Nintendo has named its next game console to be released in 2012 the Wii U, but strangely enough, the company announced the successor to the Wii at E3 2011 without owning the domain name.
Up until a couple days ago, wiiu.com was a parked page, but after the announcement the owner of the domain has switched from a parked page to a Shopping.com affiliate site.
The .com domain name was first registered in the late nineties according to Whois history. Wiiu.net was recently up for sale at Sedo, but has moved to a Parked.com page.
Nintendowiiu.com was registered June 7th, but it too, isn’t owned by Nintendo.
“Three years ago, Syfy announced that it would be teaming up with RIFT creator Trion Worlds to construct the world’s first MMO that would actively intertwine with a live-action TV series. This project became Defiance, which will be making its debut at E3 2011. The groundbreaking project will create a shared universe for the game and TV series, with each influencing the other through actions the characters and players take.”
Trion Worlds released RIFT in March 2011, but despite paying out almost six figures for Defiance.com, the company hasn’t been successful in acquiring the domain rift.com. The official website for RIFT is riftgame.com.
Zynga has filed a trademark application for its newest Facebook game “Empires & Allies” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
It came as no big surprise.
Zynga filed for the European trademark earlier this month following the announcement of the launch of Empires & Allies.
Word Mark
EMPIRES & ALLIES
Goods and Services
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Class 9: Computer game software; video game programs; and computer software platforms for social networking; interactive video game programs; downloadable electronic game programs and computer software platforms for social networking that may be accessed via the Internet, computers and wireless devices; computer software to enable uploading, posting, showing, displaying, tagging, blogging, sharing or otherwise providing electronic media or information in the fields of virtual communities, electronic gaming, entertainment, and general interest via the Internet or other communications networks with third parties; Magnetic encoded gift cardsIC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Computer and electronic games provided online, enhancements within online computer and electronic games, and game applications within online computer and electronic games; entertainment reviews of computer games provided online; information relating to computer games provided online; virtual environments in which users can interact through social games for recreational, leisure or entertainment purposes
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code
(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number
85335790
Filing Date
June 1, 2011
Current Filing Basis
1B;44D
Original Filing Basis
1B;44D
Owner
(APPLICANT) Zynga Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 365 Vermont Street San Francisco CALIFORNIA 94103
In other Zynga news, as I predicted in early May the company launched a hangman game for iOS devices, however, instead of using the domain hangmanwithfriends.com, the company is using hangingwithfriends.com.
I was thinking Zynga had missed another domain name opportunity with their newest combat strategy game Empires and Allies, but I guess I was wrong.
Shortly after I published my story about the company announcing the launch of the game without the domain, the web address empiresandallies.com started redirecting to its page on Facebook.
Instead of establising a dedicated website like it has with Farmville.com and MafiaWars.com, it looks like the official home page for the game will be on Facebook.
Search Engines
Others are looking to cash in by developing related keyword domains into websites and newsletters that offer tips and updates on the strategy game. Empiresandalliesguide.info and empirealliesguide.com both rank on the first page of Google search engine results for the phrase “Empires & Allies”.
Surprisingly, both domains were registered months ago in November 2010.
The owner of empirealliesguide.com was creating a history guide of sorts according to the first post, but that’s now changed with the launch of Zynga’s game. The owner writes in his latest post, “Empires and Allies from Zynga has finally been released, and I’ve been playing it pretty much non-stop since the minute it came out (only with occasional bathroom breaks). I’ve decided to start a FREE newsletter that will share tips and strategies for the game, as well as updates and notifications of any new guides that are released.”
The webmaster for empiresandalliesguide.info appears to have known about the Zynga game for awhile, but even without any official news put out by Zynga, the webmaster continued to post articles to ensure the site ranked well in the event the game did lauch. It seems to have paid off, as the site ranks in the #1 spot even above the official Facebook page.
The owner of ModernWarfare3.com has managed to rack up nearly 7,000 “Likes” on Facebook for its unofficial fan site that looks a whole lot like the official MW3 site, but the bad news is most people Liking the page probably have no idea that the website is not an official Activision property.
The fact is, Activision continues to blunder when it comes to domain names.
Of course, the chore of registering domain names or getting them on the drop or aftermarket, is made all the more difficult by having the best video game franchise ever made and because there are plenty of people buying up every variation of the “Call of Duty” and “Modern Warfare” name.
Date Registered: 06/02/11
Date Modified: 06/03/11
Expiry Date: 06/02/12
DNS1: ns1.above.com
DNS2: ns2.above.com Registrant
InTrust Domains
Kenn Palm
11605 Meridian Market View
Falcon, CO (US)
80831 Administrative Contact
InTrust Domains
Kenn Palm
11605 Meridian Market View
Falcon, CO (US)
80831
While Activision Publishing has never seemed all too interested in acquiring generic domains (bad news for owners of generics waiting for a big payday) or disputing domain names it missed out on (good news for squatters), it does own one of the best, callofduty.com.
This week the company has been busy working on plans for its fall release of Call of Duty Elite, a premium online service for Call of Duty gamers.
It’s also been registering domain names including callofduty-elite.org and callofduty-elite.net, according to DomainTools.
By the way, if you haven’t seen the Modern Warfare 3 trailer by The Onion — it has over 11 million views on YouTube.
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