Call of Duty: Warzone
A curious story has now emerged in connection with the popular CoD part “Warzone”. A small indie developer has got into a heated legal battle with publisher Activision. What happened?
The game developer Randy Ficker released the browser and mobile phone game “Warzone” in 2017. Three years later Activison released the first person shooter “Call of Duty: Warzone”. Ficker then sent Activision a cease-and-desist declaration against the publisher’s application for a trademark.
In his statement, he wrote that his company (Warzone.com, LLC) “had the right to prohibit Activision from using the” Warzone “trademark and to seek financial compensation for the infringing use by Activision”. That didn’t go down well with Activision. The publisher hit back a little later with his own lawsuit.
Appeal for donations
In order to cover the costs in this legal dispute, Ficker is now setting up a GoFundMe page. As a call for donations, he wrote: “Hello, my name is Randy and Activision is suing me for being an indie game developer.”
It continues: “In 2017 I released my indie game ‘Warzone’. Activision launched Call of Duty: Warzone in 2020 and is now suing me for stealing the name (using my limited resources).”
Counterattack
Activison counters the allegations by claiming that there is little likelihood of confusion: “Call of Duty: Warzone could not be more different than the defendant’s game, a low-budget virtual board game in a niche like Hasbro’s Risk,” said the legal team of Activision.
“It is inconceivable that any member of the public could confuse the two products or believe that they are related or related,” it said in a statement.
In any case, the GoFundMe page seems to be bearing its first fruits. The indie developer is currently at just under $18,000, almost half of his goal of $50,000.