Skyrim Has a Minecraft Easter Egg, Despite Legal Dispute

Developer love...

Actually this might not the case. Oblivion also had Notched items, which one was a Pickaxe. Looks like to be just another item in the game with no significance at all.

I'd think a Notch Pickaxe would be more of an Easter egg. A notched pickaxe in any other game would simply be a crappy pickaxe.

@Condar_JLC

I think it's more definable as an "easter egg" over a crappy pickaxe because it's value is 303 gold. I don't recall normal pickaxes having a value remotely close to that. Is there any significance to the specific number 303 though?

im glad im the 14%

Two words.... Counter Sue..

I am sure the Devs and the Lawyers don't run on the same terms. The dev's may love Mojang.. the highers ups who pay the bills, do not. Plus the lawyers looking for ways to make money.

Classic case of company execs not at all representing the developers. Looks like the people who actually make the game don't have a problem with minecraft, just the people in charge of money.

Perhaps its an 'In' joke, Notch being sued for the amount of 303 million perhaps?

I find it sad to say, but this is the reason why PC gamers only get console ports now!

It clearly states that it does not include digital downloads. That being said, with those sales included it won't be even close to Xbox numbers. However, PC gamers buy more games digitally than consoles.

Physical sales only, genghis; the digital PC sales should be through the roof. Very few people buy PC games through retail anymore. Heck, many game stores don't even stock any PC game that has a console version.

Seriously?!? The game (Elder Scrolls) isn't called just Scrolls... Scrolls refers to "a roll of parchment, paper, copper, or other material, especially one with writing on it" and another definition is "the curved head of a violin or other stringed instrument"!

Just cause their game uses that name in it's title doesn't mean they own that word... I say let it stand. A good lawyer could get this kicked out of court with a counter suit for expenses. The small company wouldn't pay a penny. Only a moron would even think the word 'Scrolls' referred only to 'The Elder Scrolls'. Comeon Bathesda... Take some of that lawyer money and hire better texture designers... Good Grief!

The last 20 games ive bought have all been digital downloads. So yes the PC numbers are WAY higher once you factor in digital downloads.

WoW uses scrolls are they sueing blizzard as well? So did diablo so they better sue them twice and ... and.... infact I can't think of a fantasy RPG that doesn't have scrolls in it so are they gonna go and sue everyone thats ever made a game with a scroll in it :|

Actually there were games using scrolls before TES Arena even started being made so maybe the people that made those games should be sueing Bethesda instead :|

How come they aren't able to track digital purchases as well as retail?

some concrete and descriptive pc sales figures (bith digital and physical) of the elder trolls spyrimshot would have been nice
console makers love to show off console version's sales figures while console sales sag and pc version sales re-emerge on top.

I really dislike that Bethesda is suing over the word Scrolls and normally I would boycott a company for doing something so cheap, but Skyrim is just too good to pass up.
Oh well....at least my EA boycott is still on track.

Which is a bit of a shame because it's often cheaper. I picked up Skyrim on Amazon for £27 instead of downloading it from Steam for the pre-release sale price of £34. Not only that, but it arrived on the day of release and took only a few minutes to install instead of a few hours to download. Bargain!

I agree that you can sometimes get a physical copy cheaper, but having it shipped always comes with risks. I've had delivery people forget to deliver to my house, deliver at 8pm at night, and even lose my item. I wouldn't mind dropping an extra $7 to get to play a game at launch and not have to possibly wait 32 hours for the delivery truck.

Yeah, don't skip Skyrim!!

If you boycott Skyrim because the company is cheap,

1) You are going to miss a great game.
2) Your boycott is not going to make any difference.

In the end, you are only hurting yourself.

1) Oh I got Skyrim and love it.
2) All I can do it contribute to the cause. It's just like voting for the US President.

The article doesn't provide full context of the dispute. Mojang filed a trademark application trademarking the use of the word "scrolls" for all videogames regardless of platform and in any other electronic media context as well. Because of the nature of trademark law, Bethesda couldn't count on it's long past use of the phrase "elder scrolls" to prevent them from being sued if Majong received a trademark for the word. So the lawsuit was a defensive action, and Majong are really the ones being dicks here. However, they have been relying on the tendancy to side with the scrappy underdog to totally misinform everyone of what is really happening.

I'm not, bought it off Steam. They really need to start counting digital sales as I know 6 other people that bought Skyrim and all of them bought it off Steam. I would guess that more than 50% of PC game sales are digital. I can't remember the last game I bought a hard copy of. It might have been Oblivion actually.

"If you boycott Skyrim because the company is cheap..."

If you had a problem with the Scrolls lawsuit and you still couldn't restrain yourself from buying the game for even a day, then you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Or procreate. Or consume oxygen.

This is probably just lawyers trying to squeeze all of the money they can out of the Elder Scrolls name. No one is going to confuse The Elder Scrolls with Scrolls (especially since most people refer to an Elder Scrolls title by its other name, like "Morrowind", "Skyrim", and "Oblivion"). I'm sure most of the actual dev team couldn't care less if Mojang named a game "Scrolls".

Also, this is almost surely an easter egg. This is the only "Notched" pick I've seen all game, and it's enchanted and hidden on the top of the world. Why would they go through the trouble of all that unless the "Notched" part of the name held another meaning?

I don't think it's a case of not being able to track digital sales as much as wanting to use lower retail sales numbers, while ignoring the digital sales, as justification to at most, port a game to the PC as cheaply as they can get away with, and then cry "pirates hurt our sales, look how much retails sales fell!" while trying to abandon PC gamers.

This is definitely a easter egg considering it is at the highest point in the game.