King CEO Riccardo Zacconi sounds off on cloning games and the latest “saga” drama.

January 29, 2014

King.com have been been making some very strange decisions lately. Allegations of the company cloning games have come to the fore, as well as a rather confused attempt to oppose Stoic’s use of the word “saga” in the title of their three part viking series. In response to these, King have swiftly removed the targeted flash game, and CEO Riccardo Zacconi released an open letter stating the following.

“Let me be clear: This unfortunate situation is an exception to the rule. King does not clone games, and we do not want anyone cloning our games.” He expanded on this by saying “Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace and review relevant trademark filings to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else’s IP. We have launched hundreds of games. Occasionally, we get things wrong. When we do, we take appropriate action.”

As for the trouble with Stoic’s latest title The Banner Saga,  Zacconi had this to say.

“The truth is that there is nothing very unusual about trademarking a common word for specific uses… think of ‘Time’, ‘Money’ ‘Fortune’, ‘Apple’, and ‘Sun’, to name a few.”

“We don’t believe that Banner Saga resembles any of our games but we already have a series of games where “Saga” is key to the brand which our players associate with King, such as Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and so on. All of these titles have already faced substantive trademark and copyright issues with clones.”

“We’re not trying to stop Stoic from using the word ‘Saga’ but we had to oppose their application to preserve our own ability to protect our own games. Otherwise, it would be much easier for future copycats to argue that use of the word ‘Saga’ when related to games, was fair play.”

This expands on King’s previous statement:

“King has not and is not trying to stop Banner Saga from using its name. We do not have any concerns that Banner Saga is trying build on our brand or our content. However, like any prudent company, we need to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP, both now and in the future.”

So it’s settled then. In a move that makes about as much sense as Lindsay Lohan believing GTA V devs stole her identity, King.com aren’t actually trying to stop The Banner Saga using the word “Saga”, but rather subtly accusing Stoic for riding off the coattails of their success…