Many of you are already familiar with Bethesda’s legal escapades with Minecraft developer Mojang, but it’s highly possible that Bethesda isn’t taking everything involved too seriously. As seen in the screenshot below, a character in Bethesda’s latest game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim¸ is about to loot a “notched pickaxe,” the central tool of Mojang’s Minecraft.
This is especially interesting because the tool looks so
similar to its Minecraft
equivalent. “Notch” is also the nickname
of the creator of Minecraft, Markus Persson. Is this a coincidence or intentional? We may never know for sure, but in a game as
enormous as Skyrim, it could be the
work of a rogue developer that slipped past quality control, or simply a
humorous take on the whole legal struggle.
Either way, it provides an interesting topic for debate. Hopefully it’s not just a mod by some
mega-troll trying to stir something up and everyone who reported on this isn’t
made to look like a fool in a few days.