King Trolled by the Internet over Trademark Applications

In response to the news that King (formerly known as King.com) have applied to trademark the words "Candy" and "Saga" the internet has responded in an epic manner.

Indie developers uuav and Caribou have started The Candy Jam, an appeal for entrants to make any kind of game, so long as it involves candies. They also encourage developers to use the word candy as well as scroll, memory, saga, edge and apple "because trademarking common words is ridiculous".

Over 20 games are already on the website including Candy Game Tycoon, a game about creating games for an evil corporation and Candy Clicker Saga: Scroll of Candy, a game in which God invalidates another senseless trademark every time you click on the candy.

A simple search for #candyjam on Twitter gives forth a whole host of images for game ideas including this gem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems the only people who can see the sense in this move are King themselves.

The backlash against King started with their application to trademark the word "Candy". However it has developed momentum since they also applied to trademark "Saga". The second trademark application came just before they went after Stoic and their indie RPG game The Banner Saga filing a lawsuit to ask them to change the games name.

King have defended themselves in the following statement.

This is an important issue for King because we already have a series of games where "Saga" is key to the brand which our players associate with a King game; Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga and Farm Heroes Saga. All of these titles have already faced substantive trademark and copyright issues with clones.

- King Spokesperson

We have all seen copies of these games but many of them are argued to be copies themselves. It is also unclear how pushing these trademarks will help protect their brand. After all Candyland has been a popular children's boardgame for much longer than Candy Crush Saga has been around and speaking of Saga aren't they a car insurance company?

Here's hoping this craziness ends, although not before we can play the real-life game from Shandiin Woodward called "Candy Cat Rush." The rules: "Stack all your candy on the cat before it wakes up." Genius.