The indie studio that took on the might of Monster Energy, and won, is having the hit game at the center of the dispute adapted into a movie. Deadline reports that Glowstick Entertainment has inked a deal for its survival horror game Dark Deception to be adapted into a feature film by indie production outfit So It Goes Entertainment.
Dark Deception is a horror game based around a Resi-style mazy hotel filled with lots of horrible monsters that has, per So It Goes, sold over six-and-a-half million copies and had 58 million players. The game was created by Glowstick CEO Vincent Livings, and will be adapted by Adrian Speckert and Cory Todd Hughes: there’s no news yet on any casting or director.
Glowstick’s Dark Deception may have plenty of monsters, but it was a spinoff that led to a public spat with Monster Energy, the ubiquitous energy drink brand owned by Coca Cola. Part of Monster’s marketing is aimed at the gamer demographic but, outside of official tie-ins like Death Stranding, this means it has been somewhat litigious within the games industry: it even took on Ubisoft over Immortals: Fenyx Rising (which was at one stage called Gods and Monsters).
Monster throws its considerable weight around whenever it catches a sniff of the word “monster” being used to describe something that, y’know, has monsters in it.
Yep, it’s another brand that thinks it owns the generic word it’s adopted. This time, however, it picked the wrong target. In early 2023 it took aim at Glowstick for the great crime of making a multiplayer game called Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals. But CEO Vincent Livings immediately started posting about the legal threats and the absurd settlement offered by Monster, which would’ve banned the studio from ever again using the word “monster” or variations in a game name.
“It’s well known that Monster Energy is a notorious trademark troll,” said Livings at the time. “Unfortunately, they’re at it again. For a company that likes to target their drinks at gamers, they also like to try to bully and bankrupt game studios with lengthy high dollar litigation. Monster Energy’s lawyers are coming after us right now, because [Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals] has the word ‘Monsters’ in it. They claim that our game is confusingly similar to their energy drink. Yep, that’s really their claim.”
Livings declared his intention to fight Monster in court rather than “roll over”, and also shared various documentation publicly in order to help anyone else facing those Coca Cola lawyers.
Thankfully, when matters actually reached the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), it resulted in glorious victory for Glowstick, which can now make as many games as it likes with “monster” in the title: or, come to that, movies.
“Great news,” said Livings in August 2023. “We’ve officially won our trademark battle against MonsterEnergy, The USPTO board ruled in our favor today. ‘Monsters & Mortals’ belongs to us! They will never own the word ‘monster’.”
