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.
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.
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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.
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
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.