Someone Announced Glover 2 Without Holding The Rights To Glover 1
In one of the weirder news stories to come across our desk this month, a German game studio announced they were beginning work on a sequel to the critically panned, publically mocked 1999 platformer Glover. In the game, you made a living glove walk around and push a ball past obstacles to the end of multiple stages. It got some attention, but for the wrong reasons.
Glover didn’t have many unironic fans, but one of them was Melvin Zatink, managing director at Golden Mushroom Studio. “We start[ed] in 2016 with many small projects as a contract developer for other video game companies or app developers to build up our treasury,” he told Kotaku. When Golden Mushroom started making plans to develop games, Zatink had one big idea: the return of Glover! “I have so many lucky memories with this game,” he said.
Golden Mushroom looked into who held the rights to the original title, and found the “Glover” trademark was no longer active and ready to purchase. They did so, and then announced Glover 2. This was news to Piko Interactive, the studio that actually DID buy the rights to the Glover IP in 2017, evidently with plans to re-release the original (Piko specializes in remastering old games).
What Golden Mushroom had done was confuse trademark with copyright. The word “Glover” was free to apply to a video game, but the character didn’t come with it. They had to go with the backup plan of negotiating the rights with Piko, but they probably hadn’t made the best first impression, and they ultimately failed to get permission. Sorry to disappoint you all, but there will be no Glover 2.
Golden Mushroom now plans to make a “spiritual successor” to Glover instead…..perhaps called Hander or something. Or maybe with their new trademarked name, they cam make a 3D platformer starring Donald Glover instead.