Monster Energy accused of bullying indie devs over copyright
Indie game developers have it pretty hard. Building a game from the ground up without support from investors - and contending with the whirlwind that is the video game industry - takes immense mental strength.
These little titles are the backbone of the industry, as without them, nobody would be compelled to get involved in video game development in the first place. It's an aspirational field, and if developers are lucky and talented enough, they could create the next big thing.
One thing that tends to hinder that are the great big f**k-off lawsuits that crop up time and again. Yeah, the kind of massive lawsuits that the Monster Energy brand seems to be really into.
Monster Energy is suing an indie game
Some particularly big fish little pond vibes are coming off Monster Energy right now. The gamer icon Monster has kicked into lawsuit gear once again and is coming down on a game for featuring its beloved name in the title.
Monsters & Mortals is the latest game from Glowstick Entertainment but is being taken into the crosshairs of Monster Energy. The drink giant has issued a lawsuit to the game under the pretence that its name is "confusingly" similar to its own. No, really.
The news was revealed by the CEO of the indie development team, who states in a Twitter thread that he's not intent on taking it lying down.
Monsters & Mortals is fighting back against Monster
"Rather than roll over, I'm going to fight them in court," says CEO Vincent Livings in a Twitter thread explaining the suit.
"I'll be sharing everything I've received from Monster Energy to give other game developers a look at their tactics in case they ever want to put the word "monster(s)" in their game title and have to deal with Monster Energy as a result. They went after Ubisoft previously too."
Unfortunately, this has happened before. Monster took on the might of Ubisoft Immortals: Fenyx Rising, which was originally called Gods & Monsters. Ubisoft said the name change was because it wanted to put more emphasis on its lead character, not due to Monster's legal wranglings.
As for Monsters & Mortals, Glowstick has a pretty gnarly stance of not letting the big guys win. We hope Monster won't stick to its bullying much longer after this legal battle, but we'll have to wait and see in this David versus Goliath situation.
