Stoic calls for King to lift ‘saga’ trademark dispute

If King’s intentions are as innocent as the company claim it should withdraw its trademarks dispute with Stoic, the indie dev has argued.

Two years ago, the three of us at Stoic set out to make an epic viking game: The Banner Saga. We did, and people loved it, so we’re making another one,” a Stoic statement has claimed. We won’t make a viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone telling us we can’t.

King.com claims they’re not attempting to prevent us from using The Banner Saga, and yet their legal opposition to our trademark filing remains. We’re humbled by the outpouring of support and honoured to have others stand with us for the right to their own Saga. We just want to make great games.”

It’s worth noting that King says it is not trying to get The Banner Saga banned or attempting to stop Stoic’s ongoing development plans in any way. It argues that its only concern is preventing Stoic from registering The Banner Saga as a trademark.

"We do not have any concerns that Banner Saga is trying build on our brand or our content," it said. "However, like any prudent company, we need to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP, both now and in the future.

"In this case, that means preserving our ability to enforce our rights in cases where other developers may try to use the Saga mark in a way which infringes our IP rights and causes player confusion. If we had not opposed Banner Saga’s trade mark application, it would be much easier for real copy cats to argue that their use of ‘Saga’ was legitimate.

"This is an important issue for King because we already have a series of games where ‘Saga’ is key to the brand which our players associate with a King game.”