So on break from writing I take a stop at RPGamer, a review/rumor site for RPG video games. They have a review up for a new game called Mass Effect. While this game and I will probably never meet, it’s done by Bioware, a game company that has produced several of my favorite games. Hell, they’ve produced a lot of gamers favorite games. I’m curious to see how their latest does.
What catches my eye is the following sentence. Emphasis mine:
In Mass Effect, the player takes on the role of Commander Shepard, a Systems Alliance marine whose appearance, personality, expertise, and even gender are entirely customizable.
From what I’ve heard, this is going to be a BIG game. Very popular. I can imagine a lot of would be writers being inspired by it.
I say this to preference the following observation:
The main character in this science fiction opus is Commander Shepard.
The main character in my science fiction opus is Captain Shepherd.
One wonders if this’ll hurt my chances of getting it published. Grrrr.
Wow, that’s such an uncommon and weird name! They’ll probably sue you if you try to publish yours…:p
Seriously, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like your character’s name is “Link Skystrider,” though of course you may indeed have such a name in your work…in which case I’d worry about that.