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Ikea wants the developer behind the indie horror game The Store is Closed to change various details about their game.
The Store is Closed is an indie horror game set to release on PC. It's heavily inspired by one of the SCP entries, specifically SCP-3008. The premise of the game is fairly simple. Players enter STYR, a furniture store, and end up trapped inside of it. While inside the store, players must scavenge for food, weapons, and materials to build shelters from. Players must either survive inside the store or find a way out. It is a very straightforward and simple premise. However, that's also where the problem arises.
It's kinda obvious that the store is a parody of the well-known furniture store Ikea. From its four-letter name to the yellow and blue color scheme. Even the maze-like store interior is present in this game. In fact, fans call SCP-3008 the Infinite Ikea Store. This similarity between the horror game's STYR and the real-life Ikea is the main reason why the furniture chain has issued a Cease and Desist letter. Ikea's lawyers are claiming that the game is committing trademark infringement. This is due to the fact that various press outlets and players are comparing the indie horror game's store with real-life Ikea.
The game's developer, Jacob Shaw, shared the C&D letter with PC Gamer. The letter warned Shaw that he was using “without our client's authorization, indicia associated with the famous Ikea stores”.
Your game uses a blue and yellow sign with a Scandinavian name on the store, a blue box-like building, yellow vertical striped shirts identical to those worn by Ikea personnel, a gray path on the floor, furniture that looks like Ikea furniture, and product signage that looks like Ikea signage. All the foregoing immediately suggest that the game takes place in an Ikea store.
The letter also mentions the aforementioned connections that comments about the game are making. Thankfully, according to Shaw, Ikea's lawyers don't want to outright shut the game down. They just want the store in the game to not like Ikea. The letter even stated that since Shaw doesn't plan to release the game until 2024, he can “easily make changes to [the] game to avoid these problems.”
Understandably, Shaw said that he will comply with the demands that the lawyers made as he would “really rather not get sued.” However, this leads to a somewhat bigger problem. One of the indicia that the lawyers mentioned was the furniture, saying that they “look like Ikea furniture”. However, Shaw said that he just “bought generic furniture asset packs to make this game. I don't know what that means.” Shaw does mention that some of the furniture assets he bought have Scandinavian names, so he was going to remove those first. Other than that, he plans to change the store's color scheme from blue and yellow to a “garish red”. He also plans to change the posters and remove the path on the floor.
Although a visual overhaul will not significantly delay the game's development schedule, Shaw said that this change just brings more stress. Shaw also worries that other well-known stores might sue him in a similar manner. “What if Target sues me for using red?”, he said to PC Gamer.
In any case, the silver lining in this situation is that the game's development can continue. In fact, the game's Kickstarter has gathered more than five times its goal already with four days remaining in the campaign. Understandably, players are looking forward to this game's release in around two years' time. At least, I know that I am.
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