Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Overtime.

The Store is closed is a first-person horror survival game under development. The player will play some unlucky guy trapped in an "endless" furniture city, using all the furniture at his disposal to survive the attack of mutant employees and eventually find the exit of the furniture city.

The game's Steam page is set in a furniture city, so it's hard not to think of Ikea, the world's largest furniture retailer.

According to the screenshot of the promotion on the Steam platform, the "endless" furniture city in the game is obviously based on IKEA. The game's only developer, Ziggy, whose real name is Jacob Shaw, also called the game "endless IKEA" in Reddit's promotional posts.

The original post has been deleted by me, players seem to be able to eat Swedish meatballs in the furniture city, and Swedish meatballs have always been a specialty of Ikea restaurants.

The restaurant billboard in the game, "the store is closed" was unfortunately targeted by Ikea.

On October 28, Jacob received a letter from an Ikea lawyer saying that the "store closed" had infringed on IKEA's trademark by using unauthorized markings related to Ikea. Ikea will sue Jacob unless Jacob modifies all Ikea-related content in the game for 10 days.

1 "the Store is closed" is a derivative of SCP's worldview. In other words, the inspiration for the Ikea Furniture City as the background of the game is not Jacob's original product.

Endless Furniture City comes from a fictional horror story on the website of the SCP Foundation. The story file number SCP-3008 tells the story of a furniture city with so much space that there is almost no exit. The entry clearly states that the furniture city was "once owned by Ikea, a famous furniture retail chain."

The employees in the furniture city are similar to humans in appearance, but do not have the same body proportions, have no facial features, and "all observed individuals are wearing yellow shirts and blue trousers". At night, these employees become extremely violent and attack all the life forms they see.

The story of "Ikea employees" in the game also mentioned that a certain number of civilians were trapped in the furniture city. They set up settlements and fortifications to resist the attack of the staff. The game profile of "the Store is closed" is not clear, but the situation of the players is similar to that of the survivors. The scary tone of the story is there, and it is not realistic in the game to want to be as happy as Jackie Chan, the god of war in the furniture city.

Fortifications, however, judging from the dynamic pictures released by Jacob on the KickStarter crowdfunding website, all the goods in the furniture city can really be put to good use.

Wooden furniture has replaced the status of trees in other survival games and become the main source of wood. By the same token, the chainsaw on the shelf is more efficient than doing it by hand or chopping with an axe, regardless of whether the object is wood or a monster.

Sledgehammers and flamethrowers are also effective means of removing obstacles or monsters.

The synthesis system commonly used in survival games is also reflected. Players can make crossbows and install deadly control knives on shopping carts for open use.

The details of survival and battle, which are not or rarely mentioned in these original stories, can also have a certain attraction to passers-by who are not familiar with the original works. As of the deadline for this article, Jacob's project had attracted 1488 people to participate in crowdfunding, 57000 pounds in crowdfunding, and achieved the crowdfunding goal of 5/6.

It was at this juncture that Ikea sent a disappointing letter from a lawyer.

In an interview with foreign media PCGamer, Jacob shared some of the contents of the lawyer's letter. The core part is as follows:

"your game has designed a blue and yellow logo with a Scandinavian name for the mall, a blue box-shaped building, the same yellow vertical striped shirts worn by Ikea employees, gray paths on the floor, furniture that looks like Ikea furniture, and product logos that look like Ikea logos. All of the above indicates that the game took place in an Ikea mall."

"Ikea style" Furniture catalogue although Jacob never mentioned the word "Ikea" in the official profile of the Steam store or Kickstarter, some media websites have established a connection between the game and Ikea itself because of the "IKEA element" in the game. "A large number of comments from readers are also related to IKEA."

Jacob himself disagrees with some of the allegations in the lawyer's letter. First of all, he named the furniture city "STYR", which sounds similar to "STORE" and is a misspelling and corresponds to the Swedish word for "control", which is a kind of homage to the original worldview, but has nothing to do with Ikea.

Ikea's equivalent of "IKEA" is not a standard Swedish word, but an acronym for Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, the farm where he grew up "Elmtaryd" and the village Agunnaryd.

As for those "furniture that looks like Ikea furniture", Jacob said bluntly that he "doesn't know what it means." All this furniture comes from a "general furniture asset kit" purchased by Jacob, and the furniture models in the asset package should appear in any game made by Jacob without any restrictions.

Of course, the game does design the gray trail in Ikea Furniture City. The furniture layout and signage are also similar to the design of Ikea.

A bird's-eye view of the furniture city Jacob did not mention the attitude of the lawyer's letter to the original SCP entry. Considering that the foundation website itself is only a collection of non-profit works created by netizens, the risk of suspected infringement is certainly not as high as the derivative game products on the commercial platform.

At the end of the lawyer's letter, Ikea asked Jacob to complete all changes "ten working days after the letter was sent" to completely delete anything that might remind people of the Ikea brand. "of course you can easily make a game set in Furniture City, but it doesn't look like Ikea Mall."

At least Ikea didn't force games and crowdfunding off the shelves, which is the only and rare good news for Jacob.

3 just a few days after Jacob worried about an Ikea lawyer's letter, the new call of Duty: modern Warfare 2 is facing similar charges.

Military games based on modern themes must take real-life buildings or scenes as modeling prototypes and make levels or maps. It's just that the publisher Activision and Infinity Ward Studios, which is responsible for developing the new work, do not seem to have consulted the owners of the prototype building beforehand.

The Dutch street scenes in the call of Duty 19 campaign, including the red light district, are all based on reality photos. In call of Duty, there is a map of the 6v6, called the Blumberg Hotel, based on the Conservatorium Hotel Hotel in Amsterdam, the Dutch capital. This is a five-star hotel with a history dating back to the 19th century, when it was used as a bank building and was not renovated into a hotel until 2008, which is of great commemorative significance.

Realistic photo

Even in the game, the hotel owner cannot tolerate a huge gap in the outer wall of the building. On October 26, in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, hotel manager Roy Tomassen Thommassen protested publicly to call of Duty: "We do not support games that seem to encourage the use of violence. Games do not reflect our core values and we regret our obvious and unpopular participation. The hotel is still considering possible measures."

Judging from the manager's strong language, the possibility of the hotel using legal means to solve the problem cannot be ruled out at present. Buildings are protected by copyright in both the United States and Europe.

A case worth considering occurred in 2007, when Sony became embroiled in a dispute over construction infringement over its own FPS game, Resistance: Resistance:Fall of Man. Britain in the game was invaded by aliens, and even Manchester Cathedral became a battlefield. The cathedral was built in the 15th century and is a landmark in the centre of Manchester.

Realistic photo

The leader of the Church of England accused Sony of encouraging violence, claiming that the depiction in the game was a "blasphemy" and infringement of the cathedral. They made a number of requests to Sony, including, but not limited to, apologies, donations, removing the game or modifying the contents of the cathedral in the game, and providing financial support to groups trying to reduce gun crime in Manchester.

At one point, Sony's dispute with the church implicated the British government. It was not until July 2007 that the incident ended with an apology issued by Sony in the Manchester Evening News. Sony promised not to use Manchester Cathedral in future games, but did not accept any demands from the church; the church had a strong opinion, but did not initiate any real litigation.

By the way, the public attitude towards this matter is quite intriguing-sales of Resistance: extermination of humanity have increased, as has the number of visitors to Manchester Cathedral. In February 2008, David Marshall, then director of communications for the diocese of Manchester, wrote in that month's Sony PlayStation magazine that "teenagers are particularly interested in buildings they consider themselves to be fictional."

For large manufacturers and their large games, the case of single building infringement is not so painful.

Large manufacturers have a professional legal team to deal with lawsuits and have sufficient capital to deal with compensation. It's also hard for big games to cause unbearable material loss by removing a building-even if call of Duty has to delete Blumberg Hotel, 6v6 still has nine maps left to play, not counting the DLC to be updated in the future.

But the developers of independent games lack the time, energy and financial resources to deal with infringement allegations. The mere request to remove a building is also likely to deal a fatal blow to the game itself. Take "the store is closed" as an example. The core content of the game is the "endless" furniture city in the story. Without the furniture city, the game itself will cease to exist.

On October 31, Jacob posted a block picture on Twitter, accusing him of the injustice. He satirized Ikea's lawyers for punching his "STYR" furniture city, but turned a blind eye to another FPS "Escape from Takov", the "IDEA" mall based on Ikea.

"lawyers are like this." To be exact, "Escape from Takov" has an overpass map, the main body of which is the "ULTRA" shopping center, referring to the real Russian MEGA chain shopping center. MEGA is owned by Ingka Center, a division of Ikea in Russia, so each MEGA will allocate part of the building to Ikea.

The MEGA in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, is most similar to the architecture in Takov. In the game, developer BattleState Studio modifies Ikea's "IKEA" to "IDEA". The "IDEA" furniture city has also become a stage for mercenaries played by players to kill and loot.

There are no controversial records of "IDEA" mall on the Internet, which may be due to the studio's payment of royalties to Ikea, or the lax Russian laws, or simply the lack of content specific to Ikea (such as Swedish meatballs and hideous mutant employees) that failed to attract the attention of Ikea and its legal representatives.

If you complain, you still have to change the game. Jacob has been so busy that IKEA can't be seen inside or outside the furniture city. The original Alpha test and update plan for the crowdfunding page has been cancelled, and he has to devote all his energies to the visual style overhaul.

Because of the ambiguity of the requirements given in the lawyer's letter, Jacob did not know how to make peace thoroughly. His solution now is to "tear up anything blue and yellow" and add some fancy red to all parts of the furniture city. He wants to remove any furniture model with a "Scandinavian" name in the game and erase the gray path.

Red LOGO "endless Furniture City"

Even if employees in the furniture city who switch to red clothes can pass IKEA, Jacob is still worried about the potential legal threat. After changing the color scheme to red, he said nervously in a PCGamer report, "Target, an American retailer, sued me for using red. What should I do?"

Target mall with red as the main color

…… And Target employees in red uniforms. This article comes from the official account of Wechat: game Research Agency (ID:yysaag). Author: Zhaoyue.

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