
King Candy Crushes Developers, The Saga - deletes
http://www.gemfruit.com/articles/king-candy-crushes-developers-saga/#
======
srg0
It's a pity King targets Stoic Studio. Their first title (The Banner Saga) is
amazing. And I really hope that Stoic Studio will have the resources to finish
the trilogy.

The statement by the developers:

"Two years ago, the three of us at Stoic set out to make an epic viking game:
The Banner Saga. We did, and people loved it, so we’re making another one. _We
won’t make a viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone
telling us we can’t._

King.com claims they’re not attempting to prevent us from using The Banner
Saga, and yet their legal opposition to our trademark filing remains.

We’re humbled by the outpouring of support and honored to have others stand
with us for the right to their own Saga. _We just want to make great games._ "

[http://stoicstudio.com/the-banner-saga/](http://stoicstudio.com/the-banner-
saga/)

~~~
rayiner
The developers' statement is wrong. King is not preventing Stoic from using
the name "The Banner Saga." That would be the case if King filed a trademark
infringement suit. What they have filed is an opposition to Stoic's
application. Thus, what they're doing is trying to keep Stoic from claiming
exclusive use of the name "The Banner Saga" in the context of a casual online
game.

~~~
dboat
Essentially King are telling Stoic they can use the name, but cannot own it,
because it includes the single word "Saga." It's a little unsavory of King to
claim ownership of that single word in such a broad context, and the
particulars do not sensibly favour their cause.

~~~
danielweber
According to grandparent, King is _not_ claiming ownership. They are claiming
"those guys can't trademark _Saga_."

Their reasoning is "because we use it in our games and have been," but that's
not claiming ownership. If I try to trademark "chicken" and McDonald's objects
saying "we have been selling Chicken McNuggets for decades," that is not
McDonald's saying "we own the trademark on _Chicken_."

~~~
Drakim
So King is using the argument that everybody else is using against them?
(saying that they cannot copyright "Candy" and "Saga" due to them already
being in wildspread use)

------
oneeyedpigeon
From King.com [1]:

"The debate here revolves around Pac-Avoid [...] The game strongly resembles
another game called ScamperGhost. The details of the situation are complex,
but the bottom line is that we should never have published Pac-Avoid. We have
taken the game down from our site, and we apologise for having published it in
the first place.

Let me be clear: _This unfortunate situation is an exception to the rule_.
King does not clone games, and we do not want anyone cloning our games.

Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the
marketplace and review relevant trademark filings to ensure that we are not
infringing anyone else’s IP. We have launched hundreds of games.
_Occasionally, we get things wrong_. When we do, we take appropriate action."

I'm pretty sure this is an admission that they cloned the game. We know it,
they know it, they haven't outright said "we cloned the game", but this is as
good as. Unless I'm misreading it, in which case they should correct that
statement.

Given that, it would be interesting to know what legal avenues are open to the
original developer now. If another party was willing to provide financial
support for a lawsuit, surely it's a slam-dunk?

I think the whole issue of whether or not candy crush can be considered a
clone is vastly different; obviously, the core mechanism is pretty much (or
exactly) the same as in other games, but that mechanism is very
straightforward. And I'm not sure the visuals are so blatantly a rip-off.
Moreover, I'm unaware of any evidence from a third-party that has revealed
King commissioned them to create a clone.

[1] [http://about.king.com/about/our-approach-to-
ip](http://about.king.com/about/our-approach-to-ip)

~~~
chilldream
One problem is that you can't really copyright game mechanics, at least in the
United States. Games are still protected by IP laws in many ways but it's
pretty easy to write a direct clone from scratch without infringing anything.

~~~
ama729
> One problem is that you can't really copyright game mechanics

You can actually _patent_ them[1]:

    
    
      A patent was granted to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 for "a novel method
      of game play and game components that in one embodiment are in the
      form of trading cards" that includes claims covering games whose rules
      include many of Magic's elements in combination, including concepts such
      as changing orientation of a game component to indicate use (referred to
      in the Magic and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules as "tapping") and
      constructing a deck by selecting cards from a larger pool.[9] The patent
      has aroused criticism from some observers, who believe some of its
      claims to be invalid.[10] In 2003, the patent was an element of a larger
      legal dispute between Wizards of the Coast and Nintendo, regarding trade
      secrets related to Nintendo's Pokémon Trading Card Game. The legal
      action was settled out of court, and its terms were not disclosed.[11]
    

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering#History)

~~~
DrStalker
There was a period of time when the tap mechanic was used by nearly every
collectible card game but they all had their own name for it. The mechanic was
the same (rotating the card slightly to show it had been used that turn) which
I would have thought was what a patent protected against, rather than
protecting the name which would have been copyright.

------
Danieru
Interesting that this is the same King I remember as King.com. Back in 2009 I
was hanging out on the FlashGameLicense irc channel and watching the other
dev's business deals.

I'm not sure if I ever met porter but I do remember spending a silly quantity
of time talking with the other regulars.

Now one thing I do remember clear was how king.com was BIG. Not
AdddictingArcade big but they had polish and felt like a real company. With
the smaller flash sites you could tell it was all one person. King.com (Back
then it was always .com) had people with job titles and pockets to back the
biggest of games.

Now this is only a faint memory but I had the impression King.com was
cutthroat. They were driven and were aggressive in games acquisition.

I might be biased, I might have known him, but I belief porter. Not even sure
I blame him, there was a ton of cloning in the flash world back then and the
flash portal relationships were always mysterious. It would be easy to fall
for a kind guy from the portal spinning a story.

~~~
Sparkky
Yea I had a similar issue when I used to hang out in that IRC channel as well
when I sold flash games.

I work AAA development now, but its weird to see porter and king talking about
these things that went down back when this community was full of lovable
little underdogs.

------
deletes
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&sclient=psy-
ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.gemfruit.com%2Farticles%2Fking-candy-crushes-
developers-saga&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.gemfruit.com%2Farticles%2Fking-
candy-crushes-developers-
saga&gs_l=serp.3...3385.5959.0.6181.12.9.3.0.0.0.74.524.8.8.0....1...1c.1.32.psy-
ab..12.0.0.wH9f0k6X2-E&pbx=1)

~~~
Alterlife
In related news, "Hacker News Crushes gemfruit.com, The Saga"

------
maaarghk
"This site is hosted by HostGator!

Build your website today and get 20% off! Coupon code: "PAGE500"

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED"

....not likely haha!

edit: okay, I've read the article now and the whole thing sounds pretty shady,
yeah. I think what they really need to take away from this is that they should
tell the truth when someone calls them out, and not just lie. Because then...
you'll get called out twice. Seriously, I can feel a PR carcrash coming on if
they just keep telling lies (in broken english).

~~~
suby
Tell the truth? What are they going to say, "Yes, we purposefully cloned this
game."? Lying about it certainly isn't helping, but I don't think being
truthful here would be help them.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Actually, if they owned up, explained how they would do things differently in
future, and then followed through on that, I might be prepared to be a
customer of theirs again in future.

------
moha114aw
I am not knowledgeable on all of King's negative practices, but as ridiculous
as their trademark pursuit of 'candy' and others sounds, the only question I
think they are asking is, "How will it affect our sales?". Otherwise, why go
through this fiasco by trying to bully the 'little guys'? In their mind all
other developers and their sympathizers combined won't be a match to those
facebook users who click and purchase 'Boosters'.

------
jgreen10
What's next? Trademarking "Apple"?

~~~
Tohhou
[https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-
property/trademark/...](https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-
property/trademark/appletmlist.html)

Done.

~~~
antiterra
I'm pretty sure the GP was tongue-in-cheek, but don't forget about this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer)

------
xerophtye
Error 505....

~~~
troels
505? That's exotic ..

~~~
RBerenguel
Version not supported ^o

