Ironclad Games finally spoke out on the lawsuit they had with Rebellion Developments, the dev behind Sniper Elite. The suit revolves around Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, and the precedent Ironclad was able to set by standing firm.
As you can imagine, the Sniper Elite dev said the game’s name was too close to the developer’s name, it went to court, and Ironclad won. However, that’s not the actual story.
The real story here is how Ironclad characterized Rebellion Dev’t’s defense of their trademark as overreaching, and how, ultimately, Ironclad’s victory can be considered a win for First Amendment rights. Ironclad saw a similar case brewing between Mojang and Bethesda over the word Scrolls, that ultimately ended in a settlement, and so they had hoped for the same, but with this outcome, other companies won’t have to worry about overly strict rules regarding use of words in IPs.
Lest we forget, this was something Candy Crush Saga devs King almost cut down, which is why we’re also all the more thankful that they’ve dropped said efforts.
Image is from Sins of A Solar Empire: Rebellion.
