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Couldn't the dev lean in and claim it's a parody? Instead of making it LESS like Ikea, use Ikea brands directly. I'm pretty sure parody law permits this.

Disclaimer: I am not, nor will ever be, a lawyer



Parody requires that your work be a commentary on the protected work you have repurposed specifically.

Weird Al actually secures permission and never relies on parody protection, but if he didn't then "Fat" would fail, Michael Jackson was many things but notably fat was not one of them, whereas his "Smells Like Nirvana" is a parody because it's about Cobain's incomprehensible singing and other aspects of the Nirvana song.

So what's the commentary here for IKEA?


That IKEA organises its stores in a hard to understand mess for mere mortals, seemingly unending and leading to any trip for an unenlightened visitor taking multiple hours, and this is taking the idea to the extreme, making you almost forever stuck. In fact, the only people exiting SCP-3008 are those with the knowledge of the shortcuts.

Saying that something is a parody isn't exactly hard.


I never understood the IKEA is a maze argument. There is literally a single straight line running from entrance to exit, with signage. You can walk the entire route in about 5-10 minutes.


> So what's the commentary here for IKEA?

That it's a dystopian hellhole inhabited by zombies?


> Weird Al actually secures permission and never relies on parody protection

This is technically true, but according to an interview he said he doesn't actually have to do it by law, but rather by goodwill. That's because "parody" encompasses more than only direct commentary, and actually is just a detail under "fair use" which is a whole lot more general.


>So what's the commentary here for IKEA?

Seems pretty clear to me. IKEA is known for being mazelike and easy to get lost in. The game is an exaggerated horror take on that.


I'd just change the main color, the fonts used in the stores signs to make it look different enough and just add a subtitle: "the game that annoy the famous swedish furnitures store!"

Honestly I don't understand their move as it is free advertising to them.


> I'd just change the main color

I would probably invert the colors. Having a yellow store and blue shirts would not look like IKEA at all.


Probably. Even in it's current form it could probably pass as parody. But that still means you have to fight a corp in court.




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