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King.com, makers of Candy Crush Saga – Trademark Trolls with a Double Standard?
- maaarghk 13y agoI hate king.com for the many hours of potential productivity that I have paid them for the privilege of losing. Whenever I talk about how I was stupid for playing Candy Crush I feel like I'm victim blaming. Anyway, horrible company culture; I don't think they can reasonably expect great success from behaving in this manner.
- timje1 13y agoI don't think they can reasonably expect great success from behaving in this manner Zinga made a lot of money for its owners and investors before imploding.
- ido 13y agoI was surprised that in a way "justice was served" (and rather quickly, at that) in Zynga's case. I hope we see that happen to king too. But most likely they will get away with it, as usual.
- sireat 13y agoJustice wasn't really served in Zynga's case, Marc Pincus managed to cash out quite a bit, the people suffering are the "Death Star contractors" that is the developers hired at Zynga.
- talmand 13y agoWell, to be fair, the second time the rebels killed tens of thousands of those contractors they managed to get the two guys at the top.
- Crito 13y agoAny developer working for Zynga knew the risk involved. If they got screwed over, it's their own fault. A developer should listen to his common sense, not his wallet. The money might be right, but they shouldn't take the job if the risk is too high.
- ghshephard 13y agoWell, Zynga is still worth $3Billion dollars...
- timje1 13y agoYou are quite right. The implosion I refer to is the share price going up to $15 mid 2012, and dropping down to a fraction over $2 by the end of it. Its future is not bright, but it could still pull something magical out of its hat.
- jrs99 13y agoif i had 1 billion dollars, i would not trade it for all of zynga.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- emitstop 13y agoReally? C'mon man have some self control for god sakes. It's a video game on a phone. I'm not particularly fond of micro-transactions, I cannot stand the way intellectual property is handled in this country (US), and I dislike rip-off artists such as Zynga/King. However, all King is doing here is playing ball with current IP legislation, protecting whatever trademarks they can. There's hundreds of games that are exactly the same in every category of gaming, just because King has the capability to create a high-quality successful series of mobile games (which are based off of extremely common gaming concepts) does not mean they are horrible people. People get up in arms when these large corporations sue eachother over intellectual property. Why does the HN community have this double standard whenever a "little guy" can be made out to have been harmed? Just because you're the first person to think of a popular idea doesn't mean you own it forever. Patent/Trademark/Copyright legislation is very clearly all bunk in the age of the internet. Get mad at the stupid laws, not at the people taking advantage of them.
- deletes 13y agoAnyone willing to spend non-trivial resources to retaliate, because of a business deal that didn't get completed, is a sociopath. Also king is currently involved in a banner saga "saga", suing developers of a game of a completely different genre because they used the word saga in their title. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/22/king-are-trying-to-candy-crush-the-banner-saga/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/22/king-are-trying-t...
- maaarghk 13y agoI know, I know, I was being a little tongue in cheek and perhaps it didn't come off too well, but in all seriousness it obviously is just a lack of self control on my part. It isn't easy for me. But this story isn't about the fact they copied the idea at all. It's about the fact that they done it as a petulant response to a business deal that fell through. As for "just because you're the first person to think of a popular idea doesn't mean you own it forever" I see where you're coming from ethically but I don't agree. Love them or loathe them, patents are here to stay and although the rules do need cleaned up, they're not fundamentally wrong. You do deserve -some- protection.
- aaargh 13y agoA Double Standard if I ever saw one. Who could have guessed that a company that develops a 'human skinner box' and brands it Candy crush would be evil. "Pssst.. want some candy? Just give this game a try, there's no reason for fear, we're not evil. Look at the sparkling colors!"
- higherpurpose 13y agoIt may not be a rule, but why does it seem like the companies who shamelessly steal from others are usually the ones to attack others for infringement when they turn into bigger companies? I remember Zynga being in a similar situation, ripping off other people's games early on, and then attacking others for copying "their" games. It must be some kind of "organization insecurity", or some kind of "thieves knowing thieves" kind of thing. I actually don't mind seeing companies "being inspired", even more heavily, by other companies' products, but it pisses me off when they do it themselves, too, and then start attacking others for doing it to them.
- edraferi 13y agoBecause money. Firms don't aggressively protect their IP out of some sense of global justice, they do it to make money. These firms understand the value of IP and the legal mechanisms that exist to protect/acquire/monetize it better than the average. Why would they hesitate to use this knowledge offensively?
- dinkumthinkum 13y agoThe point was many successful companies don't do this.
- jrs99 13y agoit's a huge insecurity thing. That's all they know. That's all they have. They have no idea how to start on a new innovative game. They've never done it, and they don't have the people in place to take the initiative. They have no framework to launch a legitimate title. All the top people they hired were hired to clone games. They're not going to give up their jobs to some kid with an awesome idea. They then realize that ANY fool can come in and topple them. What they do is easy to replicate. Is it that surprising to see someone plagiarize tons of games, and then later try to claim ownership of those ideas? That's just a straight-up criminal in disguise as a game developer. If they weren't making games, they would be robbing people on the street. That's just who those people are. Of course it's all bolstered by investors who have never played a single game in their life and believe that these are good investments and will write tons and tons of articles about it. They're not. Any real gamer would have told you Zynga wasn't a good investment at IPO.
- robmcm 13y agoI thought this was rife in the game industry. Everything's a remix these days anyway.
- timje1 13y agoA remix is like 'lets take the slick visuals of X, but with a Zoo theme, the power-up system of Y and the smooth movement of Z to create something new-ish but recognisable!'. This is a large company realising that their smaller competition doesn't want to sell - and reacting by cloning the game and trying to push it to market before the smaller company can get it out there. It's just Zynga all over again.
- dimman 13y agoHow about this comparison? BlockBreaker is a game by a friend of mine: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/block-breaker/id412901690?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/block-breaker/id412901690?mt... It won a best game award 2011 and King offered him a job after that competition. He turned it down though. King then came out with: Pet Rescue Saga (quick google will give you images of how that one looks)
- andrewingram 13y agoIf the game is what I think it is based on the screenshots, then it's existed in various forms for a very long time.
- aestra 13y agoYep I played flash versions over 10 years ago!
- dimman 13y agoI figured it might have existed previously and don't mean that he would have invented the idea. Although, I find it quite interesting that King launches a very similar game as the author who just turned down their offer. It just isn't possible for one person to compete in terms of marketing with a giant like King.
- zyb09 13y agoThe success of King.com really bothers me. Sure their games are not cheap and made very well, but it seems the whole "game" and all mechanics are just designed to slowly get you hooked and extract money at the most susceptible time. And it's executed almost to the point of perfection. It's a shame it's working so well, because they are eating the cake in front of a very low confidence game industry. Smartphones are powerful now, yet games that manage to match the quality and depth of an SNES-era game are basically non-existent. After seeing the success of Rovio, Zynga and King, I don't think they will be made sadly. Let's just hope this doesn't affect other platforms as well.
- gadders 13y agoI'm on level 180 or so and have never given them any money. It's possible to make reasonable progress without paying them.
- soneca 13y agoI am on level 450 with no money also. Sure, it is possible; but it is clear how smart they are in the strategy of getting money. As a BizDev I actually used to praise them for this. They are so much better at it than every other casual game producer. But I see the parent point. As a gamer, this might level down the games for gamers. But I don't actually believe it will. Someday someone will make a very good game costing $20 to play on a phone and will be a hit as GTA and others. They are just different audiences. Casual gamers don't want to pay anything upfront, so you have to trick them into it like Candy Crush. Serious gamers like to show their praise for a game upront, and them play as much as they want with no off-game annoyances.
- gadders 13y agoBasically you're trading money for your time on the game. If you're impatient to proceed, it costs you more.
- batiudrami 13y ago
- Argorak 13y agoBy the way, King did not only file trademark for "candy", but also "saga", which turns out to be a problem for "The Banner Saga". http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/22/5335766/stoic-king-is-hindering-banner-saga-sequel http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/22/5335766/stoic-king-is-hinde... This is especially weird, as "saga" is quite common: http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/saga/results http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/saga/results
- tinco 13y agoSomeone should really make a Candy Crush clone called Candy Saga.. edit: nvm, apparently it's called Candy Crush Saga, so this is a silly comment..
- onetwofiveten 13y agoI think they've just filed for "saga" I don't think they've been granted it. As far as I know filing for it can block other trademark applications, but it doesn't stop others from using the word in their games. But I'm not a lawyer. The "candy" trademark is pretty insane though. I expect it will be challenged. Disney must surely have the Candy King in their Wreck It Ralph games.
- alipang 13y agoExcept they're not going to go after Disney, only smaller companies without the cash to throw lawyers at problem.
- turtle4 13y agoI guess that is what I don't understand here. Why was the trademark granted when it clearly isn't unique? Do they just grant all requests and let the courts sort them out, or what?
- danielweber 13y agoThere is a period of public comment before trademarks are granted, to give any other people with similar names a chance to object. I've been at places where our trademarks were held up by that.
- pirateking 13y agoAs someone who grew up in the Golden Age of video games, this makes me sad. You are no longer the player and the thing in your hand is not the game. The player is the company the game is you. Maybe it was always like so, and I was young and having too much fun to realize. It really does seem like the idea of painting rich immersive worlds with challenging skills to learn and master has been tossed aside, in favor of simplified Skinner boxes with the minimum required skinning of a game and pay to play. Even more sad is how successful these "games" are. A reflection of the times I suppose - no time for dawdling about reading story or exploring worlds, quick information and quick rewards please, because time is too important to waste.
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoI think its obvious that mobile is a ghetto. The touch based controls don't really lend themselves to anything complex gaming-wise and high-information gamers aren't ignoring their PCs and consoles for them. It just leaves low-information casuals who jump into whatever skinner box time-waster is popular today. In the meantime, the PC master race is having a renaissance of sorts and the new batch of consoles look pretty good.
- luckyno13 13y agoI have made an effort in the recent weeks to try to explore the popular titles, and even some obscure ones and I have to agree. I have always said that gaming on the go is not really anything I care about, as my PC is where I want to game. But with some life shifts I have found myself on the go a little bit more with some spare time and honestly, the Play marketplace offers a bunch of half assed efforts imo. There are games that are free, but pay to win. There are games that cost, but no way to know if they are worth a damn other than buying and going after your refund quickly. We wont even go into totally free stuff. So while you obviously arent on par with popular opinion, I agree with you. I for one am hoping that the shift to PC architecture in the new consoles will speed up our renaissance ultimately. Ive been having the most fun gaming single player lately than I have in a long time.
- jbranchaud 13y ago
- res0nat0r 13y agoI always thought for the 10 minutes I installed Candy Crush before deleting it, that was a clone of Bejeweled from Pop Cap (and I'm sure that's a clone from somewhere else).
- Jare 13y agoIt's as much as clone on Bejeweled as Puzzle Quest is, or Modern Warfare is a clone of Doom. The base mechanics are the same (match-3) but the look & feel and metagame are completely different.
- TomiHiltunen 13y agoTake a look at "Juice Cubes". It's a game by Rovio. They are pretty much the same game with Candy Crush. I just enjoy playing Rovio's version a bit more. It's like the Batman movies by different directors. It's the same basic concept but others are still better and more enjoyable than the rest.
- NKCSS 13y agoDisney's Frozen Free Fall also.
- TeeWEE 13y agoLets boycot them (as if hacker news people are playing their games ;-)
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoI was, I'm ashamed to admit. No longer.
- TomiHiltunen 13y agoTo anyone who have played arcade games and flash games decade(s) ago knows that so many games today are pure retries of older games. Just take a look on the games of Rovio and others. One thing that pops in mind is "I've played this game before". Great thing is that they make the good, original idea of the game more enjoyable with better ramification and execution.
- TomiHiltunen 13y agoThis list is based on my own gaming experience: Angry Birds -> Castle Crusher Amazing Alex -> The Amazing Machine Juice Cubes -> Candy Crush -> Bejeweled This list is not to demean Rovio. I really like Rovio's execution and I keep playing Angry Birds and mostly Juice Cubes before going to bed. It's nice and relaxing.
- Pxtl 13y agoI can't stand how people bag on Rovio. Their games are intelligent and fun and even a bit educational (educational content stuffed into Angry Birds Space, and Amazing Alex is great for getting kids to solve problems creatively). Yes, they're derivative, but they add a tremendous amount to their predecessors. Angry Birds is a far better game than Crush the Castle, and The Amazing Alex is the first solidly-good implementation of TIM in over a decade and has a ton of interesting ideas that add to the concept. And they have only the most minimal inclusion of the In-App-Purchase crap. They don't make cash-driven Skinner boxes. People bag on Rovio because they were the first big smash hit of the mobile world, not for any good reason.
- meerita 13y agoI'm removing right now Candy Crush. Thanks for this post. I hate these ungrateful people.
- ozh 13y agoThe main problem here is not that King copies games. Lots of games, few ideas, this has always been the situation. The main problem here is that a company is allowed to trademark a word like "Candy" or "Saga". Evil company, maybe, retarded laws, very obviously.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoReally? I'd much rather they acted stupidly over names than went out and blatantly copied people's games. The former is an annoyance which can be worked around, the latter destroys peoples livelihoods.
- viach 13y agoThey should have trademarked Clone Cash instead
- m0skit0 13y agoIs this a surprise to anyone? In capitalism, money is the only thing that matters. What do you expect?
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoWe expect some regulation to uphold the supposed ideals of capitalism, one of which is competition. But if that regulation just doesn't happen then, yes, capitalism looks pretty broken.
- CmonDev 13y agoRovio isn't doing this (as blatantly) for example. Neither does Supercell.
- Gracana 13y agoOutrage does not equal surprise.
- sleepyK 13y agoMobile games have pivoted from being short, fun to play vignettes into honey traps that lure you in and get you hooked to consume your time and/or money. Every major studio out there makes formulaic bull that basically copies some other schmuck's idea and adds their own "StudioCoin" on top to monetize the game. Temple Run spawned hundreds of clones, then Candy Crush clones came out and now apparently it's Clash of Clans clones. Everyone from EA to Mobage does this cloning instead of focusing on bringing new ideas to the table. If only they tried to innovate, the crappy studios like King would go out of business. Indie developers try hard, but it takes a team to make a well rounded game with large scale mass appeal... :/ tl;dr Today's mobile games are time consuming black holes, and once done credible competition comes forth, they're sure sink.
- Macsenour 13y agoI mostly agree with you but I have 2 points: 1) I wouldn't say "from being short...", I think it's more accurate to say "from JUST short...". My reasoning here is that we have deeper long games, heck Knights of the Old Republic comes to mind, and short fun games like Cut The Rope. 2) Couldn't you say basically the same thing about the movie industry, regarding the lack of new ideas and abundant cloning? When games and movies take so much investment, it's not always easy to convince barely imaginative accountants to spend the money.
- CmonDev 13y agoHow embarrassing would it be for a gamedev to be working for them... I hope their best coders will leave.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoUtterly disgusting. Candy Crush deleted.
- erikb 13y agoI don't really see a problem here. You have copyright on the code but not on an idea. I think when Nintendo and the Tetris guys fight smart game developers in making games like Tetris or Super Mario it hurts me as a gamer much more than such kind of copycat.
- Peroni 13y agoThis wasn't just an idea. This was a product close to launch. The implicit instruction from King was to clone what already existed, not "take their idea and make it".
- baldajan 13y agoKing.com is ridiculous for sure. I do wish someone that has used the word candy in the title of their game before Candy Crush still sells/trades in significant volume. If so, they can still contact the USPTO and have the mark invalidated - process is lengthy, but exists.
- waylandsmithers 13y agoI hate to be such a cynic here, but isn't this pretty much standard practice in the mobile gaming space? It seems to be the wild wild west as far as copyright goes. I remember reading a piece on Zynga maybe a year or two ago that detailed the games that were ripped off (apart from the obvious scramble = boggle, words = scrabble) almost exactly from other existing but much less popular games in the app store.
- thepumpkin1979 13y agoKing is the New Zynga, no surprise there.
- rblstr 13y agoKing.com have been around forever pretty much copying every game type it could. Bejeweled, Bubble Bobble, Peggle, and tons of board games. I'm not surprised at all. Their games are pretty good clones though.
- abjorn 13y agoIt's not like Candy Crush was original in the first place.
- sebastianconcpt 13y agoThe world has way too many problems to crush time and brainpower down the drain. I'll never touch this game or games from people with this ethos
- dblacc 13y agoif only the rest of the world thought like this. Not the case unfortunatly
- donniezazen 13y agoWhy were they even allowed to trademark a generic word like Candy? Can they ask Websters or Oxford to remove word candy from their dictionaries?
- gdulli 13y agoIt's something they could only enforce in the limited context of gaming. Just like "Apple" can be trademarked specifically in computing. You couldn't sell apples and trademark "apple" in that context because it would unfairly prevent others from selling apples. But Apple gets to protext themselves from a proliferation of companies named "Apple Computers", "Apple Computing", "Apple Computer", "Apple Computor", etc.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoYou can use a trademark. You can't lawfully use someone else's registered trademark to sell goods/services in the same category or when there is confusion as to where the goods originate from though. Pepsi can mention Coca Cola in their ads, they can sing and dance about them if they want to. As soon as they put it on their packets (or use other trademarks like the Coca Cola livery) and create the possibility of confusion in consumers as to whether Coca Cola made the Pepsi product or not [at least enough to convince a court] then they're in trouble and Coca Cola should be able to successfully sue.
- wnevets 13y agoso did angry birds and most popular mobile games. There were flash trebuchet games years before angry birds with the exact same gameplay
- jamesbrownuhh 13y agoClearly King.com don't end up looking like the good guys here - although as the article does freely admit, "Scamperghost isn't the most original game in the world. It's obviously inspired by Pac-Man" ... Which rather does bring to mind the supposed conversation between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, where Jobs suggests that Windows has copied the Macintosh, but Gates responds that "I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox..." No kudos to king.com either way. In cases like these I'm almost inclined to wish that someone would just come up with a really really good "inspired by..." game and release it for free just for the hell of it. (Not terribly good business, admittedly, but you have to admit it would be pretty satisfying. I don't see a "Sugar Crash" in the app store yet...) :)
- chenster 13y agoThis is ridiculous! The provisional trademark "Candy" should be refused under Section 2(e)(1) Refusal – Merely Descriptive. Simple as that! "...A mark is merely descriptive if it describes an ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use of an applicant’s goods and/or services. TMEP §1209.01(b); see, e.g., DuoProSS Meditech Corp. v. Inviro Med. Devices, Ltd., ___ F.3d ___, 103 USPQ2d 1753, 1755 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quoting In re Oppedahl & Larson LLP, 373 F.3d 1171, 1173, 71 USPQ2d 1370, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2004)); In re Steelbuilding.com, 415 F.3d 1293, 1297, 75 USPQ2d 1420, 1421 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citing Estate of P.D. Beckwith, Inc. v. Comm’r of Patents, 252 U.S. 538, 543 (1920))." King.com must've bribed the trademark officials. Disgusting!
- benologist 13y agoThis was an interesting part of King's history. Years ago back when they were just a skill gaming site they used to license flash games over at FGL.com which spread virally and funnel traffic back to your site from other gaming websites that host the game. I forget the exact details but some friends of mine made the clone after the originals' licensing deal went to a competing portal at the last minute.
- leafo 13y agoIf you're a game developer (or just want to make a game) then we're hosting a game jam in protest of their "candy" trademark. Make a game about candy. Check it out: http://thecandyjam.com http://thecandyjam.com
- rbritton 13y agoThis article is the first thing on my mind for anything King.com: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/1949...
- AznHisoka 13y agoMost businesses and entrepreneurs have a double standard. We complain when someone doesn't answer our help desk call on weekends, yet are determined not to work on weekends ourselves. We complain when an UI of an app we're using in unintuitive, yet when someone complains about your app, you tell them you got lots of bug to address and know about it.
- davemel37 13y agoThis shouldn't surprise anybody. It's the very same behavior that drives stealing a game, that drives protecting yourself from being knocked off.
- slr555 13y agoBest of luck trademarking the word Candy. You can put a TM next to the pope but that does make the cross yours.
- jgreen10 13y agoI don't see the big deal. No one's making a fuzz about Apple being a trademark. At least Candy is a man-made object.