Respawn Entertainment trademarks Titan

Respawn Entertainment has been granted a trademark by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the name Titan to be used for video and computer game programs. I looked in the EU trademark database and it appears a trademark hasn't been filed or granted yet in Europe.

This and the tweet by Vince Zampella that he wouldn't show up at E3 this year empty handed probably means that an announcement isn't far off. I'm wondering at whose stage the game will be announced.

And It appears the Blizzard game codenamed Titan can't be named Titan for real now.

The application for those interested

But what will we use when talking about the blizzard game now. :c

Uncool to snatch Blizzard's codename!

Anyway, all West and Zampella did was create Call of Duty, it's not like we're awaiting the next game from Ken Levine or Remedy, so this whole Respawn thing was hot in a period where shooters were getting real big and the COD heads got fired, now it's just meh.

I figured Blizzard's "Titan" was never going to be called that to begin with and was exactly what they said it was, a codename. Besides, that name doesn't sound very Blizzard-esque to begin with.

Anywho, I'm interested to see what it is. I assume it's going to be a shooter. That's their "thing" right? If it is, I hope it blows me the fuck away because my interest in shooters is very meh these days.

Agreed though with me the time between 'This is awesome' and 'Well the shine has wore off and I've gotten what I wanted' has become way shorter every game. I'm actually kinda excited about Destiny because It changes the basic forumula.

Blizzard have said Titan was a code name from day 1. I expect the final product to be called "Blizzard's Natal."

Maybe they will retroactively threaten lawsuit for Titan Quest? Oh wait, both THQ and Iron Lore Entertainment is dead =[

Wow, that's ... brilliant!

With a single name they have guaranteed themselves millions of views and thousands of sales regardless of the product. Impressive.

My guess is a sci fi shooter set on Titan (Saturn's largest moon).

How..so?

Well, for the last 50 years or something we have heard Blizzard talk about project Titan. If they were really considering using that name for their final product I bet they would have trademark it by now.

Because of the Blizzard and project Titan association. Huge amount of people already have heard of the name as it relates to a videogame game, most people playing/ed WoW have heard it at some point, which is millions. The media will pick on on this too and report it with that slant. Regardless of it's relation or quality, it's already raising awareness of a product existing in people's minds. Even in this thread people took larger note of it because of how Blizzard had a project Titan going. It's basically free publicity.

The long awaited licensed tie-in to Titan A.E. is finally here!

Well done for them, they will probably get a ton of extra hits for people interested in hearing about Blizzards project codenamed "Titan".

So does anyone expect to see something from Respawn this E3?

You are really overblowing the significance of that name.

You're overestimating the value of that name to an absurd degree.

@ramone: @gkhan:

And in what way am I doing that?

The number I gave for people recognizing it as relating to a game is a conservative estimate, simply based on WoW/Blizzard numbers of tens of millions who are into their products. Their project Titan and speculation about it was around for years, enough for plenty to pickup on it. This is not even counting those outside of the Blizzard ecosystem, like general gaming sites, like this one and even here people already are making an association. One or two million being aware of it is not even a stretch. A few thousand sales from that is a drop in the ocean, even if an extra 1 in around 100-1000 decides to give that game a shot after being made aware of it when they otherwise would not have and it sticking in memory. A simple name itself will never sell a game by it's lonesome, but it sure as hell helps. The significance or value of that name is almost nil by itself, it's subtle power is pure association and recognition, a metric shit ton of people simply remembering "oh yeah, that thing used to be a codename" is already starting the marketing ball rolling for them.

Unless you actually post a significant counterargument on how this is incorrect, it'll have to stand.

RIGHT NOW we're talking about a game that doesn't even fucking exist yet, and for months and months, whatever the blizzard game is it will be referenced as "Used to be called titan until Respawn blah blah blah..." And when Respawn announce their game they'll get all this publicity in a second wind again.

How many people do you think weren't going to be interested in the new game from the guys who made Modern Warfare but will be interested because it's called Titan because that's a codename that Blizzard used once. Like 5 dudes, max.

I already mentioned the exact demographic in my previous post, which is quite significant. Blizzard/CoD fan base is far from being the exact same demographic and the difference is still millions. Those are the people they will at the very least get a cursory attention from (that would have never done so otherwise, had it been named something else). Who know what Titan was, but had no clue about who started Respawn. Not to mention that creating an awareness of the game via such a trigger name has far larger and subtle consequences rather then a straight crude purchase decision you portray.

And please stop posting deliberately depreciating stuff like "because that's codename that Blizzard used once", it has been used by them over several years and has been circulated within not only WoW and Blizzard but general MMO communities. Shit, people who don't play their games know that name, even general gaming media knows that Blizzard has had their next big thing codename Titan in the works for ages and have reported and mentioned Titan time after time, and these i'm not even counting as they are even bigger numbers but are much less directly influenced and thus impossible to quantify.

You still haven't actually provided any real counterargument to the rough numbers I threw up, as to why are they incorrect in any way.

I'm always willing to listen to a different opinion when it's backed up by a solid argument and have been known to admit being incorrect on occasion on these forums, but so far all I have gotten here are baseless one liners that amount to "neya-nyea, you're wrong" without anyone ever saying why.

Disagree completely. Call of Duty is meh because it has been rehashed to death since the release of Modern Warefare. When MW1 came out, it was fantastic and got everyone excited about shooters in a way like never before.

If Respawn is capable of delivering a good shooter/game that is different from the shit currently being pumped out, ill be happy.

They didn't exactly wow me with their creativity in MW2 though. Anyway, didn't one of those two just quit?

hey guys, do you think the government would let me traidmark "God"

1. Exactly, those demographics are completely different. Do you really think hardcore Blizzard fans care about the new game from the Call of Duty dudes? Also do you think Call of Duty fans really care about Blizzard's unannounced game enough to know its codename?

2. Gaming media knows the codename of Blizzard's new game? Shocker. How many people do you think gaming media reaches? Nowhere near as many as you think.

3. My counterargument is that the name is not significant because the wider public, the people who made Call of Duty a success, don't give two shits about gaming media and codenames for unreleased games. They give a shit about red dot sights, kill streaks and Captain Price's moustache.

4. I said you were overblowing the significance of the name, I tried to be polite.

1. All of them? No, not by a long shot. Some will, even if it's 1 in a 1000 it's enough, hell even 1 in 10000. (and it's not about caring about a CoD dudes game it's about being made aware of a product you were not previously). This doesn't affect either of the 2 numbers i posted as they draw solely from Blizzard pool. CoD fans have nothing to do with the argument aside from some overlap slightly subtracting from the numbers as they would already be aware anyway.
2. Like I said I'm not even counting them. And it still reaches millions.
3. This wider public who already like CoD have nothing to do with the affected numbers. They are not who I am talking about being affected. This is a counterargument to a point I haven't even made.
4. And I was being polite too. If I wasn't I would simply post a one liner dismissing your opinion without substantiating my stance.

Disgusting of them to steal a name that they know is going to get them a lot of attention thanks to Blizzard.

@tennmuerti said:

What do you mean by brilliant? You're not suggesting the title decision was influenced by the codename for a Blizzard project are you? If not then I'm not sure what's so brilliant or impressive about it. Brilliant by coincidence? Are you suggesting this coincidence is going to have anything but the most minute impact on sales? If you are suggesting Titan was chosen by Respawn, both brilliantly and impressively for the purposes of free marketing off the back of a codename for an unrelated Blizzard project then you have well and truly lost the plot.

What I mean by brilliant is clearly stated in my post. (and expanded upon in several posts following that)

It also seems a lot of people have lost the plot then in this thread.

The first post was unclear, the second was an attempt to qualify the first and the following consisted mostly of repetition and some numbers to give weight to your opinion. The only point you managed to make is that the name Titan carries a degree of currency as a result of it being shared with the Blizzard codename, and for some reason that's brilliant, to most people that's an overstatement. I was just wondering where you were attributing this brilliance, to coincidence or a genius marketing strategy, it's wholly unclear.

@expensiveham said:

I really hope this is sarcasm. I really, really hope so.

If it is unclear to you, then I'm sorry but there is not much more I can say to clarify it besides what already has been said. I've already spent plenty of my time on doing so.

As for my points they are yet to be refuted by anyone in any serious way. /shrug The overstatement comments have so far been leveled at my assumed numbers/effect of the name, not just that I called it brilliant.

Whether the move was done on purpose or accident is not part of my observation, as I don't know either way, but if you are curious I suspect a combination of both.

haha this is hilarious. between the dota naming fiasco and this, someone's going to grab starcraft 3, diablo 4, and world of everythingcraft from under blizzard's nose.

(and i know titan is just a code name, but as soon as e3 hits blizzard's 'ownership' of that name, at least in the layman-sphere, will be over).

I think the first game from the new studio made up of people who that done made Call of Duty is all the exposure they need.

I think that's a pretty good call, though it would mean it would be going up against Bungie's Destiny directly, which would be a colossal affair. Who does shooting in space better?! Who?!

@oldirtybearon: There is a lot of buzz around that name thanks to Blizzard and Respawn knows it and was aware of it when they chose it.

Dota wasn't really a naming fiasco. Just people failing to understand Blizzard didn't make Dota in the first place.

well, since there was pending legal action- i'd call it more than a misunderstanding.

Oh, come on, seriously?

You do realize that Blizzard didn't come up with the name, right? You do realize that the Titans were a primordial race of gods in Greek mythology, and that a central part of the Greek creation myth is the "Titanomachy", the war between the Olympians and the Titans?

You do also realize the word "Titan" is a staple in names of hundreds of cultural products? "Clash of the Titans", ever heard of it? Just look at this wikipedia disambiguation page, it's fucking huge! It's even the name of a game engine developed by Stainless Steel Studios! Shouldn't you be saying that Blizzard is "disgusting" for stealing the name from a small developer? Or shouldn't you be saying that Stainless Steel is "disgusting" for stealing the name from a puzzle game from 1988?

People, Blizzard does not own the word "Titan" just because it's the codename for one of their products, and Respawn isn't "stealing" anything. And if you think that there's a single person who would pay more attention to this game just because it's the name of a Blizzard product, you're delusional. First of all, only insane enthusiasts even know that this was the codename of the new Blizzard product (I personally had forgotten about it before this thread, and I am a pretty insane enthusiast), and every single one of those people knows enough about the games industry to not confuse a game from Blizzard with an FPS from Respawn.

Not at all the same thing. Ridiculous of you to come at me and say "blizzard did not come up with the word either". Yeah of course they didn't and i don't think anyone is stupid enough to believe or claim that. Of course they are going to get more attention because they took that name. People have known and heard about Titan for years and anyone who is a video game enthusiast and follows gaming media knows about it.

If Sega started making consoles again and used the name Durango for their console would you not think that would that would be gross? Or would you defend that as well and say "nope it is a car and a state Microsoft did not invent that word".

More than one person here believes Respawn decided to name their game after a Blizzard project codename.