October 18, 2024: Fighting Fantasy Returns To The U.S. ? With Steve Jackson Games!

[RoboAdmin]

October 18, 2024: Fighting Fantasy Returns To The U.S. ? With Steve Jackson Games!

Read this article on the Illuminator.

[Frisbeedragon]

Unlike a similar series we are unable to name for legal reasons...

You've been given bad legal advice. :)

You can absolutely use a competitor's trademark to compare your product to that competitor's product. It's called nominative fair use. Think about how many advertisements from reputable businesses you've seen that use a competitor's trademark to make a comparison. There are the Visa commercials that say "And they don't take, American express." There was the Pepsi challenge, that had the Coke trademark all over it. I recall GM truck commercials that diss Ford's towing capacity (or whatever). Burger King and McDonalds talk smack about each other, by name, on the regular.

You can choose your own adventure, so to speak, but if you had just written "Unlike Acme books, Fighting Fantasy uses dice-rolling tabletop RPG mechanics written," there's absolutely no way that Acme would have a trademark claim against you. (And since it's true that Acme books don't use those RPG mechanics, they wouldn't have a truth in advertising claim either.)

Now, if you had written that the Fighting Fantasy series is an Acme book, because the FF books use a mechanic that is synonymous with the Acme name, that would have been a different story. In that case, there could be a likelihood of confusion--i.e., readers might have thought that Acme really did create these FF books--and that's what you need for there to be a trademark infringement claim.

[JLV]

This is awesome news -- I came late to the FF series, but started picking up old copies over a decade ago, and it's great to hear that they will be re-released now, and by my favorite game designer/company to boot!

It's been a great decade, actually -- from re-release of TFT (Yay!) to re-release of FF, it seems like a ton of the good old stuff is steadily coming back on the market!

[Walden]

For anyone who is interested and not aware, the Lone Wolf gamebook series, which was originally published contemporaneously with Fighting Fantasy, is also being slowly republished in Britain by Holmgard Press, a publisher started (I think) by the son of the original author Joe Dever. (Unfortunately, the elder Dever died in 2016 with the series uncompleted.) The son, Ben Devere, is also working with a co-author on the final book of the series, though it isn't complete yet. As of yet, all of the Kai and Magnakai subseries are available and the first Grand Master books should be out in December. (There have also been some supplementary materials republished, as well as some new material.)

[kkc]

So if I'm not mistaken, the rights to publish Fighting Fantasy in the States were previously held by an outfit called iBooks. Is it rude to ask what the disposition of that previous agreement is and whether there was any transfer or purchase from that previous licensor? I ask because iBooks held (and arguably, neglected) the rights to a bunch of other interesting properties. And while not all of them are a perfect fit for SJG, I'd like to see some of those works reenter the marketplace too.

[Walden]

While I don't anything about any other properties, I can offer some more info on FF for anyone interested:

There have actually been more than 50 Fighting Fantasy books published over the decades, across several different publishing runs (though never all in the same run). Also, there has never been a fixed order for Fighting Fantasy, as each book is self-contained, with the exception that, as far as I know, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has always come first in any publishing run. I am thus curious which books SJ Games will be publishing and in what order.

By the way, kkc, what other properties once possibly held by ibooks are you thinking of?

[kkc]

Originally Posted by Walden

By the way, kkc, what other properties once possibly held by ibooks are you thinking of?

So iBooks had the rights to some Roger Zelazny and Isaac Asimov work that I'm sure has either expired or reverted back to the original licensors. But they also had a pile of tie-in works, for properties like X-men and Battlestar Galactica and The Transformers. Many of those licensed IP novels and anthology collections have been sitting around in legal limbo for a decade or more, being locked out of electronic distribution and physical reprinting deals. If Fighting Fantasy broke free of those restrictions, then I'm really hopeful that the rest of it comes pouring out into the marketplace too, even if it's not from SJG.

[Walden]

Hmm...I've never really been into any of the stories you mentioned, but good luck with getting them republished!

Something funny, now that I think about it. I thought Fighting Fantasy publishing stopped in the US with book 21, which in the initial run was Trial of Champions. This was in the 1980s, and I'm pretty sure the publisher was not ibooks. Your statement, kcc, makes me wonder if there was another publishing run in the US later that I've never heard of.

[kkc]

Originally Posted by Walden

Something funny, now that I think about it. I thought Fighting Fantasy publishing stopped in the US with book 21, which in the initial run was Trial of Champions. This was in the 1980s, and I'm pretty sure the publisher was not ibooks. Your statement, kcc, makes me wonder if there was another publishing run in the US later that I've never heard of.

The initial US run was through Laurel Leaf through their relationship with Penguin Books. iBooks picked up the US rights around about the time that Wizard Books was doing their UK reprints in the early 2000s, but they never actually printed anything. So your memory is quite accurate.

[xlyce]

There is also a board game coming out using the licensed FF name on Gamefound.


And because I am OCD, and more N to annoucement page please