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Kickstarted title Fabulous Beasts has had a change of name following trademark issues with Warner Bros.
The latter claimed that the toys-to-life game’s title was too similar to that of the upcoming Harry Potter spin-off movie, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’.
Developer Sensible Object thus decided to rename its game ‘Beasts of Balance’.
Studio founder Alex Fleetwood previously explained the matter in aKickstarter post: Some time ago, we registered our application to trademark the name ‘Fabulous Beasts’. You know, the name of our game. Unfortunately, Warner Bros has opposed this application. Having held many discussions with them over the past few weeks and having failed to find a way that our name can co-exist with theirs, we feel we are left with no other option than to have to change it.”
He continued: We have seen no evidence of confusion between our game and ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, and our view is that even to someone just glancing at the two properties, our game, branding, theme and content are unmistakably different.
However, we have to be realistic and prudent.We have to consider what is important to us, and fighting lengthy and expensive legal battles with a hugely well-funded and litigious company isn’t high on our list of priorities…Put really simply, we could choose to spend our time and your money defending the name, or we could do what we promised you we’d do during the campaign – make and ship the game this year.
Beasts of Balance launched on Kickstarter back in January with a 150,000 goal and ended up raising 168,360. Sensible Object thenpartnered with The Yogscast to bring a special edition of the game.
Legal disputes over names seem to be trendy these days, as No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games revealedearlier this week that it just won its battle against Sky TV, who apparently owns the work ‘sky’.
