The beverage Monster Energy markets itself as a gaming beverage, meaning that it’s supposedly the perfect drink for the most passionate of video game players.
You have undoubtedly seen it as a sponsor on a number of occasions and even a character in a few video games, one of them being Death Stranding.
With that being said, however, Monster Energy does not appear to particularly like game developers, despite the fact that it seeks to appeal to gamers.
In fact, the well known energy drink is suing a game developer once more because the latter used the word “Monster” in the title of their creation, causing a lot of controversy on social media.
But this is not even the first time something like this takes place!
The last time it happened was back in 2020, when the energy drink company and Ubisoft fought for the moniker Gods and Monsters, which served as the inspiration for Immortals Fenix Rising.
The trademark, according to Monster at the time, was too similar, which would risk confusing customers.
This time around, Monster Energy has made the decision to go after independent game developer Glowstick Entertainment, which is known for creating Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals.
The overreaching settlement conditions provided to Glowstick mandate that in exchange for being permitted to use the present name, the company refrains from calling any new games anything that includes a version of the word “Monster,” according to creator and CEO Vincent Livings.
Livings has chosen to pursue legal action rather than comply with Monster Energy’s requests.
He also tweeted that he’ll publish whatever information he gets from Monster’s attorneys so that other developers who are hounded by them will be aware of their strategies.
Here are the overreaching settlement terms that #MonsterEnergy sent me. Basically, it demands that in exchange for allowing us to use the name "Monsters & Mortals", we agree to never name any other game any variation of the word "Monster". #indiegamedev #gamedev #ign #kotaku pic.twitter.com/YyXntK7PLn
— Vincent Livings (@VincentLivings) March 29, 2023
Livings took to Twitter to further explain that “It also forces us to agree to never use a green and white logo over a black background for any game that we ever make. So they just own the colors green and white too apparently. Any logo that has a monster style font will be deemed similar to Monster Energy’s logo. It demands we never use one for any future games. This means that they could demand that we change Dark Deception’s logo as well. It can be applied broadly.”
All in all, what this means is pretty much that if Monsters and Mortals agree to these conditions, they will legally be prohibited from using the word “Monster” in any of their future titles.