unexpectedly Moving on, furniture giant IKEA has issued a cease and desist order to solo indie developers letter reviewed by Kotakuask him to change unpublished A survival horror game set in an IKEA-style furniture store.representative attorney IKEA claims the game infringes on its trademark because some news outlets compared the game to its official brand.of The Swedish company gave developer Jacob Shaw just 10 days to “modify the game and remove all indicia associated with the famous IKEA store.”
closed is an unannounced survival co-op game that’s still in its final week of a successful Kickstarter campaign Raised over $49,000Created by a lone developer who goes by the studio name Ziggy, the game describes itself as “set in an endless furniture store.”
“To survive the night, you must craft weapons and build fortresses,” the blurb continues. “Explore the underground SCP lab, build towers in the sky and find your way out.” Importantly, the word “IKEA” did not appear anywhere in the game’s promotional materials, Steam, or Kickstarter campaigns.
But despite this, and despite the game not being sold anywhere, IKEA’s New York attorney, Flos Zelnick, wrote to the show about the potential to remind people of their brand. I requested a complete change to a game.
“Our client just found out that you are developing a video game.”closedThe legal letter explains, “Using indicia associated with the famous IKEA store without the client’s permission.”
It then goes on to list the infringing aspects of Shaw’s game.
“Your game uses a blue and yellow sign with a Scandinavian name on the store, a blue box-like building, yellow vertical stiped shirts identical to those worn by IKEA personnel, a gray path on the floor, furniture that looks like IKEA furniture, and product signage that looks like IKEA signage. All the foregoing immediately suggest that the game takes place in an IKEA store.”
Shaw gave me access to an early alpha build of the game, during which the “blue box-like building” and “blue and yellow sign” appear, in their totality, on the menu screen. After that, you don’t see them. There’s currently no branding at all in-game. The store is called “STYR.” Clearly a joke spelling of “STORE,” it is, by coincidence, a Swedish word, meaning “controls.” You know what’s not a Swedish word? “Ikea.” It’s the initials of its founder, a farm he grew up on, and a nearby village. Notably, stores like Tiffany have a trademark over the color that they use in their packaging, so in some ways Ikea isn’t coming completely out of left field here.
Then there are the claims that it has “furniture that looks like Ikea furniture.” But Shaw disputes that he designed any furniture with Ikea in mind. “I bought generic furniture asset packs to make this game,” Shaw said, meaning that this is furniture that can be featured in any game for a price. “I don’t know what that means.” The game does, however, have a grey path on the floor. It is also common for stores to have signage that tells the customer where to go.
Ikea’s argument hinges that the game infringes on their brand because press sites have made the association, rather than the game itself aligning naming Ikea.
One headline says, ‘Someone Has Made a Survival Horror Game Set In IKEA.’ Another headline says, ‘The Backrooms meets Sons of the Forest in new IKEA horror game.’
Those were the two headlines we could find, but it’s possible there are more. The letter also includes the subheadings of these stories as part of the evidence, going on to then state:
“Further, numerous comments by readers of these stories make an association with IKEA stores.”
Based on all this, Shaw has been told that his “unauthorized use of the IKEA indicia constitutes unfair competition and false advertising under Sections 43(a) of the U.S. Trademark Act, 15 U.S. C § 1125(a), and state unfair competition and false advertising laws.”
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.”
They then immediately go on to inform Shaw that he has “ten working days of the date of this letter” to make all such changes, removing all their claimed “indicia.” Grey paths and all. The game is not up for sale yet.
IKEA With last year’s revenue of $25.4 billion, Jacob Shaw is the British man who tried to raise £10,000 ($11,575) on Kickstarter. Shaw says he has no choice but to comply. He seeks legal advice, but he’s convinced he needs to surrender, given the cost of challenging anything.
“We were going to spend the last week of Kickstarter preparing updates for all the new alpha testers,” Shaw told Kotaku. “But we desperately need to improve the overall look of the game to avoid being sued.”
Clearly, trademark owners have a legal obligation to protect them and must ensure that their trademarks are not lost and their brands are not commonly recognized. Perhaps that’s part of IKEA’s motivation, which may seem overkill to those unfamiliar with trademark law.. Hopefully, simply removing the blue box building on the menu screen should be enough to get rid of the rest of this nonsense. Especially since the US luxuriates in a much more reasonable spoofing tolerance than the UK.
We reached out to IKEA in both the US (where the threat originated) and the UK (where the game is based) with our trademark experts. Asking for comments and will update if I get a reply.
