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No Man's Sky Keeps Its Name After Settling Lawsuit With Sky TV
Hello Games, the creator of the upcoming space exploration adventure No Man's Sky, recently settled a three-year-long lawsuit with Sky, a United Kingdom TV broadcaster.
Sky hoped to alter No Man's Sky's name, because it contains the word "sky," as studio head Sean Murray points out:
Yay! We finally settled with Sky (they own the word "Sky"). We can call our game No Man's Sky. 3 years of secret stupid legal nonsense over
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) June 17, 2016
Sky is the same company that filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in 2013, inciting them to change "SkyDrive" to "OneDrive" following a trademark dispute – a battle that the television company won.
Last month, No Man's Sky was delayed from June to August, which resulted in vicious death threats being sent to Murray following the announcement. However, Murray has shown no indication that this lawsuit and the delay are connected. The highly anticipated game was a no show at E3, but you can read a preview about the game here.
We've reached out to Hello Games for further comment about the details of the settlement, and we will update the article accordingly should we hear back.
Our Take
Lawsuits over video game titles, creative rights, or mechanics that are too similar to one another are a common occurrence, but this legal battle sounds like a stretch. After everything Hello Games has been through in the past month, it's nice to hear they settled this battle. A name change to their widely known title could have hurt their marketing campaign.
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