Or is this better called: the case of the missing Guacamole?
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iPhone game developer, Gameheart, report that they have been forced to change the name of their game – till now called Guacamole. Apple were contacted by a bevy of lawyers from “the world’s biggest toy manufacturer” and told to remove the game from the App store. Apparently they (the biggest toy manufacturer) own the name!
Now understandably, Gameheart are surprised to learn that the word “guacamole” is owned by anyone. But the iPhonegizmo team are even more surprised that we could find out so little about it.
Mattel claims that it is the world’s biggest toy manufacturer. So we figured it would be easy to track down the Guacamole game – or whatever – that they were so concerned to “protect” (more on this below). But – no luck. As you can see in the following image – a search of their site turned up nadda.
But, hey, why should we take Mattel’s word for it that they are the biggest? So we checked out the next two contenders: Hasbro and BanDai: “Nothing”!
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But there is more to the mystery of the missing Guacamole, Batman!
Because a game of that name – from Mindware – is available at Amazon and also at Funagain. However!!!! There is no mention of that game on the Mindware site!
We suspect that the “biggest toy manufacturers” lawyers beat us there! And that while suppliers are gonna sell out their stock (can’t you see Amazon giving them the finger? well, only a bit of a finger as their listing changed from “Guacamole” to “Mindware Guacamole” overnight!) We fear that game won’t be seen again!
Well, you can’t keep a good game down – and Gamehart have smartly renamed their game as Smash Fiesta. Now the game used the ingredients of guacamole as the basis for their fun game – so it made sense to call it Guacamole.
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But here is the truly sorry part of that tale. The game has only ever been rated by 170 odd people (and 7 out of 10 give the current version a 4 or 5 star rating). The sad truth is that it is a virtual non-entity. A David to the biggest toy manufacturers’ Goliath! The thugs of the commercial world are afraid of the competition from this tiny, obscure and barely know little app developer. Pathetic really.
But the mystery of the missing Guacamole goes deeper. Because like Gamehart, we were surprised that the name guacamole could be owned by anyone. So we took a visit to the US Copyright Office. There were some 3316 names listed for Mattel, 1723 names listed for Hasbro, and 645 names for BanDai.
And not one of them are called “guacamole” !!
Maybe they are keeping this on the down and low so we all won’t get peeved and NOT buy their game? There is bound to be a backlash – there always is when big boys play bully boys!
Anyhow, we suggest you all go check out what the “worlds biggest manufacturer of toys” is so afraid of that they had to send in their bully boys in to kapow, kabam Apple!