If Warcraft & Starcraft had been the first games to use that naming convention, it actually would be pretty reasonable for Blizzard to claim that as a trademark.
Certainly, when I first encountered some other game called <genre>craft, I initially assumed it was a Blizzard title. Maybe that was dumb of me, but I had such a strong association between Blizzard and that type of name. That's exactly what trademarks are all about -- preventing customer confusion.
"That's exactly what trademarks are all about -- preventing customer confusion."
Yes, but the problem is that the theoretical customer whose confusion the laws try to prevent is getting doormat dumb. This in turn turns the trademark space into an (artificially) limited resource. You cannot use the orange color in your palette nor can you use the word "scroll" and suddenly picking a discernible tag turns into an expensive lawyer-fest.
As a consumer who can indeed discern between "starcraft" and "craft" I am a bit concerned - after all whatever makes the business more costly is in fact limiting my choice.
