Banner Saga Dev Claims Candy Crush is Impeding Sequel

As we reported yesterday, Candy Crush Saga developer, King, was seeking to trademark the words that make up the name of their popular hit title, and a recent game done by Stoic, The Banner Saga, has become a victim due to King's attempts at licensing. We have received word that Stoic's development on the second part of The Banner Saga is now being hindered by the Candy Crush developer.

According to Polygon, Stoic planned on releasing the second chapter to The Banner Saga, but its publishing has been at a standstill now that King's trademarking ventures have targeted the game. "Essentially, we are not allowed to own the name 'The Banner Saga' for our game about a viking epic, because King.com says they have claimed rights to the noun 'saga,' which means 'a viking epic,' forever more in the realm of games," Stoic representative Alex Thomas stated.

King claimed it was not trying to stop Stoic from releasing its game, but was simply trying to protect its own Saga-titled library from games trying to capitalize on Candy Crush's success. King has stated it's well aware The Banner Saga is a completely different game on its own right, but the legal accusation still stands against Stoic. King claims legal pursuit against Stoic is setting the example towards the much smaller games it's trying eliminate from exploiting the Candy Crush Saga name.

While it seems Stoic is a civilian casualty in King's fight against Candy Crush knockoffs, we are still sad to see trademarking and licensing common words used in titles are starting to create red lines as to what a game could possibly be named. Who knows what type of trademark infringement escapades will arise in the future simply because two games share commonly-used words in their titles.