The crowdfunded video game Last Year has been making waves here at Cliqist, but not purely because of its awesome slasher concepts. Shortly after its incredibly surprising late campaign success an official Friday the 13th game was announced to be in the works by a big name developer. Were the two connected? Nope, not at all. Instead the campaign page was taken down post success as Last Year is now the subject of a legal dispute. Crystal Lake Entertainment felt the Kickstarted game was violating their own IP, the Friday the 13th series. For a little under a week the only official news anyone received was straight from the closed Kickstarter page.
Yesterday developer James Wearing finally made an announcement to his many backers. Here’s the full letter if you’re interested. It basically shows an optomistic (and a bit cocky) perspective on the legal dispute from James’ position. He will not give in and let his game get trampled. Instead, he will make whatever changes are necessary to resolve the IP violation and then resume normalcy. At least, that’s the plan at the moment.
The letter reads as very genuine, although a bit awkward when you dig into IP law. He suggests that Crystal Lake Entertainment should also sue people who play hockey because they wear hockey masks! The laws are designed such that this carte blanche application isn’t actually valid. Also, even though James and his most ardent supporters would not be “confused” by Last Year versus an official Friday the 13th game the argument could easily be made that “general consumers” could believe it’s a new official film or TV show tie in. In any case, here’s hoping that this dispute gets handled smoothly. We’ll keep you posted.
Good they should fight them and take them to court, this isn’t the first time a big company tries to bully a smaller one or extort them from money. Until some kind of evidence is presented or until Crystal Lake Entertainment states there case a lot clearer, all I’m seeing here is a big company abusing laws in their favor.