Slashdot Mirror
'CandySwipe' Crushed: When Game Development Turns Nasty
Nerval's Lobster writes "King, the gaming developer behind the monster hit Candy Crush Saga, has attracted a fair amount of criticism over the past few weeks over its attempt to trademark the word 'candy,' which isn't exactly an uncommon term. The company followed up that trademarking attempt by firing off takedown notices at other developers who use 'candy' in the titles of their apps. But things only got emotional in the past few days, when indie developer Albert Ransom published an open letter on his Website that excoriates King for what basically amounts to bullying. Ransom claims that he published CandySwipe in 2010, a full two years before Candy Crush Saga hit the market, and that the two games bear a number of similarities; after opposing King's attempts to register a trademark, Ransom found that his rival had taken things to a whole new level by purchasing the rights to a game called Candy Crusher and using that as leverage to cancel the CandySwipe trademark. Ransom claims he spent three years working on his game, and that King is basically robbing his livelihood. King was not effusive in its response. 'I would direct you to our stance on intellectual property,' a spokesperson for the company wrote in an email to Slashdot, which included a link to a letter posted online by King CEO Riccardo Zacconi. 'At this time, we do not have any comment to add beyond what is outlined in this letter.' Zacconi's various defenses in the letter seem a moot point in the context of CandySwipe, considering how Ransom has already abandoned the prospect of fighting to protect his intellectual property. But the two developers' letters help illustrate how downright nasty the casual-gaming industry has become over the past several quarters, as profits skyrocket and people attempt to capitalize on others' success."
http://tangodropbox.com
DropBox trampled all over them; so they gave up.
Was trying to trademark 'Beta'
Someone should write a game about Thieves, Lawyers and Thieving Lawyers.
and the stupid people who love them
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'd like to see a real candy company sue King for using the word "candy".
Hell, even funnier would be a real King suing him for misuse of the title "King" by a non-royalty.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Just rated several of king's games 1-star, no idea if that helps, but made me feel better.
;)
that everyone knows candy crush's core gameplay is just bejeweled with slightly different powerups, why hasn't ea/popcap sued the crap out of King yet?
as intellectual property. It's a farce designed to prevent legitimate competition. It's like politics. I tell my friends that if this country had a straight up popular vote, we would never, ever again elect a Republican. Intellectual property is bogus... Compete or get out of the market. The people that push intellectual property tout the joys of an open market. Open market means just that... open to rabid competition. Compete on merit or GTFO.
Hasbro should fight King's "trademark" with Candy Land. That game has been around well before King even existed.
I don't think King could argue they have ownership of the game mechanic; just the trademark.
Seems like bullshit to me, but i once read King rakes in over $100,000 daily on this game. I guess they will do whatever they can to protect the golden goose.
slowly
fucking patent / tm trolls
Very poor analogy. There would be absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever of trademarking "asdfgasdfgasdfg".
you could just go back to playing Bejeweled for free.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Was trying to trademark 'Beta'
Just spell it "BeD'uh" and it can be done under copyright law.
Trademark that!
Will just be people suing each other. All products and services will have long since stopped existing at all.
For all those who are disconcerted by this news. Here is something New, happy, exhilarating for you to enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftnRFN9sfl8
un not intended.
Candy Crush has made a TON of money.
Since there's another developer with a similar product and a similar name that shipped well before, you think he would have no end of lawyers offering up services just for a cut of the juicy Candy Mountain they can take a big chunk from.
If one side is going to play the legal angle then have no qualms about doing the same.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One of life's great mysteries is how achieving wealth tends to make people more greedy. For example, studies have shown that, as a percentage of income, charitable giving tends to be inversely proportional to income. Here you have a company that has found tremendous success, and in response to that success they become more greedy and try to shut everyone down.
I think human nature is not to just want success. Human nature is to want to win and stomp on the corpses of your competition.
The summary is cut short which requires me to click into the article. That's not fun. While I won't exactly say F-beta, I certainly don't like this either. Dice should go back to the way it was.
Better count your actual votes again. 61million to 58million for the last presidential election is not a large margin of victory. Especially with a population around 300million, you only got 20% of the population to vote democratic vs 19% to vote republican. Part of the reason for the electoral college system was to make elections actually slant more dramatically one way or the other. 332 out of 538 = 61% of the electoral votes for the winner, sounds a lot better than winning with 51% of the popular vote.
it actually applies to just you.
(not the op)
I absolutely hate that term "bully". Whenever someone is being mean or throwing their weight around these days, people say "they're a bully!" as if that is the end of the discussion.
Well, you know what you do when someone pushes you around. You FIGHT BACK. Punch them in the face if you're on the school yard, or ridicule and sue them if you're in the corporate world.
Just calling them a "bully" doesn't give you any sympathy in my eyes. You need to fight back, and stop being such a whiny little bitch.
and their Cellbots project -- I scooped them by around six months, and even offer to share my code with them. What I got was a project manager telling me that I was just a hobbyist and my product didn't exist. What he got was me giving him one of my PCBs to him, then closing his hand around it, and asking him if this doesn't exist why is it causing you pain? When they started giving out the Google ADK board at Maker Faire 2011, I made the rounds to give my board to people half an hour before... including to the Google guys. If anyone was at the Bay Area Maker Faire, they probably will remember how the Robots Everywhere Antbot worked, and the Google Cellbot sat there victim of wifi overload. If something's bigger than you, and you want to win, bite the shins and punch the nuts. Only way.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Yes the guys who made CandySwipe saw Candy Crush Saga, so they hopped in their time machine and went back to 2010 to create the Candy Crush Saga knockoff. :rollseyes:
while
genuinely curious.
Redneck Rampage already exists.
Betas are told that everything happens by accident, and criminals are only really found amongst the working classes. The reality is very different.
When casual gaming was discovered to be the new growth area for gaming, very serious criminals took interest in the market, and became their MOBSTER-IDENTICAL methods to gain control of the action.
Their experts noted that most casual games (at the time) were 'published' (to use the word very lightly) by individuals and tiny companies with no real clout. So, the experts advised the criminal thugs to simply STEAL the current games considered to have the best prospects. Steal the design. Steal the assets. Hell, even steal the code if possible.
The experts advising the criminal thugs argued thus. Focus on getting as rich as possible, as quickly as possible, by turning the 'amateur hour' of casual gaming into something as big as organised gambling or AAA console game publishing. "Use your lawyers to threaten the people you steal from, and then, if needed, to delay court action by as many years as possible."
"In the meantime, use your gigantic profits to buy off most of the people you steal from. After all, they were making pennies from their work, whereas you, using their stolen games, will be making so much money, a tiny fraction of your income will seem like an astonishing windfall to the people you may have to eventually pay-off. "
Now the criminal thugs have long since established themselves, and have the income to place politicians, computer companies and law enforcement into their pockets. America was built on such corporate criminality. America LOVES profit, not whining by little guys who never really made much money, but whose ideas and work had so much potential when illegally transferred to ruthless crooks.
The legal system, especially the civil side, is designed to reward successful criminality, so long as such criminality spreads the wealth to the 'RIGHT' people. Gaining general possession of the word 'Candy' was a simple consequence of money well spent. No legality, no justice, no morality- just money placed into the pockets of the 'right' people.
But the thugs at the top of casual gaming publishing are pikers compared to the people that run Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple etc. Look what Microsoft intended to do with the Xbox One, before a massive backlash forced Microsoft to reverse every one of its obscene plans. Look at how Intel is PAYING companies to use its new Baytrail CPU, and PAYING legions of vile shills working for reputation management agencies to flood forums like this with the message that Intel's criminality is 'legal' and 'reasonable' (and this in the face of knowledge about how many times Intel has been successfully prosecuted in court).
Only petty criminals get punished. The big boys are always an essential part of the 'elite' that rule over you. Go read some history, if you are foolish enough not to believe this.
Candy Crush Saga isn't just the title of their game, it's a description of their business.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
First, honestly when I look at the comparisons, I see no confusion. If King actually cloned Candy Swipe, they did so at such a high level as to not require any litigation. "A game about candy that uses a touch screen." Beyond that, what is the same? The colors are similar... shapes are wildly different. Count of the # of objects is different. The gameplay is different. Candy Crush has far more content. The list goes on.
So I'm curious... who here was actually confused by the games? Who here played Candy Crush for a while before realizing "omg, this isn't Candy Swipe"? I honestly do not believe any readers here were confused.
Second, look at Candy Crusher. Make a little comparison pdf of screenshots between the three games. Any claim Runsome makes on King's game can be done by AIM Productions on Runsome, continuing the chain of trademark confusion back a little further, making Runsome's entire claim bubkis. Runsome "cloned" AIM's Candy Crusher just as much as King "cloned" Candy Swipe.
Just because you lost an argument, doesn't mean you were bullied.
You know, "charitible" foundations that somehow make your company MORE money without being taxed. Need to deduct those from your total charitable tally for the rich.
This guy was on eof the more famous- but hardly an anomaly.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Candyland?
It's been around forever.
Make sure no one you know plays their games. If you see someone playing one explain to them whats going on and suggest alternatives. If that fails turn to ridicule make it so no one would be caught dead (isnt this happening already?) playing their games for fear or persecution.
I honestly do not believe any readers here were confused.
Why are you limiting the data set to just readers of Slashdot? That's exceptionally dishonest.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
So when does software become comparable to a novel? What criteria should we appropriately apply (hint: it isn't "it's all free")? Margaret Mitchell et. al. deserve better than that, don't you think? These rights aren't imaginary - they're tied to real money (and I mean REAL money). If I sequelize the best seller from this week's NYT list very few people would argue that the original author has no right to sue me. If I sequelize The Martian Chronicles, I doubt that Mr. Bradbury's interests will come after me (after all this time, they shouldn't. I doubt they would, although their laughter at my idiocy might be amusing). If I sequelize Mario Bros. (hey, pick just about any side-scrolling shooter, really), should Nintendo have a right to bust my chops, or should they just accept that they've made all the money they deserve from the Mario franchise and let me make a fool of myself? If I make money at it (i.e., people read Chronicles II or buy Luigi's Plumbing), should Nintendo be allowed to change their mind and say "oh, that's ours. Too bad, so sad, you lose."?
That's only a little of the muck we collectively need to strain through. Those were fairly trivial examples. There are lots of more complicated examples to be contrived, many of which are actually really happening right now.
I guess I shouldn't make a new game named Apple Candy Drop Box then...
For Valentine's Day, my new line of Crushed Candy Cock Rings!
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm a bit skeptical about this claim about tangodropbox. If I check their website from archive, what it gives are snapshots beginning from 2011. [archive.org] Okay, perhaps there weren't any snapshots taken before then.
Again, there is the question of lack of google search results.
OTOH, I do see an archive for candyswipe (which is actually taken on Jan 2nd 2011, with a copyright showing 2010).
and quickly became annoyed, and eventually uninstalled it. The first annoyance was that it was shilling for money, but the deal breaker was that it wanted me to sign up for facebook so it could spam other people to play the (*&(& game. It was easier to uninstall the game.
Casual games... keep 'em.
There's next to no free games even worth playing on mobile.
"Used to be", first to market could get the patent. A large chemical corporation chose to keep their product proprietary on the gamble no one would figure the process out until well after the patent would have run out. Another large and well known corporation finally figured out the process and applied for a patent. They then sued the original company who had been selling the product line for something like 50 years. It was thrown out of court. Strangely, not too long after that the law was changed from first to market to first to patent. I don' know, but it may be that way for copyright now days. They aren't "supposed" to be able to copyright common, or name that are generic.
Rename it to lollyswipe, problem solved, assuming lolly is not a trade mark
"What are “common law” rights?
Federal registration is not required to establish rights in a trademark. Common law rights arise from actual use of a mark and may allow the common law user to successfully challenge a registration or application. "
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
I was tempted to write some rambling screed here about IP laws stifiling innovation...
Meh - I can't be bothered - I'd probably be sued by some lame ass patent troll.
Yeah, I'll be candy-assed enough to admit I had it on my iPhone. An enjoyable diversion for the 'I'm too brainded for anything else,' times.
After the initial trademark story broke, I deleted it from my phone. Yep, King, you might not feel my tiny backlash, but I'm never downloading another of your games again.
Anyone else do the same thing? (And, btw, I'm fucking amused to be able to fucking say I'm trying to Fuck King.)
Prison death penalty be damn I walk right up to you and put one in your head in broad day light in front of god and everybody.
Suck my nuts mother fucker.
Part of the reason for the electoral college system was to make elections actually slant more dramatically one way or the other.
No it wasn't. The electoral college was not designed with a two-party system in mind (the greatest evidence of this is the elections of 1796 and 1800). No, it was designed with Congress as a backup in case no one won a majority, because they expected that to happen quite often once Washington was no longer in the picture. In fact, the framers were more worried about a couple of large states ganging up than what we would now think of as issue-driven parties. (This is the main reason for the large state/small state compromise showing up against in assigning electors by Congressional + Senate seats). They expected most elections to have to be decided between more than five candidates since electors from multiple states would have difficulty colluding before sending their votes in.
So dramatic, magnified consensus was not one of the design goals for it. In pretty much every way, it was designed without the opinions of the public much in mind. It turns out that you don't actually have any Constitutional right to elect the President. States can choose to pick the electors without you. (In fact, South Carolina did that all the way up until it seceded from the Union.)
You can read more of the history of the debate in the Constitutional Convention here. Also some really great history of the foundation of the first political parties in the years leading up to and after the ratification of the Constitution.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Read lots of copyright evilry being perpetrated by King lately... Candy, Saga, they want to own all the words related to everything they use - beyond trolling. Would LOVE to see someone 'oust the king', behead that monster.
And what did slashdot report about Wozniak going around mouthing of about tech repeating itself? And how it is being copycatted? [the context of his rant was over nothing 'new' and or 'innovative' has been coming out] which I found to be ironic coming from someone who stole ideas and claimed them as there own. And I won't get started on the patent abuse from them..
Apple and there PR along with the brainless media/press tried to make bold claims that there computers were the first at many things but that turned out to be completely false. The only thing these companies seem good at doing is stealing others idea 'packaging' it to look like it was original or innovative, then trying to monopolize it for there own greed.
It's not just Apple but a lot of companies do this, or you get companies like Google who copycat a product and try to sell it off cheaper but are still trying to monopolize it as there own.
then fuck you.
One should not be confused by words. The gamer is the only thing casual about "casual games". The rest of it is a cut-throat business, predatory and in many, many, many cases (Zynga is just the top example) outright evil.
And not just towards the gamers^H^H^Hvictims^H^H^Hmarks. If you want to get some of the lowest salaries in IT, go work in the casual games industry.
It's an exploitive industry that I can't wait to see implode and be replace by actual, you know, games again, instead of carefully engineered addiction machines in the disguise of a game.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
C.S. Lewis could craft a clever allegory here.
This is the sort of time I'd be happy for someone's site to get hacked or taken down. I've just sent them a nice email saying how much I dislike them. I'll see if I can rate down their games now. I guess it's on the Apple Store? I'll have a look there.
It will even out. There are many customers like me wh ojust don't spend any money inside any game. I just won't. I might play the free portion of it, but if it's not fun I'm not going to pay a penny inside the game. If the game is not fun it's not a good game, and I simply wont play. I'm ok with paying for different color of hat inside a game, or paying for more levels etc. but i'm not going to invidually pay for changing the game rules or getting new gameplay elements. Luckily there are still games where I get the whole game with single payment. The rest just don't matter to me, and I'm sure it will even out eventually. IT's just that the gaming business has a HUGE influx of new customers right now, who are actually not gamers, but tablet/phone addicts. The games they pay for aren't games, they are timesinks with purposefully added addictive shiny stuffs.
look for etonica tango dropbox
DropBox "dropped a word" from the title and trampled the existing product with lawyers. First doesn't mean you get the trademark, the one with the most lawyers gets it.
So in cases like this Law does equal Theft... LAW = THEFT.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
I've found your nightmare: Cookie Clicker. Now with candy hearts!
where you drop a pancake [...] down a near infinite shaft, where irate birds try to peck at it, any contact with their beaks and you lose, so you have to glide to the left and right to get between successive beaks.
In other words the second level of Battletoads.
We are voting for the winner of WWF matches.
World Wildlife Fund won the WWF match back in 2001.
Lifetime of an individual could be argued. Beyond the lifetime, the "plus", though, is absurd.
I always imagined that PMA copyright terms, such as those of the Berne Convention, were intended to reduce the perverse incentive to murder authors in order to force their works into the public domain.
As far as "lifetime+" for not-individuals goes, that should be a non-issue: if the copyright is owned by a corporation, it's assigned for a fixed period, full stop.
This is how current U.S. law operates: copyright in a work made for hire expires 95 years after the end of the Gregorian calendar year in which the work was first published.
Creative works should be relinquished to the public domain after a not-overlong, reasonable period within which the creator reaps a reward for the creation.
Agreed. But when the major movie studios own the major news media that help legislators get elected, how will legislators entertain any idea of a "not-overlong, reasonable period" other than the movie studios'?
Game mechanics can't be copyrighted.
Tell that to anyone who has faced The Tetris Company. It managed to convince a district court judge that the use of pieces made from four squares was not an "idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery" excluded from copyright's scope under 17 USC 102(b).
I think all we really need is a deep husky-voiced man's voice that tells women what they just did was "delicious."