Bethesda GETS LEGAL on Fanmade Content

"Protecting their trademark" is a stupid argument when there are thousands of things out there using your trademark (which isn't in the UK I believe since "Doom" is a word) and have been for years with your knowledge (if you ever bothered to use, say, Google, like once). On top of that they are sniping one out of the lot... I call that bullshit and your argument clearly specious - you're just supporting them blindly.

River, it's about the fact that he's now developing his own game and using his reputation for having made DoomRL that gives them the need to actually do this move. If the game does poorly or is a bad representation of the genre, and it links back to Doom in anyway, they want to avoid any blow back that would result. It's an extreme set of circumstances that would allow this, but it's a matter of looking at the worst case scenario, and determining how it would change the perceptions of investors and sponsors. And they also have to look at what they think would cause more damage to their reputation in the worst case scenarios. Do they cancel a fan project (which they're known for doing almost the exact opposite), or potentially allow a game to exist that might trace it's way back to one of their keystone franchises. No matter how small that might is, it's still something they have to carefully analyze and determine acceptable risks, costs of risk management, fallout (heh), and a whole laundry list of other legal and business practices. In the end, our opinions on this matter like the dirt on the ground to them because they've likely been discussing this for months, have already figured out the backlash for their actions, and have determined that to be a better option than to possibly allow negative criticism of a game that is 2 steps removed from one of their important building blocks.

To be honest, we can't rule out the possibility that maybe this is an odd way for Bethesda/Zenimax to help promote Jupiter Hell. For all we know, there may even be an agreement between Kisielewicz and Bethesda kind of a "we'll shut this thing down since its so old, which will generate headlines for you're new project, and we get a cut of possible profits" deal. I honestly don't think it's very likely cause I'm sure there'd be better ways to do it, but It's just so unlike Bethesda to do something like this.