average skyrim patch notes:
- added no features
- fixed no bugs
- moved around some buttons in the paid mods menu
https://creative.salon/articles/work/ikea-mother-kallax-stor...
OP here looks innocent enough at least.
BILLY gang forever!
(just kidding, I actually have both, and way more IVAR shelves than BILLYs at that(BILLIES? What would be the proper plural here?))
(skogsmil = forest miles)
> Become encumbered in-game to start your quest to storage bliss! It just works.
> Maybe.
People view cheap as disposable. That’s not entirely corporations fault.
Ikea vs. The Sims? Lame, obvious
Ikea vs. Skyrim? 10/10 no notes
I loved playing it when I was 8 or so.
Interesting lesson there. No one hates marketing tie-ins when you make something genuinely fun, i.e. that people want to play. Opposed to forcing a distraction.
It would be hilarious if they made more of them. Chex: Eternal, Chex: Age of Breakfast
Play it! https://dos.zone/chex-quest-1996/
Add enough objects to keep track of and it'll crash the game immediately on loading the cell. Some of the examples of cluttered objects in the video are already pushing the limits of what will crash the game engine.
Others will have to come up with something else, entirely different, that is equally inventive.
Brilliant ad on the part of IKEA. It has all of the right ingredients, is totally unexpected, outlandishly absurd, and hits at a massive audience. Truly peerless.
It’s a shame how people can even acknowledge, let alone applaud IKEA’s “funny” gaming-related ad after their successful meddling with SCP folklore, not to speak of the chilling effect their actions may have had on indie gaming.
[0]: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-store-is-closed-indie-s...
And almost as comical as Nintendo buying rights to a porn movie to prevent their distribution:
I think that would be a fair price to pay for freeing our society from the shackles of pretending you can own an idea, but I get where these executives are coming from.
No, actually, we decide things based on the law, not based on which side you like more.
If you could afford lawyers, you could definitely get away with that game, but it's easier for IKEA to stomp you.
This video game creates zero risk that a consumer will buy furniture from the wrong store, so trade dress should be inapplicable. IKEA would likely even lose in court. But as the article points out: legal proceedings ... get really expensive.
This move was pure bullying by IKEA lawyers.
Sometimes it's not that deep. Sometimes the cute little indie dev just made a mistake.
The game is also not out yet, even though rewards were promised in June 2024.
https://theonion.com/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-lapt...
https://theonion.com/new-ipad-offers-3-months-of-something-c...
Nuka-Cola's signature rocket-shaped bottle replaced the traditional curved bottle when a rival corporation successfully sued for patent infringement. Fortunately, the public saw the new bottle as an improvement and Nuka-Cola's sales increased.
https://www.amazon.com/Jones-Soda-Fallout-Nuka-Cola-Flavored...
There is also trade dress of course but that isn't really related.
Companies don’t need to be bulliest the vast majority of the time they act like one. We need to stop parroting this excuse for them.
IIRC, the same article/post also said that some other prominent parody artists (Stan Freberg might have been an example) generally did not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Paradise#Coolio's_respon...
If the developer worked with a lawyer they could've gotten any suit by IKEA (this wasn't a suit yet, just a cease and desist letter) quickly dismissed.
FWIW: Ziggy, the developer, is based in the UK.
In that case yeah, it certainly depends on what the local laws say. I think in the UK parody protection applies to copyright but not trademarks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...
Again, IANAL but we do need to stop spreading FUD about what trademarks entail. Trademarks are meant to protect a brand from being diluted or confused, not to police the world of all parody or reference to some thing. In fact, if the store in the game wasn't even called an IKEA, I am really curious what "trademark" they felt it violated, but unfortunately not curious enough to find out.
P.S.: a better example of a trademark that fell to non-use would be "Twitter". However I personally dunno if there is a trademark that fell specifically because they didn't bully enough people who tried to use their trademark in ways that wouldn't be confused with their brand. That seems to be a made-up invention by corporate lawyers that people just accept at face value. If it really worked this way, the mark "JavaScript" should've fallen a long time ago.
> Further, there’s at least the possibility on the part of the developer to claim that such usage is a “parody,” with parody and satire protected at the highest levels of American law through the application of First Amendment freedom of speech rights. However, courts will often require actual commentary to be made in order to extend such protections. In that way, a store name like “I CAN’T A” (or something far more clever) has a greater chance of succeeding than simply using a play on the word “store” in Scandinavian.
https://old.reddit.com/r/captain_of_industry/comments/1vtbz8...
Wait... is that why IKEA just put out a parody video game?
If the name of an unrelated game was IKEA as some clever acronym or such and it was unrelated to stores, that would be a different trademark convo.
Ultimately, these matters would likely be decided in court. IANAL either but it seems like the game maker would have a strong case. Among the things IKEA would have to prove is actual harm and confusion, who would seriously argue that? That doesn't mean IKEA couldn't make it impossible to fight with their unlimited legal resources, I can understand not wanting to spend a chunk of your life on that.
Two things can be true at once: this is the most creative marketing in recent memory and genuinely funny, and IKEA destroyed someone's work simply because they can.
If you don't defend your mark, you lose it.
IKEA has a trade dress and the game matches their color scheme and font exactly. The building is clearly an IKEA with the exact same branding, just different four letter name.
Has a court enforced trade dress with a mock version of a store within a game?
Would a reasonable person, seeing completely different letters actually think IKEA is sponsoring the game?
I would give IKEA almost a 0% chance of winning that case if both sides had equally sized pocketbooks. (see E.S.S. Entertainment v. Rock Star Videos (2008))
Law is rarely remotely reasonable, just because you (or society) think a certain way, does not mean law does.
did Backrooms also infringe on IKEA or maybe every furniture store has the same concept
I tried to find a link but it’s impossible now that backrooms is a popular IP
And having been in an empty IKEA, it definitely had that liminal feel
Yeah that’s crazy I wonder why
The game is in very active development. The most recent alpha was published just four days ago. [0]
I kind of wish that lawyers could settle these things more amicably than by opening with outright threats. The game is clearly taking SCP 3008 as its inspiration and that is a a quite satirical horror story take on IKEA stores. A part of me wishes that companies would be a bit more relaxed about obviously comedic or satirical uses of their identity. What would IKEA lose by approaching the developers in a more supportive manner initially? Say, by offering some more constructive suggestions to steer them away from the particular elements they take offense at.
> The lawyers then tell the developer, “You can of course easily make a video game set in a furniture store that does not look like, or suggest, an IKEA store.” The presumed game development experts go on to explain, “You can easily make changes to your game to avoid these problems, especially since you do not plan to release the game until 2024.”
(from https://kotaku.com/ikea-furniture-horror-game-store-is-close..., linked in the article)
They also listed exactly what they think infringes their trademark.
Was it important part of the game that the store looks just like IKEA?
If yes, that probably makes it more likely that it was a trademark infringement and that IKEA was justified. If no, it shouldn't be a big deal to change the colors, just to avoid potential confusion.
Is it important that the beads looked like Pepsi/Sprite? Kind of, people want recognizable brands
Some examples offhand:
- Fallout’s Nuka Cola is an obvious parody of Coca Cola (also same colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuka-Cola) and Cram is an obvious parody of Spam (same colors)
- GTA is full of these: Sprunk (an obvious parody of Sprite, again same colors), Fruit (obviously Apple—same colors, same branding style, same use of iPrefix and “think” marketing), definitely others
- Saints Row “Freckle Bitches” was a fairly obvious reference to Whendy’s (“I’m all grown up”)
All of these games were bigger, not Indy games at all, and none of the parodied brands saw any obligation to sue AFAIK. Would IKEA have gone after Rockstar, given that they’re much bigger and very popular? I’m suspicious that this was a case of “small target” rather than “big problem”.
(Ok, I clicked through the article, it looks like it was just a demand letter? My impression is that demand letters are nearly meaningless. No judge has to approve them, and they cost an hour or two of lawyer time.)
A solo indie developer who is busy building their debut title is no match for the legal team of a global multi-billion corporation. The developer would run out of money way before the parties could reach any kind of settlement.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-the-prison-architect-developers-...
https://youtube.com/@ikeaheights?si=ZP7jYR1cUw16yhvo
Why and how it remains available, only Google knows!
The mudcrabs are a proud and fancy race!
That game though...the cottage near Riverwood with the "nice old lady" who turns out to be a necromancer once you break into her cellar. There are not many games like this. Pure gold.