I own the domain http://www.garagegaming.com

I recently registered my business name and decided not to go with garage gaming as my name. For obvious reasons: http://www.garagegames.com, a large, known presence in the indie community. A poor college student cannot afford a lawyer for a name dispute. However, I actually registered my domain a few months after garagegames (10/14/2000). At the time, they didnt even have games there.

My big question is: If I sold garagegaming.com, how much could I get for it? I have heard predictions that the internet games industry will get bigger, 2-4x what it is now. It may be a hot name in the next year.

Well.. I donno anything at all about the domain name market, so take this with a grain of salt.

My guess is that if you offered it to the guys at garagegames they might want it and you could get back what you paid to register the domain and maybe if you're lucky a little extra for the time spent doing the transfer. I doubt you could do much better than that because I don't see that there's anything too special about the domain name.

Names that aren't in use aren't worth much anymore, from what I know of the market. People offer money for the name either to buy the presence/traffic, or because you have a vested interest in the name and have to be wheedled with some extra cash to make up for the inconvenience of moving your stuff elsewhere.

(Tangent - Someone offered me a small but acceptable sum for a domain name I barely use. I agreed and even offered to go slightly lower because they said they wanted it for charity. At which point they backed off and said never mind. Some people!)

But if someone wasn't using a name and tried to sell it to me, I'd refuse and wait for them to give up and let it expire so I could get it myself cheaper. :) After all, if it were a really FABULOUS name they wouldn't be working so hard to offload it...

I've had people try to buy the mischief.com domain from me for multiple thousands of dollars on a fairly regular basis, but I think that is largely due to it being a short, fairly common word that can apply to lots of industries.

Given how similar your domain name is to gargage game's, I'd say the value of it is very minimal and svero is right, your best bet would be to try to unload it to the garage games people at cost or a bit more. Even for people who do have the resources to fight a legal naming battle with Garage Games, if they started their business now they wouldn't have much of a case against a well-recognized name that has been around for 4 years. Garage Game's name is even a registered service mark with the USPTO so the case would be open and shut against anyone who tried using a name so similar.

Offering to sell a domain to a company with a similar domain will only make you look like a squatter; both to Garage Games and to ICANN. It is only a formality then for Garage Games to apply to ICANN to have your domain name taken away from you.

It is only a formality then for Garage Games to apply to ICANN to have your domain name taken away from you.

Hairy Troll - Aprovements please...

Offering to sell a domain to a company with a similar domain will only make you look like a squatter; both to Garage Games and to ICANN. It is only a formality then for Garage Games to apply to ICANN to have your domain name taken away from you.

Domain dispute fee isn't cheap.

Considering you've had the domain for almost four years, you could probably justify offering it to GG for $100 without being greedy, especially since domain registration wasn't always so cheap. This would recover your domain costs, allow you to register a new domain if you need it, and leave you a bit extra for your effort. Whether they want it or not, that remains to be seen.

Offering to sell a domain to a company with a similar domain will only make you look like a squatter

I have no intention of being a bum and blackmailing them for money. It would only anger GarageGames. I respect their company and the hard work they have done to build their name. This is the reason I registered my business name as GameStudioD and got a new domain, specifically to not cause GarageGames any heartache.

I registered the domain in good faith 4 years ago and I dont feel I have done anything wrong by choosing that name. If I was able to recoup domain fees and some money to buy a bag of chips, I would be happy.

I will keep the domain for the time being. If I get an offer for it, I would consider it.