IKEA bullied the developer of the indie game The Store is Closed into gutting the whole game. [0]
It’s a shame how people can even acknowledge, let alone applaud IKEA’s “funny” gaming-related ad after their successful meddling with SCP folklore, not to speak of the chilling effect their actions may have had on indie gaming.
Yeah sorry man, that's clearly IKEA so it's obvious they had to act on it. Can't sell IKEA-branded games without their permission. Even on their Steam trailer, the first second is clearly IKEA. Just changing the name is not enough. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593010/The_Store_is_Clos...
Sometimes it's not that deep. Sometimes the cute little indie dev just made a mistake.
The game is also not out yet, even though rewards were promised in June 2024.
No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.
It's a direct ripoff of https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008, a popular sci-fi horror story set in an IKEA. At the time the game was also using IKEA's brand colors.
The game description on Steam even explicitly mentions "SCP Foundation", which the creator also doesn't have the rights to use unless the whole game is Creative Commons-licensed.
You can only defend your trademark with respect to product categories that you actually market. Unless IKEA were in the business of selling parody video games, their trademark doesn't apply.
Wait... is that why IKEA just put out a parody video game?
The game is not itself a store or advertising a real store. It is an entirely different product category. Parody is still legal and allowed as fair use, the likeness is the point. This is hardly the most egregious example that I have seen.
Ultimately, these matters would likely be decided in court. IANAL either but it seems like the game maker would have a strong case. Among the things IKEA would have to prove is actual harm and confusion, who would seriously argue that? That doesn't mean IKEA couldn't make it impossible to fight with their unlimited legal resources, I can understand not wanting to spend a chunk of your life on that.
Two things can be true at once: this is the most creative marketing in recent memory and genuinely funny, and IKEA destroyed someone's work simply because they can.
You can also defend it against tarnishment. They can argue that IKEA appearing in a violent video game has negative associations with their trademarks.
Unethical IP lawyers spew that nonsense all the time. Failing to enforce your trademark against a tiny alleged infringer has no effect on your trademark rights at all.
This is false, however this is not seem like a case where trademark is being infringed. If someone else opens a store called Ikea they obviously have to shut it down.
IKEA has a trade dress and the game matches their color scheme and font exactly. The building is clearly an IKEA with the exact same branding, just different four letter name.
That would apply to like a competitor, right? Another store that copies their motif to fool customers.
Has a court enforced trade dress with a mock version of a store within a game?
Would a reasonable person, seeing completely different letters actually think IKEA is sponsoring the game?
I would give IKEA almost a 0% chance of winning that case if both sides had equally sized pocketbooks. (see E.S.S. Entertainment v. Rock Star Videos (2008))
Society however determines how we respond when a company abuses a law. Just because suing indie developers may be the best action for IKEA to protect their trademarks does not mean we should let it be the best action for them overall.
> Further, there’s at least the possibility on the part of the developer to claim that such usage is a “parody,” with parody and satire protected at the highest levels of American law through the application of First Amendment freedom of speech rights. However, courts will often require actual commentary to be made in order to extend such protections. In that way, a store name like “I CAN’T A” (or something far more clever) has a greater chance of succeeding than simply using a play on the word “store” in Scandinavian.
Trademark is about preventing someone's brand for being confused for another. Unless someone was confusing this for being an official IKEA product I'm not sure why it would be in the ballpark of trademark.
There is also trade dress of course but that isn't really related.
No, tradmarks can be parodied too. It's a first amendment protection, and extremely common in movies, TV and video games.
If the developer worked with a lawyer they could've gotten any suit by IKEA (this wasn't a suit yet, just a cease and desist letter) quickly dismissed.
This is an often repeated statement online (like “fiduciary duty”) that way over emphasizes the risk. Parody media poses absolutely no risk to their trademark, not even a tiny bit of incremental “damage.”
Companies don’t need to be bulliest the vast majority of the time they act like one. We need to stop parroting this excuse for them.
IANAL but I heard the creators of Robot Chicken (an animation show that parodies many big franchises) that they have to be very careful to make sure they can claim what they do is parody. As I understood, and to my best recollection, they cannot just use e.g., Batman in an original funny context… they need to actually comment on Batman (existing storylines, characters, tropes, cliches, mythology) in their sketch.
That said, we know that some IP lawyers will just send a Cease & Desist because it costs them nothing, it’s more defensible, and they don’t risk any penalties.
A bit of a tangent to Weird Al, who often is said to not need the permission of the original artist because his songs are parodies, usually isn't commenting on the actual content of the original song but instead takes the lyrics and gives them a different theme. 'Smells like Nirvana' is one of the few songs he does that actually does directly parody the original. His videos are far more parody than the songs themselves. Makes me wonder where the legal line actually is drawn and if asking permission is actually because it would be too risky not to.
There's a pretty famous story about Weird Al's Amish Paradise and Coolio. Weird Al got permission from the recording company and producer, but not Coolio. Coolio was not amused, initially.
My understanding is that a parody has to actually parody the original work. There's a distinction between "parodying" and "using the songwriting with different lyrics". You see a lot of people doing riffs on "What a Wonderful World" and getting shut down by the Louis Armstrong estate, e.g.
Very interesting link. I am now confused and intrigued that the trademark for "heroin" is listed as being revoked as part of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI.
Part VIII, Annex VI on reparations: Germany was forced to renounce trademark rights on pharmaceutical and chemical products in favor of the Allied powers, so Bayer's Aspirin and Heroin were included.
Though that is not the type of abandonment that IKEA is worried about in this case. In fact it isn't really clear what form of trademark abandonment IKEA would have to be concerned about for this action to be justified. IANAL but IKEA is definitely not worried about the trademark being ruled abandoned due to non-use, procedural issues or naked licensing; they can easily prove the mark(s) are in active use, and the other two are not related to trademark enforcement.
Again, IANAL but we do need to stop spreading FUD about what trademarks entail. Trademarks are meant to protect a brand from being diluted or confused, not to police the world of all parody or reference to some thing. In fact, if the store in the game wasn't even called an IKEA, I am really curious what "trademark" they felt it violated, but unfortunately not curious enough to find out.
P.S.: a better example of a trademark that fell to non-use would be "Twitter". However I personally dunno if there is a trademark that fell specifically because they didn't bully enough people who tried to use their trademark in ways that wouldn't be confused with their brand. That seems to be a made-up invention by corporate lawyers that people just accept at face value. If it really worked this way, the mark "JavaScript" should've fallen a long time ago.
Fallout 4 parodies the potential legal issue itself in one of its loading screens:
Nuka-Cola's signature rocket-shaped bottle replaced the traditional curved bottle when a rival corporation successfully sued for patent infringement. Fortunately, the public saw the new bottle as an improvement and Nuka-Cola's sales increased.
Kind of reminds me of a college classmate back in the 80s made a Hypercard game which he had called Escape from Harvey Mudd but which the college asked (maybe demanded?) that it be renamed as it started to get distribution so the more commonly seen version was called Escape from Grid Tech. I would guess that there might have been some reputational concerns as that classmate was one of the people who dropped out of Mudd during my time there (the late 80s cohorts had a lot of people, myself included, who had wavered between humanities and sciences and after exposure to life in the sciences decided to opt for the humanities instead—most of us ended up doing programming for a living having no marketable skills post-college. The one person from my freshman year suite who actually finished his degree at Mudd went on to become a music professor).
Did not expect to see Mudd mentioned in the comment section on HN for an IKEA Skyrim mod... Not really surprised the admin was like that given the name, but I hope things worked out well for y'all.
IKEA is the only furniture store with a four-letter name in that same typeface in yellow on a blue building even though it is called 'STYR' here. It is the only furniture store using that uniform, also blue-yellow, for its personnel. The game maker clearly used IKEA as an inspiration but forgot that 'inspiration' is not the same as 'duplication'. They could have made the building red, used a serif typeface and a 7-character name, dressed their 'personnel' in red-green uniforms, etc. and IKEA would not have bothered them. Now, they did, and right they were.
The factory builder game Captain of Industry has a building you can add on to a settlement which sells household goods and furniture to the population. It's a blue building with yellow trim and a big sign on the front that says IDEA. I wonder if this is just small potatoes enough of a parody that IKEA wouldn't care about it.
Some of the early backrooms lore and levels were based on noclipping in furniture stores or even IKEA directly since it was all fan made stuff not caring about the legal ramifications.
I tried to find a link but it’s impossible now that backrooms is a popular IP
And having been in an empty IKEA, it definitely had that liminal feel
This is a tough one. The main culprit here is that trademwark law forces the trademark owner into an active defense posture to avoid losing the trademwark. This is very different from patents or copyright. So, in a way, IKEA was forced to write that nasty letter to the developer. Still, it's obvious fromo the published game footage that the developer was trying to walk a line between referencing IKEA and calling them out directly.
I kind of wish that lawyers could settle these things more amicably than by opening with outright threats. The game is clearly taking SCP 3008 as its inspiration and that is a a quite satirical horror story take on IKEA stores. A part of me wishes that companies would be a bit more relaxed about obviously comedic or satirical uses of their identity. What would IKEA lose by approaching the developers in a more supportive manner initially? Say, by offering some more constructive suggestions to steer them away from the particular elements they take offense at.
It sounds like they mostly did something like that:
> 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 did that, but I think the 10 day deadline is quite heavy-handed. Also, would it be too difficult to offer a review and critique of a revised design (draft) to make sure that the matter can be resolved without further escalation?
Ah, but this clearly falls under parody. No reasonable person would assume this depicts a genuine ikea store. That said, ikea could’ve just granted permission to use their trademark in a horror parody game. That would’ve been a fun ikea promotion rather than stoke animosity
They could have bought the game rights, hired the devs, or otherwise come to some licensing agreement. It’d have been a boatload of free publicity for very little outlay. I guess they may not have wanted customers to associate their store with scary things, though.
I don't believe in intellectual property, but to the extent that we live in a world where IP exists, the original game as described is pretty clearly using IKEA's trade dress.
I too am skeptical of government-granted intellectual monopolies, as Richard Stallman correctly names them. Trademarks are the least offensive of them because they expire relatively quickly and are designed to prevent genuine consumer confusion. Trade dress rules help prevent consumers from unwittingly buying products from Company A while thinking it's Company B.
This video game creates zero risk that a consumer will buy furniture from the wrong store, so trade dress should be inapplicable. IKEA would likely even lose in court. But as the article points out: legal proceedings ... get really expensive.
Eh, I kinda get it. For a brief time, the Mario pipes were more associated with Flappy Bird than with Mario itself. That was fine, and the game died out quickly, but if the pipes became associated with Mario's cock, or if the IKEA layout became associated with a bloodbath pvp game, those associations could easily overtake the original meanings in popular culture, and the original brands would never be the same.
I think that would be a fair price to pay for freeing our society from the shackles of pretending you can own an idea, but I get where these executives are coming from.
people underestimated the effect of jokes / stigma of media to a brand. There is non-zero chance that adults will associate the game with ikea brand and harm the brand image.
ALDI/Lidl copy every big brand under the sun. They've been litigated against, but they get away with it way more often than they lose. Many cases fail to prove that consumers were misled, and (I find this incredible) one of the strongest defenses is that store has a strong reputation for brand imitation, so there is in fact no confusion. People go to Lidl to buy Neos, knowing full well they're not Oreos. It's also surprising that other supermarkets get away with it when they sell the copycat product next to the original.
If you could afford lawyers, you could definitely get away with that game, but it's easier for IKEA to stomp you.
I haven’t played The Store is Closed, but to everyone saying IKEA had some obligation to shut down a parody…videogames parody real brands all the time, including their colors? Why was this different?
Some examples offhand:
- Fallout’s Nuka Cola is an obvious parody of Coca Cola (also same colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuka-Cola) and Cram is an obvious parody of Spam (same colors)
- GTA is full of these: Sprunk (an obvious parody of Sprite, again same colors), Fruit (obviously Apple—same colors, same branding style, same use of iPrefix and “think” marketing), definitely others
- Saints Row “Freckle Bitches” was a fairly obvious reference to Whendy’s (“I’m all grown up”)
All of these games were bigger, not Indy games at all, and none of the parodied brands saw any obligation to sue AFAIK. Would IKEA have gone after Rockstar, given that they’re much bigger and very popular? I’m suspicious that this was a case of “small target” rather than “big problem”.
(Ok, I clicked through the article, it looks like it was just a demand letter? My impression is that demand letters are nearly meaningless. No judge has to approve them, and they cost an hour or two of lawyer time.)
> it looks like it was just a demand letter? My impression is that demand letters are nearly meaningless. No judge has to approve them, and they cost an hour or two of lawyer time.
A solo indie developer who is busy building their debut title is no match for the legal team of a global multi-billion corporation. The developer would run out of money way before the parties could reach any kind of settlement.
Was it important part of the game that the store looks just like IKEA?
If yes, that probably makes it more likely that it was a trademark infringement and that IKEA was justified.
If no, it shouldn't be a big deal to change the colors, just to avoid potential confusion.
Is it possible that that influenced IKEA's decision to make the Skyrim mod in OP? That way, they have a stronger trademark case, because it's more likely for a consumer to confuse the fake IKEA game with the real one.
Just like the "chilling" effect the big bad evil Red Cross had on indie games? Shameful how you don't recognize the terrible evil the Red Cross has done.
What percent of people do you think know that? I sure didn't. I'm guessing to two decimal points, exactly 0.00% of people know that. It's a shame how people can make sweeping statements about something when it's beyond obvious no one knows what they're talking about.
Chex Quest was really good, wasn't it!? I was so impressed. Today I learned, it is known for having been the first video game ever to be included as a cereal box prize.
Even I've heard of Chex Quest and the brand has never been available in my country.
Interesting lesson there. No one hates marketing tie-ins when you make something genuinely fun, i.e. that people want to play. Opposed to forcing a distraction.
I watched a bit of someone's play through and was impressed by how much content there actually was for a one-off bit like this. I would have assumed they would have just made enough content to make for a funny ad but there's quite a lot of scripted storyline and voice acting.
Hm. That's a situational rule. In this case it makes it funnier. A person could write a whole encyclopedia of lore tracing Kallax back to its mythical roots.
I was wondering what compelled Bethesda to update the game a few weeks ago, the first time in two years. On PC, any update to the game breaks mods that rely on DLL modification, so you'd expect them to be wary of doing it for no reason. Maybe improving support for this was the impetus.
Funny, but I hope it doesn't catch on. This genre of games is rather free from ads and the last thing we need is corporations shoving their marketing agenda into classics.
This is precisely how you advertise. But the beauty is that you can only do this a few times before the formula becomes worn out.
Others will have to come up with something else, entirely different, that is equally inventive.
Brilliant ad on the part of IKEA. It has all of the right ingredients, is totally unexpected, outlandishly absurd, and hits at a massive audience. Truly peerless.
They should call it "Bagaget" which translates to "The Luggage" and put lots of small feet under it. Those who read Discworld will know what I'm talking about.
One of the known bugs in skyrim that will likely never be patched is that you realistically can't fill a room with cheese wheels, cabbage, bottles of wine or any other static objects (in a cell that persists items, like in an owned house). It's already hard enough to put an object on a table or shelf and expect to not find it on the floor if you leave and come back.
Add enough objects to keep track of and it'll crash the game immediately on loading the cell. Some of the examples of cluttered objects in the video are already pushing the limits of what will crash the game engine.
You've reminded me of a story from the Witcher 3 devs where during an earlier build items would randomly disappear. Horses, weapons, tankards, even NPCs... you name it, on certain conditions they would vanish before the player's eyes.
Turns out they weren't just disappearing, they were "teleporting" by effectively respawning at a single point in the dead centre of the map.
When they investigated the location there was an innocuous looking dwelling that was packed to the rafters with all the vanished assets. Spending too long in the place would crash the game, presumably because the collection detection on that number of cheeses, sheep, and grunting Nilfgaardian soldiers was just too much.
This makes me want to go back into Skyrim. I moved to another country when this came out and had no friends at the beginning, so Skyrim was my evening plan, and I was fortunate enough to have an Xbox 360 back in the day.
That game though...the cottage near Riverwood with the "nice old lady" who turns out to be a necromancer once you break into her cellar. There are not many games like this. Pure gold.
Do you think someone at IKEA had the idea and they hired someone to do it, or did someone have the idea and made it, and then talked IKEA into making it official?
The idea has been conceived and executed by creative agency Mother, in partnership with Kinggath Creations - a team of creatives, fans and mod developers who make fun and original content that blends seamlessly into the game world.
It is likely they had the idea they (the people that actually made the mod) could talk a brand into this and IKEA was one of the many brands pitched. But someone at IKEA has to have seen this and say okay this makes sense for it work obviously. Eitherway i would say it doesn't really matter as long as they do fun stuff like this
Skyrim has to be one of the most modded games out there, with maybe only Minecraft being up there in terms of mods. Its probably also the biggest game out there when it comes to... lets just say nsfw mods.
Just a reminder that they are a corporation and to not fall for their PR. They are actively destroying the environment while paying as little tax as possible. The cheapness of their furniture does have externalities one needs to consider.
At some point people need to take some responsibilities too. I have a bunch of ikea furniture. I have never thrown much away. Maybe 1 piece. I manage to disassemble and reassemble the rest when I need to. Sometimes I need to take a closer look at make sure I can disassemble and reassemble it.
People view cheap as disposable. That’s not entirely corporations fault.
I really don't understand this point, similar to the other poster below - making lightweight furniture and not clear cutting virgin forests are not mutually exclusive.
I think there's a big difference between products that are inherently harmful to the environment and products that are only harmful because the producer chooses to behave harmfully. European regulators should just stop Ikea from clear cutting virgin forests.
At this point their products have so little material that it may be better for the environment to buy an IKEA one vs decent furniture (from the standpoint of caring for the environment)
Year, day, month in that order written all together? I have seen both day-month-year (12-09-2026) and year-month-day (2026-09-12), but _that_'s a new one.
IKEA bullied the developer of the indie game The Store is Closed into gutting the whole game. [0]
It’s a shame how people can even acknowledge, let alone applaud IKEA’s “funny” gaming-related ad after their successful meddling with SCP folklore, not to speak of the chilling effect their actions may have had on indie gaming.
[0]: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-store-is-closed-indie-s...
Yeah sorry man, that's clearly IKEA so it's obvious they had to act on it. Can't sell IKEA-branded games without their permission. Even on their Steam trailer, the first second is clearly IKEA. Just changing the name is not enough. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593010/The_Store_is_Clos...
Sometimes it's not that deep. Sometimes the cute little indie dev just made a mistake.
The game is also not out yet, even though rewards were promised in June 2024.
No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.
It's a direct ripoff of https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008, a popular sci-fi horror story set in an IKEA. At the time the game was also using IKEA's brand colors.
The game description on Steam even explicitly mentions "SCP Foundation", which the creator also doesn't have the rights to use unless the whole game is Creative Commons-licensed.
IANAL either, but could this be a trademark issue? My understanding is that if you don’t defend your trademarks you risk legally losing them.
You can only defend your trademark with respect to product categories that you actually market. Unless IKEA were in the business of selling parody video games, their trademark doesn't apply.
Wait... is that why IKEA just put out a parody video game?
The game featured a store and stuff in it, that's a product category IKEA markets.
If the name of an unrelated game was IKEA as some clever acronym or such and it was unrelated to stores, that would be a different trademark convo.
The game is not itself a store or advertising a real store. It is an entirely different product category. Parody is still legal and allowed as fair use, the likeness is the point. This is hardly the most egregious example that I have seen.
Ultimately, these matters would likely be decided in court. IANAL either but it seems like the game maker would have a strong case. Among the things IKEA would have to prove is actual harm and confusion, who would seriously argue that? That doesn't mean IKEA couldn't make it impossible to fight with their unlimited legal resources, I can understand not wanting to spend a chunk of your life on that.
Two things can be true at once: this is the most creative marketing in recent memory and genuinely funny, and IKEA destroyed someone's work simply because they can.
IKEA has made video games for a long time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/447270/IKEA_VR_Experience...
You can also defend it against tarnishment. They can argue that IKEA appearing in a violent video game has negative associations with their trademarks.
Unethical IP lawyers spew that nonsense all the time. Failing to enforce your trademark against a tiny alleged infringer has no effect on your trademark rights at all.
This is false, however this is not seem like a case where trademark is being infringed. If someone else opens a store called Ikea they obviously have to shut it down.
Yeah, that seems like the type of thing that should at least in theory be fair use.
That's not how trademark works.
If you don't defend your mark, you lose it.
Fair use is not how trademarks work? Why does the International Trademark Association seem to think it is then? https://www.inta.org/fact-sheets/fair-use-of-trademarks-inte...
IKEA has a trademark on STYR?
Did you look at the screenshots?
IKEA has a trade dress and the game matches their color scheme and font exactly. The building is clearly an IKEA with the exact same branding, just different four letter name.
That would apply to like a competitor, right? Another store that copies their motif to fool customers.
Has a court enforced trade dress with a mock version of a store within a game?
Would a reasonable person, seeing completely different letters actually think IKEA is sponsoring the game?
I would give IKEA almost a 0% chance of winning that case if both sides had equally sized pocketbooks. (see E.S.S. Entertainment v. Rock Star Videos (2008))
Depending of the court, if you don't protect your trademarks you can lose them.
Law is rarely remotely reasonable, just because you (or society) think a certain way, does not mean law does.
Society however determines how we respond when a company abuses a law. Just because suing indie developers may be the best action for IKEA to protect their trademarks does not mean we should let it be the best action for them overall.
Do you know what parody is?
That's mentioned in the article:
> Further, there’s at least the possibility on the part of the developer to claim that such usage is a “parody,” with parody and satire protected at the highest levels of American law through the application of First Amendment freedom of speech rights. However, courts will often require actual commentary to be made in order to extend such protections. In that way, a store name like “I CAN’T A” (or something far more clever) has a greater chance of succeeding than simply using a play on the word “store” in Scandinavian.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_Starbucks
According to the article, Starbucks chose not to sue in that case.
Trademarks are lost when they are not defended. That is entirely separate from fair use in copyright law.
This explains why Apple has sued The Onion a dozen or so times for all the parodies that infringed on trademarks belonging to the corporation.
https://theonion.com/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-lapt...
https://theonion.com/new-ipad-offers-3-months-of-something-c...
Trademark is about preventing someone's brand for being confused for another. Unless someone was confusing this for being an official IKEA product I'm not sure why it would be in the ballpark of trademark.
There is also trade dress of course but that isn't really related.
No, tradmarks can be parodied too. It's a first amendment protection, and extremely common in movies, TV and video games.
If the developer worked with a lawyer they could've gotten any suit by IKEA (this wasn't a suit yet, just a cease and desist letter) quickly dismissed.
> It's a first amendment protection
FWIW: Ziggy, the developer, is based in the UK.
Oh, I must have missed that
In that case yeah, it certainly depends on what the local laws say. I think in the UK parody protection applies to copyright but not trademarks.
This is an often repeated statement online (like “fiduciary duty”) that way over emphasizes the risk. Parody media poses absolutely no risk to their trademark, not even a tiny bit of incremental “damage.”
Companies don’t need to be bulliest the vast majority of the time they act like one. We need to stop parroting this excuse for them.
IANAL but I heard the creators of Robot Chicken (an animation show that parodies many big franchises) that they have to be very careful to make sure they can claim what they do is parody. As I understood, and to my best recollection, they cannot just use e.g., Batman in an original funny context… they need to actually comment on Batman (existing storylines, characters, tropes, cliches, mythology) in their sketch. That said, we know that some IP lawyers will just send a Cease & Desist because it costs them nothing, it’s more defensible, and they don’t risk any penalties.
A bit of a tangent to Weird Al, who often is said to not need the permission of the original artist because his songs are parodies, usually isn't commenting on the actual content of the original song but instead takes the lyrics and gives them a different theme. 'Smells like Nirvana' is one of the few songs he does that actually does directly parody the original. His videos are far more parody than the songs themselves. Makes me wonder where the legal line actually is drawn and if asking permission is actually because it would be too risky not to.
(Not sure if you were saying this in your comment) I read somewhere that Weird Al always asks permission before releasing a parody song.
IIRC, the same article/post also said that some other prominent parody artists (Stan Freberg might have been an example) generally did not.
There's a pretty famous story about Weird Al's Amish Paradise and Coolio. Weird Al got permission from the recording company and producer, but not Coolio. Coolio was not amused, initially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Paradise#Coolio's_respon...
My understanding is that a parody has to actually parody the original work. There's a distinction between "parodying" and "using the songwriting with different lyrics". You see a lot of people doing riffs on "What a Wonderful World" and getting shut down by the Louis Armstrong estate, e.g.
Always been curious - what are some examples of trademarks being lost due to not being defended?
There's lots and lots of them. Have you ridden an escalator® lately?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...
Very interesting link. I am now confused and intrigued that the trademark for "heroin" is listed as being revoked as part of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI.
Part VIII, Annex VI on reparations: Germany was forced to renounce trademark rights on pharmaceutical and chemical products in favor of the Allied powers, so Bayer's Aspirin and Heroin were included.
Though that is not the type of abandonment that IKEA is worried about in this case. In fact it isn't really clear what form of trademark abandonment IKEA would have to be concerned about for this action to be justified. IANAL but IKEA is definitely not worried about the trademark being ruled abandoned due to non-use, procedural issues or naked licensing; they can easily prove the mark(s) are in active use, and the other two are not related to trademark enforcement.
Again, IANAL but we do need to stop spreading FUD about what trademarks entail. Trademarks are meant to protect a brand from being diluted or confused, not to police the world of all parody or reference to some thing. In fact, if the store in the game wasn't even called an IKEA, I am really curious what "trademark" they felt it violated, but unfortunately not curious enough to find out.
P.S.: a better example of a trademark that fell to non-use would be "Twitter". However I personally dunno if there is a trademark that fell specifically because they didn't bully enough people who tried to use their trademark in ways that wouldn't be confused with their brand. That seems to be a made-up invention by corporate lawyers that people just accept at face value. If it really worked this way, the mark "JavaScript" should've fallen a long time ago.
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Just waiting for The Coca Cola company to sue Bethesda for having Nuka Cola.
Why? There are a lot of colas around the world.
Whom they often sue. 100% they would would consider the logo/branding/bottle infringing if they were a competing product.
Sue for using “cola” in the product name? Citation most definitely needed.
Is that what I said?
Fallout 4 parodies the potential legal issue itself in one of its loading screens:
Nuka-Cola's signature rocket-shaped bottle replaced the traditional curved bottle when a rival corporation successfully sued for patent infringement. Fortunately, the public saw the new bottle as an improvement and Nuka-Cola's sales increased.
They’ll probably want to go after Jones Soda first. :eyeroll:
https://www.amazon.com/Jones-Soda-Fallout-Nuka-Cola-Flavored...
I dunno, I've read a novel that was set in a store that was very clearly meant to be IKEA (https://www.amazon.com/Horrorstor-Grady-Hendrix/dp/159474526...) but was also very clearly not officially IKEA. Where do you draw the line?
> The game is also not out yet, even though rewards were promised in June 2024.
The game is in very active development. The most recent alpha was published just four days ago. [0]
[0]: https://steamdb.info/app/1845400/
Kind of reminds me of a college classmate back in the 80s made a Hypercard game which he had called Escape from Harvey Mudd but which the college asked (maybe demanded?) that it be renamed as it started to get distribution so the more commonly seen version was called Escape from Grid Tech. I would guess that there might have been some reputational concerns as that classmate was one of the people who dropped out of Mudd during my time there (the late 80s cohorts had a lot of people, myself included, who had wavered between humanities and sciences and after exposure to life in the sciences decided to opt for the humanities instead—most of us ended up doing programming for a living having no marketable skills post-college. The one person from my freshman year suite who actually finished his degree at Mudd went on to become a music professor).
Did not expect to see Mudd mentioned in the comment section on HN for an IKEA Skyrim mod... Not really surprised the admin was like that given the name, but I hope things worked out well for y'all.
Is IKEA the only furniture store in the world? I do not see any IKEA branding in the trailer.
IKEA is the only furniture store with a four-letter name in that same typeface in yellow on a blue building even though it is called 'STYR' here. It is the only furniture store using that uniform, also blue-yellow, for its personnel. The game maker clearly used IKEA as an inspiration but forgot that 'inspiration' is not the same as 'duplication'. They could have made the building red, used a serif typeface and a 7-character name, dressed their 'personnel' in red-green uniforms, etc. and IKEA would not have bothered them. Now, they did, and right they were.
The factory builder game Captain of Industry has a building you can add on to a settlement which sells household goods and furniture to the population. It's a blue building with yellow trim and a big sign on the front that says IDEA. I wonder if this is just small potatoes enough of a parody that IKEA wouldn't care about it.
https://old.reddit.com/r/captain_of_industry/comments/1vtbz8...
They may just not have noticed it. Are there other brands shown in that way in the same game? That would probably also make it a less of an issue.
Trade dress is protected in addition to the actual brand marks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress
I've never been in an IKEA but it looks like Backrooms to me
did Backrooms also infringe on IKEA or maybe every furniture store has the same concept
Some of the early backrooms lore and levels were based on noclipping in furniture stores or even IKEA directly since it was all fan made stuff not caring about the legal ramifications.
I tried to find a link but it’s impossible now that backrooms is a popular IP
And having been in an empty IKEA, it definitely had that liminal feel
>The game is also not out yet, even though rewards were promised in June 2024.
Yeah that’s crazy I wonder why
This is a tough one. The main culprit here is that trademwark law forces the trademark owner into an active defense posture to avoid losing the trademwark. This is very different from patents or copyright. So, in a way, IKEA was forced to write that nasty letter to the developer. Still, it's obvious fromo the published game footage that the developer was trying to walk a line between referencing IKEA and calling them out directly.
I kind of wish that lawyers could settle these things more amicably than by opening with outright threats. The game is clearly taking SCP 3008 as its inspiration and that is a a quite satirical horror story take on IKEA stores. A part of me wishes that companies would be a bit more relaxed about obviously comedic or satirical uses of their identity. What would IKEA lose by approaching the developers in a more supportive manner initially? Say, by offering some more constructive suggestions to steer them away from the particular elements they take offense at.
It sounds like they mostly did something like that:
> 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.”
(from https://kotaku.com/ikea-furniture-horror-game-store-is-close..., linked in the article)
They also listed exactly what they think infringes their trademark.
They did that, but I think the 10 day deadline is quite heavy-handed. Also, would it be too difficult to offer a review and critique of a revised design (draft) to make sure that the matter can be resolved without further escalation?
Ah, but this clearly falls under parody. No reasonable person would assume this depicts a genuine ikea store. That said, ikea could’ve just granted permission to use their trademark in a horror parody game. That would’ve been a fun ikea promotion rather than stoke animosity
They could have bought the game rights, hired the devs, or otherwise come to some licensing agreement. It’d have been a boatload of free publicity for very little outlay. I guess they may not have wanted customers to associate their store with scary things, though.
They don’t want that association and it’s definitely not a boatload of PR. This Skyrim mod works because it’s hilarious sounding.
I don't believe in intellectual property, but to the extent that we live in a world where IP exists, the original game as described is pretty clearly using IKEA's trade dress.
I too am skeptical of government-granted intellectual monopolies, as Richard Stallman correctly names them. Trademarks are the least offensive of them because they expire relatively quickly and are designed to prevent genuine consumer confusion. Trade dress rules help prevent consumers from unwittingly buying products from Company A while thinking it's Company B.
This video game creates zero risk that a consumer will buy furniture from the wrong store, so trade dress should be inapplicable. IKEA would likely even lose in court. But as the article points out: legal proceedings ... get really expensive.
This move was pure bullying by IKEA lawyers.
Excellent comment, I just learned something. +1
It's still bad when mega-corporations attack small guy. Its certainly worth to shame companies for doing this kind of stuff.
And almost as comical as Nintendo buying rights to a porn movie to prevent their distribution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hornio_Brothers
> It's still bad when mega-corporations attack small guy.
No, actually, we decide things based on the law, not based on which side you like more.
No, the way we as a society react informs what laws should exist, not the other way around.
Eh, I kinda get it. For a brief time, the Mario pipes were more associated with Flappy Bird than with Mario itself. That was fine, and the game died out quickly, but if the pipes became associated with Mario's cock, or if the IKEA layout became associated with a bloodbath pvp game, those associations could easily overtake the original meanings in popular culture, and the original brands would never be the same.
I think that would be a fair price to pay for freeing our society from the shackles of pretending you can own an idea, but I get where these executives are coming from.
people underestimated the effect of jokes / stigma of media to a brand. There is non-zero chance that adults will associate the game with ikea brand and harm the brand image.
And bullying the little guys also harms their brand image, or at least should.
ALDI/Lidl copy every big brand under the sun. They've been litigated against, but they get away with it way more often than they lose. Many cases fail to prove that consumers were misled, and (I find this incredible) one of the strongest defenses is that store has a strong reputation for brand imitation, so there is in fact no confusion. People go to Lidl to buy Neos, knowing full well they're not Oreos. It's also surprising that other supermarkets get away with it when they sell the copycat product next to the original.
If you could afford lawyers, you could definitely get away with that game, but it's easier for IKEA to stomp you.
I haven’t played The Store is Closed, but to everyone saying IKEA had some obligation to shut down a parody…videogames parody real brands all the time, including their colors? Why was this different?
Some examples offhand:
- Fallout’s Nuka Cola is an obvious parody of Coca Cola (also same colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuka-Cola) and Cram is an obvious parody of Spam (same colors)
- GTA is full of these: Sprunk (an obvious parody of Sprite, again same colors), Fruit (obviously Apple—same colors, same branding style, same use of iPrefix and “think” marketing), definitely others
- Saints Row “Freckle Bitches” was a fairly obvious reference to Whendy’s (“I’m all grown up”)
All of these games were bigger, not Indy games at all, and none of the parodied brands saw any obligation to sue AFAIK. Would IKEA have gone after Rockstar, given that they’re much bigger and very popular? I’m suspicious that this was a case of “small target” rather than “big problem”.
(Ok, I clicked through the article, it looks like it was just a demand letter? My impression is that demand letters are nearly meaningless. No judge has to approve them, and they cost an hour or two of lawyer time.)
> it looks like it was just a demand letter? My impression is that demand letters are nearly meaningless. No judge has to approve them, and they cost an hour or two of lawyer time.
A solo indie developer who is busy building their debut title is no match for the legal team of a global multi-billion corporation. The developer would run out of money way before the parties could reach any kind of settlement.
My (very) naive take:
Was it important part of the game that the store looks just like IKEA?
If yes, that probably makes it more likely that it was a trademark infringement and that IKEA was justified. If no, it shouldn't be a big deal to change the colors, just to avoid potential confusion.
Yes it unfortunately was. Because the SCP lore this game recreates refers to a horror scenario set inside an infinite inescapable ikea store.
I saw beads at a bead store today that were clearly Pepsi/Sprite but they were "Pepsis" and "Spritc", presumably to be legally distinct.
Is it important that the beads looked like Pepsi/Sprite? Kind of, people want recognizable brands
Interestingly, that link is the first time I've ever gotten a Cloudflare HTTP 451. Apparently that site is banned in Japan for "gambling".
Is it possible that that influenced IKEA's decision to make the Skyrim mod in OP? That way, they have a stronger trademark case, because it's more likely for a consumer to confuse the fake IKEA game with the real one.
Just like the "chilling" effect the big bad evil Red Cross had on indie games? Shameful how you don't recognize the terrible evil the Red Cross has done.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-the-prison-architect-developers-...
What percent of people do you think know that? I sure didn't. I'm guessing to two decimal points, exactly 0.00% of people know that. It's a shame how people can make sweeping statements about something when it's beyond obvious no one knows what they're talking about.
The concept reminds of Chex Quest, a Doom total conversion based on Chex, the cereal brand.
I loved playing it when I was 8 or so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest
Chex Quest was really good, wasn't it!? I was so impressed. Today I learned, it is known for having been the first video game ever to be included as a cereal box prize.
It was surprisingly good, and innovation-wise as a marketing project, way ahead of its time in the mid 90s.
Chex Quest was awesome and got a ton of playtime in my household.
Even I've heard of Chex Quest and the brand has never been available in my country.
Interesting lesson there. No one hates marketing tie-ins when you make something genuinely fun, i.e. that people want to play. Opposed to forcing a distraction.
I remember playing a somewhat decent adventure based on the BiFi salami snacks in the 90s.
Honestly I like Chex Quest more than Doom.
It would be hilarious if they made more of them. Chex: Eternal, Chex: Age of Breakfast
Play it! https://dos.zone/chex-quest-1996/
There was also the Mr Pibb game.
Not familiar with that one at all, was it also a doom conversion? I’ll have to check it out.
https://archive.org/details/mrpibbthe3dinteractivegame
BP once had a game where you run around refueling cars at a gas station.
I watched a bit of someone's play through and was impressed by how much content there actually was for a one-off bit like this. I would have assumed they would have just made enough content to make for a funny ad but there's quite a lot of scripted storyline and voice acting.
IKEA is known for going the extra skogsmil in whatever they do.
Especially logging in old-growth forests.
(skogsmil = forest miles)
I mean, they even recreated an IKEA inside a dungeon and you have to navigate it and get the part to build your Kallax
https://www.ikea.com/ie/en/cat/kallax-series-27534/
From the FAQ:
Is this real? Yes.
I like the attention to detail with the Todd Howard reference:
> Become encumbered in-game to start your quest to storage bliss! It just works.
> Will there be meatballs?
> Maybe.
I normally dislike shameless brand crossovers, but this faux low-budget, yet-another-janky-mod vibe... they committed to the bit. I can't hate it.
My dislike for brand crossovers is inversely correlated with how reasonable a match the brands are.
Ikea vs. The Sims? Lame, obvious
Ikea vs. Skyrim? 10/10 no notes
You might consider subtracting half a point for a matching setting - both IKEA and Skyrim are noticeably Nordic.
Hm. That's a situational rule. In this case it makes it funnier. A person could write a whole encyclopedia of lore tracing Kallax back to its mythical roots.
I was wondering what compelled Bethesda to update the game a few weeks ago, the first time in two years. On PC, any update to the game breaks mods that rely on DLL modification, so you'd expect them to be wary of doing it for no reason. Maybe improving support for this was the impetus.
They needed to do a few nerfs and buffs to the other storage solutions to balance the game for the introduction of KALLAX
>so you'd expect them to be wary of doing it for no reason
average skyrim patch notes:
- added no features
- fixed no bugs
- moved around some buttons in the paid mods menu
Is this Skyrim Special Edition or the Legendary Edition?
Skyrim Legendary Special Edition HD.
I genuinely can't tell if this is a real thing because they re-released it so often they even made a joke version called Very Special Edition once.
Play a game long enough and the main challenge becomes inventory management. I look forward to the IVAR update.
Oh, so you're team IVAR?
BILLY gang forever!
(just kidding, I actually have both, and way more IVAR shelves than BILLYs at that(BILLIES? What would be the proper plural here?))
Billipodes. Obviously.
Casting Leomund’s Secret Chest, now comes with TROFAST modular storage management system.
Funny, but I hope it doesn't catch on. This genre of games is rather free from ads and the last thing we need is corporations shoving their marketing agenda into classics.
This is precisely how you advertise. But the beauty is that you can only do this a few times before the formula becomes worn out.
Others will have to come up with something else, entirely different, that is equally inventive.
Brilliant ad on the part of IKEA. It has all of the right ingredients, is totally unexpected, outlandishly absurd, and hits at a massive audience. Truly peerless.
It's a mod for a 15 year old game. You can just choose not to install it? Lmao
Already followed your tip but still saw an Ikea ad in Skyrim today.
They should call it "Bagaget" which translates to "The Luggage" and put lots of small feet under it. Those who read Discworld will know what I'm talking about.
Best thing I saw on hacker news in a while.
Is that Matt Berry!?
Unmistakably so.
I heard this in his voice.
That is not Matt Berry's voice.
It literally says on the mod page "Voiced by Matt Berry"
Ok, now that I rewatch the video (I lost interest pretty quick), Matt Berry is the minor role... I thought the reference was to the main voiceover.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the voice over in the video is Swedish world strongest man winner Magnus Samuelsson.
There are two VOs by Matt berry during the video. There’s more than one voice.
Yeah lmao, I get that.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it's by the human Jackie Daytona.
Lest we forget, the seminal guerrilla daytime drama: IKEA Heights
https://youtube.com/@ikeaheights?si=ZP7jYR1cUw16yhvo
Why and how it remains available, only Google knows!
I wanted to install it, but the instructions were just a bunch of pictures.
One of the known bugs in skyrim that will likely never be patched is that you realistically can't fill a room with cheese wheels, cabbage, bottles of wine or any other static objects (in a cell that persists items, like in an owned house). It's already hard enough to put an object on a table or shelf and expect to not find it on the floor if you leave and come back.
Add enough objects to keep track of and it'll crash the game immediately on loading the cell. Some of the examples of cluttered objects in the video are already pushing the limits of what will crash the game engine.
You've reminded me of a story from the Witcher 3 devs where during an earlier build items would randomly disappear. Horses, weapons, tankards, even NPCs... you name it, on certain conditions they would vanish before the player's eyes. Turns out they weren't just disappearing, they were "teleporting" by effectively respawning at a single point in the dead centre of the map. When they investigated the location there was an innocuous looking dwelling that was packed to the rafters with all the vanished assets. Spending too long in the place would crash the game, presumably because the collection detection on that number of cheeses, sheep, and grunting Nilfgaardian soldiers was just too much.
This makes me want to go back into Skyrim. I moved to another country when this came out and had no friends at the beginning, so Skyrim was my evening plan, and I was fortunate enough to have an Xbox 360 back in the day.
That game though...the cottage near Riverwood with the "nice old lady" who turns out to be a necromancer once you break into her cellar. There are not many games like this. Pure gold.
Toast, can you hear me? This is Clem Fandango.
Hahaha this is Twoflower’s luggage
Related: McDonalds producing a GameBoy game in 2023 developed using GB Studio as a 90s throwback: https://www.grimacesbirthday.com/
I can think of no one better to be the VO for a sentient shelf.
Do you think someone at IKEA had the idea and they hired someone to do it, or did someone have the idea and made it, and then talked IKEA into making it official?
The idea has been conceived and executed by creative agency Mother, in partnership with Kinggath Creations - a team of creatives, fans and mod developers who make fun and original content that blends seamlessly into the game world.
https://creative.salon/articles/work/ikea-mother-kallax-stor...
... who also have their employees "organically" push this stuff all over Reddit.
OP here looks innocent enough at least.
It is likely they had the idea they (the people that actually made the mod) could talk a brand into this and IKEA was one of the many brands pitched. But someone at IKEA has to have seen this and say okay this makes sense for it work obviously. Eitherway i would say it doesn't really matter as long as they do fun stuff like this
I keep looking over my shoulder to the pair of KALLAX behind me ever since I watched this, just to check if they budge.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for a mod that gives mustaches to mudcrabs.
The mudcrabs are a proud and fancy race!
Fun fact: IKEA is a plural. One element of an IKEA is referred to as an IKEUM.
Skyrim has to be one of the most modded games out there, with maybe only Minecraft being up there in terms of mods. Its probably also the biggest game out there when it comes to... lets just say nsfw mods.
in my country ikea product sold as luxury product ..
this is hilarious, great humor but can it handle end game bosses?
Pure marketing genius
this is fantastic marketing aimed at the demographic now shopping around for furniture
Right? I think this is part of the reason why they modded this 15 year old game.
Cut the cardboard crap. Make Billy great again!
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Just a reminder that they are a corporation and to not fall for their PR. They are actively destroying the environment while paying as little tax as possible. The cheapness of their furniture does have externalities one needs to consider.
At some point people need to take some responsibilities too. I have a bunch of ikea furniture. I have never thrown much away. Maybe 1 piece. I manage to disassemble and reassemble the rest when I need to. Sometimes I need to take a closer look at make sure I can disassemble and reassemble it.
People view cheap as disposable. That’s not entirely corporations fault.
Yeah, the total mass of all my Ikea furniture is probably equivalent to one hardwood table, so it can't be that bad for the environment.
I really don't understand this point, similar to the other poster below - making lightweight furniture and not clear cutting virgin forests are not mutually exclusive.
I think there's a big difference between products that are inherently harmful to the environment and products that are only harmful because the producer chooses to behave harmfully. European regulators should just stop Ikea from clear cutting virgin forests.
At this point their products have so little material that it may be better for the environment to buy an IKEA one vs decent furniture (from the standpoint of caring for the environment)
They can make lightweight furniture while not rasing virgin forests to the ground.
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Is it April yet?
No it's 9/12
9/12 = 3/4, so it is April?
It's not December yet?
I agree with the spirit of your comment. 20261209 Is a much better way to express the date than the 9/12 Americanism.
Year, day, month in that order written all together? I have seen both day-month-year (12-09-2026) and year-month-day (2026-09-12), but _that_'s a new one.
You're a few months ahead of yourself :)
The 9th of December?