Tag: MarkMonitor

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News Video Games

Avengers: Battle for Earth video game headed to consoles [UPDATED]

Avengers: Battle for Earth video game

Avengers: Battle for Earth

The Avengers video game looks to have a title — Avengers: Battle for Earth.

On May 3, 2012, a day before the film was released in the United States, the domain name avengersbattleforearth.com (Whois) was registered through the brand protection company MarkMonitor.

The name was registered by Marvel Characters, Inc. and is currently listed on Ubisoft’s nameservers: nic1.ubisoft.com and nic2.ubisoft.com.

While there has been speculation the game may have been delayed, cancelled, or simply couldn’t work, the newest domain registration hints that it may be officially announced soon.

[UPDATED May 10, 2012:. Ubisoft officially announced “Battle for Earth” in a deal with Marvel Entertainment, LLC. According to the press release, “This game will be released this fall for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft with Kinect™ for Xbox360 and Nintendo’s Wii™ U™ system.”]

Talking about this story: Joystiq, Forbes, Kotaku, /Film, Comic Book Movie, Game Rant, Just Push Start, Comic Book Resources, Game Informer, Complex.com (blog), Side Mission, io9, Shogun Gamer, Attack of the Fanboy, Digital Trends, MCV, Computerandvideogames.com, Kotaku Australia, OnlineWelten.com, Neoseeker, Neogaf, ZoKnowsGaming, Playstation Lifestyle, games.on.net, Gamespot, HardGamers, Videogameszone, Gamesaktuell.de, gamona.de, gry-online.pl, gram.pl, Judão and All Games Beta

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News Video Games

Guardians of Middle Earth game domain names registered [UPDATED]

Guardians of Middle Earth game

In March 2012, Middle-earth Enterprises (a division of The Saul Zaentz Company), registered domain names hinting at a “Legends of Middle Earth” game.  Those domain names were publicly registered through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

Now, this week, a handful of domains have been privately registered through MarkMonitor that indicate a game by a different title may be in the works: Guardians of Middle Earth.

On May 1, guardiansofmiddleearth.com (Whois), guardiansofmiddleearthgame.com (Whois), guardiansofmiddle-earth.com (Whois), and guardiansofmiddle-earthgame.com (Whois), were all registered.  Given that Middle-earth Enterprises is a known-client of MarkMonitor, it’s safe to say that the company is behind the registrations.

At the time of this story, none of the domain names resolve to a web page nor has there been any official announcement about a “Guardians of Middle Earth” game.

The Hobbit, an upcoming film based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel, is set to be released in December 2012.

[UPDATED May 30, 2012:. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment revealed Guardians of Middle-earth, a multiplayer online battle arena game set to be released in the fall 2012.]

(Image of The Lord of the Rings Online)

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News Technology

Apple registers iPhone4N.com domain?

iPhone 4N

Update 1 at 5:24AM EST:. After I posted this story, MacRumors pointed out that the iPhone4N.com Whois record raises questions as to whether Apple is really behind the registration.  First, the registrar used was Go Daddy, not MarkMonitor (Apple’s usual choice).  Guess we’ll have to wait and see if anything official is announced.

Original Story: Apple released the iPhone 4 in 2010 and the iPhone 4S in 2011.  Now, all the talk is about Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5.  But Apple did make an interesting domain name purchase this week: iPhone4N.com.

According to Whois records, Apple registered the domain on May 1, 2012.

It’s unknown why the company registered the domain name.

It may be nothing more than a defensive tactic to protect its intellectual property, except, a number of iPhone 4 variations like iPhone4Q.com and iPhone4W.com are still available for anyone to register at the time of this story.

Apple already owns the domains iPhone.com, iPhone4.com and iPhone4S.com.  Apple got its hands on iPhone4S.com after filing a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization.  Back in July 2011, Apple acquired iPhone4.com for an unknown amount of money.  The company acquired the domain iPhone.com for an undisclosed amount in 2007.  It’s rumored Apple paid over $1 million to acquire the name.

Talking about this story: BillHartzer.com

(Image of iPhone 4S via Apple.com)

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News Video Games

Microsoft Corporation registers domain names for ‘Xbox Summer Stadium App’

Xbox Summer Stadium App

Microsoft has picked up two new domain names this week hinting at an upcoming ‘Summer Stadium’ app for the Xbox.

On April 30, 2012, Microsoft registered the hyphenated domains, xbox-summer-stadium-app.com (Whois) and xbox-summer-stadium-app.net (Whois), through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

With baseball season in full swing, now is as good a time as any to release a stadium app for the Xbox. But it’s unknown at this time whether the app will be used for sports or music concerts taking place this summer.

MLB.com has a number of apps, including At the Ballpark which offers mobile check-in, social media, offers, rewards and exclusive content.  It also provides other information like current game details including team schedule, ticket information and sales and promotional event listings.

At the time of this story, Microsoft has not announced anything about the Summer Stadium app for the Xbox.

Currently, the domain xbox-summer-stadium-app.com does not resolve to a web page, while xbox-summer-stadium-app.net redirects visitors to Bing.

(Image of Xbox Live via Xbox.com)

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News Trademarks Video Games

Activision files trademark for The Blast Furnace game, privately acquires domain

The Blast Furnace

Activision Publishing, Inc. filed a trademark application on April 18, 2012, for “The Blast Furnace” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The goods and services in the trademark filing (Serial Number: 85601232) cover “computer game software” and “Entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line computer game”.

In addition to the trademark filing, it appears Activision has privately acquired the related domain name, theblastfurnace.com (Whois), through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  Activision is a client of MarkMonitor.

In March 2012, the domain name <theblastfurnace.com> was registered to domain investor Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Inc.  In April, the name transferred to DNStination, Inc., the Whois privacy service provided by MarkMonitor.

I’ve reached out to Frank Schilling via e-mail to see if any details about the transaction can be shared and I will update this story if I hear back.

At the time of this writing, Activision has made no announcement regarding “The Blast Furnace”.

[Update 1 at 8:30pm EST:. After a little digging on DomainNameSales, the online marketplace that features premium domain names from Frank Schilling’s private collection and other investors, it appears the domain name sold for anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 USD.  The sale was reported on April 19, 2012.]

Talking about this story:  VG247, @supererogatory, NowGamer, Lazygamer, Strategy Informer, games.on.net, HardGamers, Gamestrend, Hardgame2.com, gameswelt.de, GamePro, Multiplayer.it, Shacknews, MCV and allgamesbeta.com