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Kaiju Combat Kickstarter on hold over Wizards of the Coast trademark dispute
A Kickstarter project for an indie game called Kaiju Combat: Giant Monsters has been put on hold, due to a trademark disagreement with game publisher Wizards of the Coast. Soon after raising $112,513 for its $100k goal, developer Sunstone Games received an infringement notice from Wizards of the Coast. The notice claimed the name of Sunstone's game violated Wizard's "Kaijudo" trademark, which refers to a collectible card game based on a Hasbro TV show.Sunstone says its lawyer contacted Wizards last December to argue that "Kaiju" (a Japanese word that means "monster") had nothing at all to do with "Kaijudo," and they believed the matter had been settled. But this past week Wizards took the matter to Kickstarter directly, which took the project offline, claiming it was "the subject of an intellectual property dispute."Sunstone's owner Simon Strange says he's working as quickly as possible to get the project reinstated. Going through court costs, he says, would be prohibitive on the company's "limited development budget." Strange adds he's "hopeful" that Sunstone won't have to change the game's name.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Kaiju Combat
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, former Godzilla dev Simon Strange is back to bring some mega-monster pain to Kickstarter with Kaiju Combat. What's your game called and what's it about?The game is Kaiju Combat, an online multiplayer game with behemoths fighting in destructible city environments.What inspired you to make Kaiju Combat?Sunstone Games is almost entirely made up of ex-Pipeworks employees, who made the very popular Godzilla fighting games from 2002 - 2007. We get messages every few days asking about a sequel, so making a game like this has always been something we've considered. The rise of Kickstarter funding this year presented a real opportunity to get the game made on our own terms – that's been the missing piece before now.
