Reply To: HEROQUEST – Hasbro / Ludofilia GameZone

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

Nobody said that it wasn’t in anyway related to the original Heroquest game – it was definitely related to it because they were trying to bring back the brand.  But when Gamezone announced their crowdfunding campaign the original Heroquest game, and thus the brand itself, was defunct.  Decades out if print.  Nobody at Hasbro or GW seemed to have any interest in reviving the brand and, had Gamezone been successful in their endeavour rather fucking it up as badly as they ended up doing, Hasbro most likely wouldn’t have bothered.  Gamezone were very clear about who they were and what it was that they were making.  It was intended to be a celebration of the original Heroquest game, an attempt to revive a long dead brand, and thus it was intentionally designed to look similar to the original.  But given that Heroquest the board game no longer existed by that point, there wasn’t a brand to confuse with.  They were certainly trying to claim that brand for their own, they weren’t trying to confuse anyone about who they were and what they were making.   Anyone who went into that campaign thinking it was a genuine GW, MB Games or Hasbro product is a fucking idiot.  There’s no more brand confusion with Heroquest than there is with the Mini automotive brand.

The Heroquest RPG on the other hand was deliberately trying to be it’s own thing.  It was absolutely nothing to do with the Heroquest board game being part of the Runequest RPG setting, so its branding was such that it was congruous with the parent product.   The two products’ use of trademark are not comparable