told me today they liked the widget but wanted to know if he had to stay online to play it - he thought that was a requirement when he tried other Unity widgets, but I speculate what happened was he ran into the “you need to install Unity…” at one point and didn’t realize that it was a one-time thing.
