A side benefit to videogame bundles: they offer the opportunity to write about games that would otherwise go unmentioned on a PC-only site. Take Game Music Bundle 7, for example. For $1, it gives you the soundtracks to The Banner Saga, Broken Age, Luftrausers, The Floor Is Jelly and Device 6. Which is four PC games and therefore ample excuse to mention that the mobile-only Device 6 is a puzzle game with some of my favourite videogame music ever. I mean, listen to this.
Or maybe you don’t care about the advantages the bundle offers me, the lowly internet writer, and instead want to know that if you pay a further $9 (for a total of $10, fact fans), you’ll also net the soundtracks to The Yawhg, Starbound, Escape Goat 2, Eldritch, Tribes: Ascend, Ether and my fingers are getting tired so I’ll just say nine others> for a total of 20.
Well, this is a start, I suppose. A slow, lurching start akin to that of a belligerent old truck running on stagnant fuel and wildly outdated business practices, but it’s still something>. The long and short of it? Notorious Banner Saga pursuer King doesn’t want to own the word “candy” anymore. In the US. In EU territories? Well, that’s a different story. And it hasn’t announced any sort of cease-fire in its war against those who dare> wield the word “saga” to describe their games that apply the actual dictionary definition of “saga.” Meanwhile, the trademark it’s sticking with – “Candy Crusher” – is mired in further controversy. The Candy Saga, in other words, isn’t over just yet.
This afternoon King – owners of Candy Crush Saga and an ever-increasing percentage of the dictionary – issued a statement defending their actions regarding the news that they had filed an opposition to Stoic’s attempts to trademark “The Banner Saga”. A defence that seems odd in the face of what’s actually happening. Especially as they’re arguably attempting to assert a trademark they don’t actually have>. Appearing to believe they are the only company allowed to register games with “saga” in the title, King has exercised this by preventing other studios’ efforts to protect their unique game names with their own trademarks.
Yet in King’s statement (below), they make it clear that they don’t believe that Stoic is trying to profit from a similar name, and say they do not wish to prevent Stoic from using the name. A claim that seems, well, rather peculiar given the circumstances, and their appearing to say something quite different in their Opposition. It’s something Stoic have now told RPS they’re not too pleased about either, stating, “We won’t make a Viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone telling us we can’t.”