VG Ombudsman Trademarks "Non-Story." Click for details!

(Thanks to my friend Keavin for first showing me this story)



As a general rule, if you note in the text of a story you're writing that the information you have is essentially worthless, you either need to (a) do more reporting or (b) just stop writing the story.



I say this because of a recent piece on IGN headlined Sega Games Revealed? The sub-headline notes that there have been some "mysterious new game titles discovered." What it doesn't note is that there hasn't been much else discovered:



The wonderful thing about video game titles is that they all need to be trademarked. A trademarked name doesn't guarantee it is the final title for a game nor does looking it up on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website offer any hints to the nature of the game or even the system it's on. Still, a name is always a good place to start when learning about new titles.



On March 23, Sega filed trademarks for two games, Nosferan and Ghost Squad. It's unclear which Sega development team is working on the titles or even which platforms they are coming to. Sega was not available to comment on the titles.



Put in your pre-orders now, people!



Read that first sentence again and tell me why these trademarks are such wonderful things. They don't tell you who's developing it. They don't tell you what platform it's on. They don't tell you what the game is about, what genre it's in, or how to find the key on the third level of the airport.



Take a look at the actual trademark applications for Nosferan and Ghost Squad on the USPTO site and you'll see just how useless they are. The only bit of significant information is that both the titles represent either "video game software; computer game programs; game discs, cassettes and circuit boards containing game programs for use with handheld or arcade video game machines with built in screens," or "stand alone video game machines; arcade game machines with built-in screens." Well that certainly narrows it down, doesn't it.



To make matters worse, the IGN article even admits that the trademark "doesn't guarantee... the final title for a game." So it's not even useful to file away as a title to look for on the GameStop store shelf in a few months. By then, Nosferan could be called Jane's Magical Bunny Quest. Who's to say?



As the story says, a potential game name is a good place to start when looking for information on new titles. It is not, however, a good place to finish. You need to have some additional information to make the story worth your readers' time. Without that support, the name is less than useless; a total non-story.



IGN finishes their article by saying, "We'll have more on these and any other new Sega games as information becomes available." Perhaps they should have waited until that information became available before writing about these two particular games.