“Candy Crush Saga” has taken over the mobile gaming world in recent months. Like “Farmville” before it, “Candy Crush Saga” is so big that it’s become part of the public consciousness. Approximately half a billion people have downloaded the game and it generates roughly $850,000 a day. There is no denying that it’s a powerhouse in casual gaming. Good for them, right? That’s the American dream… learn a skill, create something new, collect your fortune. We should be happy for them- unless, of course, the game was stolen.
I’m no lawyer, and I’m not an expert on intellectual property rights, but I do have a conscience and “Candy Crush” developer King.com’s interactions with Albert Ransom (founder of Runsome Apps and designer of “Candy Swipe”) seem simply… wrong.
Allow me to tell you a tale of digital candy. Ransom developed a game called “Candy Swipe” which debuted on Android platforms November 15, 2010. “Candy Swipe” is a match three game involving pieces of candy that when matched, disappear and earn points before being replaced. Four months later “Candy Crush” debuted on King.com, now RoyalGames.com. “Candy Crush” is also a match three game that utilizes pieces of candy as playable icons to be matched before disappearing and earning points (Forbes, 2014). This in and of itself isn’t damning, Ransom didn’t invent the match three game type (Bejeweled anyone?) and the candy theme could be a coincidence. Stranger things have happened and I’m willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt.
Ransom recently posted an open letter to King on his website which you’ll see below. Included in the letter is an image juxtaposing some “Candy Swipe” elements up against those same elements from “Candy Crush”, including the app icon, the candies, and the message displayed upon victory.
I also don’t feel like this is particularly damning. The app icons are really not that similar, the candies aren’t either. They may have similar colors but come on, there are only so many and the fact that both games have blue, red, yellow, and green pieces isn’t really that shocking. The only part of the image that sticks out to me is the use of the word “Sweet!” at victory. The fonts are different but that does seem like a strange coincidence to me. Again, though, I’d be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
However, I have sympathy for Ransom, I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to create a game and then months later have a similar game come out on the market and skyrocket to the top of mobile gaming, making millions of dollars, but such is the state of things. Success in any industry is not just about creating a viable product, but also about marketing, and luck. To his credit, Ransom seemed to understand this and allowed the cards to fall where they may. That is until King started playing dirty.
Disclaimer: King hasn’t had much to say, what they have said, I will outline below. Please bear in mind that I can only tell the story based on the facts at hand, this story is only as true as the information available.
King has decided they need to protect their intellectual property, as is absolutely their right to do. In order to protect that property from clones who would ride their proverbial coattails by creating a similar game with a similar title. I’m sure we’ve all seen these types of games; any time a game gets popular you see clones available on the market. “Flappy Bird” is another ridiculously popular game and, as suspected it has birthed clones.
Protecting their brand is entirely within King’s rights, they chose to do this however, by requesting trademarks on the words “Candy” and “Saga.”
That’s right, King says that no one can use the words “Candy” or “Saga” in a game anymore. Repeat that to yourself until you realize how asinine it is. King assures us they won’t use their power to stop all use of those words, only instances that reasonably infringe on their IP. Fine, if I design a match three game called “Candy Crunch” they could reasonably come after me. This makes sense, as long as it’s not abused.
The problem is that it appears as though it is being abused. King has recently purchased the copyright to a game called “Candy Crusher” which came out in 2004. At first glance this seems perfectly reasonable, the game has a title very similar to “Candy Crush” and they simply want to protect their brand, plus it was purchased from the previous owner fair and square. However, now King owns a copyright that predates “Candy Swipe” and they’ve used it to attempt to have Ransom’s trademark cancelled. Now they’re fighting dirty. They’ve got the money and the lawyers to play fast and loose with the law and it seems that’s what they are doing (GameZebo, 2014).
Surprisingly it seems this isn’t even the first time. In 2009 Nick Bray and someone by the name of Junkyard Sam created the Flash game “Scamperghost.” Sam and Bray were in talks with King to publish that game before a better offer came along. They discontinued negotiations with King and went with the other offer. Shortly thereafter they received a phone call from a friend within King advising them that their game was being cloned and would hit the market soon, luckily they were able to get “Scamperghost” out before King’s “Pac-Avoid” which is strikingly similar (GameZebo, 2014).
Image credit: Jim Squires- GameZebo. Left: “Scamperghost,” Right: “Pac-Avoid.”
On January 27, King decided to respond to the criticism they have been receiving. They posted an open letter on their site titled “Our approach to IP: An open letter on intellectual property.” You can read the entire letter at the link at the link in the previous sentence but I’ve included some excerpts here.
“The debate here revolves around Pac-Avoid, a game coded by a third-party on our behalf nearly five years ago. The game strongly resembles another game called ScamperGhost. The details of the situation are complex, but the bottom line is that we should never have published Pac-Avoid. We have taken the game down from our site, and we apologise for having published it in the first place. 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.”
I found it surprising that the open letter from King doesn’t even mention Ransom’s claim. They only mention “Scamperghost” from several years earlier completely dismissing any question of wrong doing in regard to Ransom and “Candy Swipe.”
“Let’s start with the fact that Candy Crush Saga has become one of the most successful casual games in history. Millions of people play the game every day. Not surprisingly, some developers have seen an opportunity to take advantage of the game’s popularity, and have published games with similar sounding titles and similar looking graphics. We believe it is right and reasonable to defend ourselves from such copycats.”
What is said in the above section is perfectly reasonable, if only they were actually doing that. In reality, what is being done to Ransom is in direct contradiction to the moral stance represented. They aren’t attempting to protect their property, except for in the way that a man protects his property by running out into the street and shooting anyone else who owns similar stuff.
A few days ago Ransom published his own open letter on his candyswipe.com. You can read it below.
Dear King,
Congratulations! You win! I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games. In fact, if you beat the full version of the android game, you will still get the message saying “…the game was made in memory of my mother, Layla…” I created this game for warmhearted people like her and to help support my family, wife and two boys 10 and 4. Two years after I released CandySwipe, you released Candy Crush Saga on mobile; the app icon, candy pieces, and even the rewarding, “Sweet!” are nearly identical. So much so, that I have hundreds of instances of actual confusion from users who think CandySwipe is Candy Crush Saga, or that CandySwipe is a Candy Crush Saga knockoff. So when you attempted to register your trademark in 2012, I opposed it for “likelihood of confusion” (which is within my legal right) given I filed for my registered trademark back in 2010 (two years before Candy Crush Saga existed). Now, after quietly battling this trademark opposition for a year, I have learned that you now want to cancel my CandySwipe trademark so that I don’t have the right to use my own game’s name. You are able to do this because only within the last month you purchased the rights to a game named Candy Crusher (which is nothing like CandySwipe or even Candy Crush Saga). Good for you, you win. I hope you’re happy taking the food out of my family’s mouth when CandySwipe clearly existed well before Candy Crush Saga.
I have spent over three years working on this game as an independent app developer. I learned how to code on my own after my mother passed and CandySwipe was my first and most successful game; it’s my livelihood, and you are now attempting to take that away from me. You have taken away the possibility of CandySwipe blossoming into what it has the potential of becoming. I have been quiet, not to exploit the situation, hoping that both sides could agree on a peaceful resolution. However, your move to buy a trademark for the sole purpose of getting away with infringing on the CandySwipe trademark and goodwill just sickens me.
This also contradicts your recent quote by Riccardo in “An open letter on intellectual property” posted on your website which states, “We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers – both small and large – have every right to protect the hard work they do and the games they create.”
I myself was only trying to protect my hard work.
I wanted to take this moment to write you this letter so that you know who I am. Because I now know exactly what you are. Congratulations on your success!
Sincerely,
Albert Ransom
President (Founder), Runsome Apps Inc.
Ransom’s letter is heart wrenching and emotion inducing. It’s easy to want to side with him because he seems like an every man, with real problems, real worries, up against the big bad corporation. I tried my best to remove the emotional bias when researching and writing this piece. But… based on the information available it certainly appears as though King is in the habit of taking games from people, damn the consequences, and at this point they have the clout and the legal teams to back them up. Is it possible that things didn’t actually play out this way? Yes. Is it likely given the evidence at hand? Hell no. If the situation is not as described by Ransom, King would do well to directly address those claims rather than dismiss or ignore them. Perhaps they’re hoping that in the age of diminishing attention spans, everyone will just forget and in the meantime they’ll keep making millions. I hope, at the very least that King and Ransom get their day in court and if Ransom is due some reparations from King, I hope he doesn’t give up.
In closing, something, something, pun about king’s ransoms…
Cheers.