Many gamers are familiar with the Fallout series of post-apocalyptic RPGs, but less know of its predecessor, Interplay’s Wasteland, and InXile Entertainment’s 2015 crowdfunded reboot of the series, Wasteland 2. Considerably fewer gamers likely know of The Alien Wasteland, a $1.99 Steam store title independently produced by Dan Games. And even if people knew of The Alien Wasteland, they’ll now know it as Action Alien as of yesterday.
Why the name change? According to Dan Games (whose developer goes by Devdan on Steam), InExile recently contacted him with the following message: “titling my game ‘The Alien Wasteland’ was an an [sic] infringement to their trademark ‘Wasteland’.”
It’s baffling to think about how Wasteland 2 and The Alien Wasteland could even be confused for one another; while Wasteland 2 is an expansive, open-world RPG filled to the brim with complex dialogue paths and expansive character development trees, The Alien Wasteland was (and is, as Action Alien) a simple survival shooter that resembles a Serious Sam clone more than anything. The goal of Action Alien: “Hold on against an endless stream of aliens for as long as possible to achieve the maximum score!”
Moreover, Devdan notes, The Alien Wasteland’s name was never questioned during its two year existence. He notes that he had been in contact with InXile over the name change, until he finally received a cease and desist letter from InXile’s lawyer, which asked Devdan “to either stop using ‘wasteland’ or to prepare facing legal actions against [him].”
Without the resources or the time to traverse the desolate wastes of the legal system, Devdan has since changed the game’s name to Action Alien. According to him, this new name “gives a good idea of what the game is about.”
Devdan has called the basis for the whole affair a “questionable complain [sic],” and community members on InXile’s own discussion forums seem to agree. Many of these users accuse InXile of legal bullying.
InXile Associate Producer Thomas Beekers (alias Brother None) responded to the complaints as such:
Thanks for contacting us about this.
We reached out to the developer of The Alien Wasteland (now Action Alien) directly looking to find an amicable resolution without involving lawyers. The C&D only happened because the developer was unwilling to recognize the issue, only offering to change the game’s name if we paid him for it. Asking to be paid for infringing on someone’s rights is certainly a new one for us, so of course we refused.
We do not know if the developer of Action Alien was aware of our Registered trademark when he initially named his game and bear absolutely no ill will towards the creator of Action Alien or the game. We always look for amicable win-win solutions in these cases, where we seek to protect our mark as any prudent business would do, while also helping the other party promote their game and provide a bigger reach than he otherwise would get, so that both parties benefit. In fact, that offer still stands now.
This answer hasn’t placated some of the Wasteland 2 community’s more vocal members. One post, for example, notes how no legal action was taken over Fallout 4’s second DLC expansion, Wasteland Workshop, which was released in April of this year. Others note that perhaps the Wasteland debacle is far more complicated than it seems on the surface, and that InXile might be abiding by arcane copyright laws, or may just be working to their best ability within a noxious copyright industry.
It’s also important to note that this isn’t the first time InXile has tussled with smaller developers over the word ‘wasteland,’ either. Back in 2013, InXile asked Dutch development studio Vlambeer to change the name of their game Wasteland Kings. This game would later arise from the irradiated ashes as 2015’s Nuclear Throne.
Whatever the case, this episode has drummed up a fair amount of ire on the Internet toward InXile. It would behoove us to remember gaming’s past as well; recall an incident involving Edge Games, Inc.’s CEO, Tim Langdell, who embarked upon a copyright spree against games that used the word “edge” in their name, such as Mirror’s Edge, back in 2013. Whether InXile will meet the same fate as Langdell remains to be seen.