First, a quick review… Falls Media, makers of a board game by the name of “Would You Rather?”, sued Zobmondo, makers of another board game by the name of “Would You Rather?”, for infringing on their registered trademark. A lower court sided with Zobmondo and invalidated Falls Media’s trademark for being too generic. An upper court, however, disagreed and reinstated the trademark. Then, the owner of Falls Media sold the game (and others) to Spin Master. Spin Master eventually won a judgement against Zobmondo.

Now, for the update… According to One Mighty Roar, operators of YouRather.com and developers of You Rather mobile apps, the company recently received notice from Apple and Google that sales of its apps were being suspended due to complaints by Spin Master. The website and apps work pretty much like the board game, asking players to choose between two options, such as, “Would you rather eat a container of butter or drink a bottle of maple syrup?”

When One Roar followed up with Spin Master’s attorneys, they eventually received (again, according to One Roar) the following list of demands:

1. Stop using “You Rather” and any other phrases that are similar to “Would you rather”. This includes one or more of the words “Would”, “You”, or “Rather”.

2. Hand over our yourather.com domain immediately

3. Tell them how much money You Rather has made

4. Pay for their lawyers

The Spin Master attorneys even suggested replacement phrases:

• “This or that”
• “Yes or no”
• “Either this or that”
• “I choose”
• “Do ya wanna”

However, rather than submit, One Roar has filed in federal court a request for declaratory judgement. The briefing—providing several other examples of the phrase, “Would you rather”, being used for similar purposes but not referring to the board game—makes two alternative arguments. This first is that “would you rather” is merely descriptive and therefore can’t be used as a trademark. The second is that the public understands the phrase, “would you rather”, as being generic and therefore its use would not create confusion.

I attempted to contact Spin Master but they did not reply in time for publication.

[via Above the Law]

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No collectible games for Spin Master this year. Yet still there were a number of new products to see. After all, the company was declared the number 3 games manufacturer in 2012 by NPD.

Boom Boom Balloon makes a game out of popping balloons. The box includes balloons printed with a face, a vice-like device, long blunt-ended pins, and a die. You blow up the balloon, put it in the vice, and roll the die. The die will show a number 1-3, which is the number of clicks you have to press in the pins. The goal, of course, is to keep the balloon from popping as long as possible. It’s really amazing how quickly the tension builds.

With Storage Wars the Game you can pretend to be part of A&E’s reality TV show about buying abandoned storage lockers. Not surprisingly, the main focus of the game is on the auction, but there’s some very interesting mechanics that come before and after, as well. To start off with, it’s the players themselves who fill the lockers with goods. Each gets four tokens representing goods of various quality—for example, a +$500 antique or a -$100 clothing—and secretly places one token in each of the four lockers. Thus each player knows something about the value of each locker, but not everything. After the auction, the total value of a purchased locker may be adjusted according the character played by the person who purchased it. For example, collectibles are more valuable to Barry and furniture is more valuable to Jarrod.

A special version of The Hobbit Stratego should be available in the fall for $20. It will include a two-sided board—one side with the classic Stratego grid, the other with an “Escape from Mirkwood” configuration for a more linear adventure.

Another new licensed property for Spin Master is Monsters University, for which the company is producing a Who’s Behind the Door? character guessing game, a Look-a-Likes matching game, and the LCR dice game in a one-big-eye Mike Wazowski package.

And then there’s the series of variations on Spin Master’s earlier games. Headbanz Act Up requires players to act out what’s posted on each other’s foreheads. Instead of focusing on corporate trivia, Logo Party is more interactive than the original, for example, having players draw the logos. And Fact or Crap Celebrity concentrates the game on stories—true and not—about famous people.

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Spin Master is by no means giving up on the mass collectible market, but they did confirm at the show their strong interest in traditional board games. The company’s plans include both extending existing brands and further acquisitions. While they wouldn’t give any specifics regarding potential acquisitions, Spin Master did feature board games prominently in their booth (actually, more like a walled-off compound). Most interesting, at least to me, were the company’s samples for Stratego, a license which they were quite proud to have stolen from Hasbro.

Spin Master will be offering Stratego in two versions, one for specialty shops and one for the chain stores. For the specialty shops, Stratego will come in a 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition at a suggested retail price of $40. It will feature a leather-like cover, a divider board to make secret setup easier, and artwork with a Napoleonic theme. The $25 mass market version of Stratego is based on a science fiction theme.

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The 50 year-old license for Stratego, lost by Hasbro, has been awarded by Jumbo Diset to Spin Master (who’s otherwise best known, I think, for Bakugan). I love this comment by Jumbo Diset’s Arend Smits, quoted by Playthings:

We regard Spin Master as a totally marketing driven toy company.

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