King removes game but denies 'cloning' accusations

January 27th, 2014, 20:55 Posted By: wraggster

Casual games publisher King has taken a game offline after facing accusations of hypocrisy and cloning.
During the latter-half of January, King became a spectacle of public relations problems after its lawyers obtained a trademark for the word Candy across North America and Europe, before challenging a separate trademark application filed by the developers of The Banner Saga.
As Apple and Google began to delete games with the word "candy" from its app stores, King insisted it was also forced to challenge The Banner Saga trademark due to its use of the word "saga".
The Banner Saga, a Viking-themed tactical role-playing video game, is apparently an infringement on King's Candy Crush Saga, a match-three puzzle game which emulates the rules of games such as Bejeweled (2001), Zoo Keeper (2003) and Tetris Attack (1996).
In the wake of the controversial trademark protection policies, the indie developer Matthew Cox claimed that King had deliberately copied his game Scamperghost after he turned down a deal to license the game to King.
Cox's claims, which King denies, were supplemented with a screenshot comparison of both titles.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...g-accusations/

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