Electronic Arts has submitted two new trademark applications for Desert Strike with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, hinting that a remake of the popular 1992 shoot ’em up video game is in the works.
On November 25, 2013, the video game company filed the trademarks (US Serial Numbers: 86128233 and 86128236) for Desert Strike.
Desert Strike was originally released in February 1992 and involved the player piloting an AH-64 Apache helicopter.
A remake of Desert Strike may come as no surprise. The game sold well and for its time, it was Electronic Arts’ highest ever selling game.
So far EA has made no announcement as to a remake, although, there have been many people online calling for a remake throughout the years.
On a domain note, DesertStrike.com is currently registered to Name Administration Inc. according to WHOIS records.
DesertStrike.net and other top-level domains have not been registered.
Most of the names were registered under LucasFilm through the brand protection agency Corporation Service Company (CSC).
Though it’s unknown whether “Star Wars Attack Squadrons” will be a movie, a theme park ride, or some other product, it’s possible a video game is in the works with the same title.
Earlier this year, Electronic Arts and Disney signed a multi-year agreement for EA to develop Star Wars games. And it may be nothing more than a coincidence, but EA is the registrant of AttackSquadron.com (WHOIS) and AttackSquadron.net (WHOIS), which do not resolve to a web page. EA has owned the names for years according to WHOIS historical records.
For now, it will have to remain speculation, though considering the number of domains that were registered, Disney seems very interested in protecting this intellectual property.
Here are just some of the domain registrations made under LucasFilm:
The above list is not an exhaustive list. The same names also appear to have been registered in the .biz and .co.uk extensions.
The names were all registered on July 26, 2013, but none resolve to a web page at the time of this story.
In the past 24 hours, they were moved over from CSC’s domain servers to Disney’s.
Disney has yet to announce anything official.
UPDATE 1 August 16, 2013: So far, nothing has surfaced at this point to explain Disney’s plans behind “Star Wars Attack Squadrons”, but there has been a new development. The domain names, AttackSquadron.com and AttackSquadron.net, which EA has owned for years, changed registrants to CSC Corporate Domains, Inc. in the past 24 hours and were moved to Disney’s DNS servers on dig.com. You can look at the WHOIS records here and here to learn more.
It was announced this week, that Electronic Arts and The Walt Disney Company signed a multi-year video game agreement which allows them to create Star Wars games.
Now Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last year, has registered a slew of new domain names that include titles like: Star Wars Alliance, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Wolf Pack, Wolf Pack Adventures, Order 67, Bothan Spies, Gungan Frontier 2, Gungan Frontier 3, Gungan Frontier 4, and Wookie Hunters.
While it’s unknown what will become of Star Wars: 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault, it looks like more plans are already in the works for other titles.
Movies? Games? It’s anyone’s guess, what many of these titles like Bothan Spies are destined for. But given the timing, you can bet many of the titles have something to do with Electronic Arts.
Call it defensive or call it long-term planning, but Electronic Arts has gone out and registered dot-com domains for Battlefield 13 all the way through Battlefield 20.
On May 2, EA registered each of the names through the brand protection agency Corporation Service Company (CSC), adding to its ever-growing collection of Battlefield-related web addresses which includes its crown-jewel Battlefield.com, a name that EA spent $80,000 USD to acquire.
As of today, EA now owns Battlefield.com, Battlefield2.com – Battlefield9.com, and Battlefield13.com – Battlefield20.com. Battlefield10.com – Battlefield12.com are owned by other parties, not associated with Electronic Arts.
By comparison to its biggest competitor, Activision, ModernWarfare8.com through ModernWarfare20.com and beyond, are not registered at the time of this story being published.
EA is expected to release Battlefield 4 this fall.
