Niche forum advice

[prangers]

Hi guys im thinking about starting some niche forums ,around xbox 360 games .For example if i were to register sims3forum.com, alanwakeforum.com ,would this be violating tm issues

thanks

 

[Sparhawke]

Generally speaking games companies fully recognise the important role that fansites play in their success therefore they tend to be much less rabid about protecting their copyrights and allow fansites to exist, within some rules though...somewhere on the official site though you will find some information like this: (Taken from the official Runescape site since I am familiar with that one)

http://www.runescape.com/c=PUPoxO6ouec/kbase/guid/fansites

You must visibly acknowledge that the images are the property of Jagex Ltd, and that Jagex and RuneScape are registered trademarks of Jagex Limited, and you must provide a link to the official RuneScape.com website.

The images or our trademarks must NOT under any circumstances be used on or in conjunction with any website which encourages or helps users infringe our Terms and Conditions or breach the Rules of RuneScape. Using them on a scamming, hacking, password stealing, or cheating website is NOT allowed.

You must not use these images or our trademarks in a deliberately deceptive way. Your website must not portray itself as an official RuneScape website. Allowing you to use these images does not mean we endorse your website.

We may withdraw your permission to use these images at any time if we feel you are misusing them.

~~~

Usually so long as you accept and acknowledge the various trademarks and copyrights you are fine.

Some games sites will even go as far as to officially recognise you too and put you on a list of fansites, once this happens you are golden

~~~

I should warn you now though that starting a forum around games is a very tough proposition, maybe only one in a thousand ever get large enough for people to actively search it out and you still have to compete with leviathans like IGN or Gamespot who can simply open another forum area and mass-announce it to thousands of people...if you are the first there and can get noticed quickly then you should be okay but moderating your site and managing it will be a full time job.

 

[Alex P]

Just out of curiosity how are you familiar with runescape TOS :O

Fansites are generally ok, I know games like WoW encourage them and even give out pre realise content to the biggest ones and feature them on there site. You could always contact them about it and if they contact you back saying no then at least you know so before venturing into something which can only lead to a dead end.

 

[Sparhawke]

I am a Runescape player mod and also a forum mod of one of the bigger fansites that they recognise; Sals Realm

 

[Alex P]

I am a Runescape player mod and also a forum mod of one of the bigger fansites that they recognise; Sals Realm

Ha! Awesome, ex runescape player here. Sorry off topic :P

The EA website seems to be timing out for me at the moment, I know sims is published by EA so you might want to start there by contacting them about what they think about sims 3 fan site using the term sims 3 in the domain name. That's assuming you want to use sims3forum.com or any other variation. Never heard of this alan wake game o.o