IKEA Asks Horror Game To Change So Folks Stop IKEA Comparisons

In an unexpected move, furniture giant Ikea has sent a solo indie developer a cease and desist letter reviewed by Kotaku, demanding he make changes to his unreleased survival horror game set in an Ikea-like furniture store. Lawyers representing Ikea are claiming that the game commits trademark infringement because some press outlets have drawn comparisons between their official brand and the game. The Swedish firm have given developer Jacob Shaw just ten days to “change the game and remove all indicia associated with the famous Ikea stores.”

The Store Is Closed is an unreleased co-op survival game, that’s just in the final week of a successful Kickstarter campaign that’s raised just over $49,000. Created by a lone developer, going by the studio name Ziggy, the game describes itself as “being set in an infinite furniture store.”

“You’ll need to craft weapons, and build fortifications to survive the night,” continues the blurb. “Explore the underground SCP laboratories and build towers to the sky to find a way out.” You know, like in a real Ikea? Crucially, nowhere in any of the game’s promotional materials, on its Steam, during its Kickstarter campaign—nowhere—has the word “Ikea” ever been uttered.

Yet despite this, and despite the game absolutely not being on sale anywhere, Ikea’s New York lawyers, Fross Zelnick, have written to Shaw demanding that he entirely change anything in the game that might remind people of their brand.

“Our client has learned that you are developing a video game, ‘The Store is Closed’,” the legal letter explains, “which uses, without our client’s authorization, indicia associated with the famous IKEA stores.”

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It then goes on to list the infringing aspects of Shaw’s game.

“Your game uses a blue and yellow sign with a Scandinavian name on the store, a blue box-like building, yellow vertical stiped 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.”

Shaw gave me access to an early alpha build of the game, during which the “blue box-like building” and “blue and yellow sign” appear, in their totality, on the menu screen. After that, you don’t see them. There’s currently no branding at all in-game. The store is called “STYR.” Clearly a joke spelling of “STORE,” it is, by coincidence, a Swedish word, meaning “controls.” You know what’s not a Swedish word? “Ikea.” It’s the initials of its founder, a farm he grew up on, and a nearby village. Notably, stores like Tiffany have a trademark over the color that they use in their packaging, so in some ways Ikea isn’t coming completely out of left field here.

Then there are the claims that it has “furniture that looks like Ikea furniture.” But Shaw disputes that he designed any furniture with Ikea in mind. “I bought generic furniture…