It appears more lawsuits are coming in the world of board gaming today, this time from the likes of massive delivery giant Amazon and board game publisher Asmodee.
The lawsuits in question are against two individuals, credited in the filings as Crazy Leaf and Gig Trading Inc., who were caught selling counterfeit versions of card game expansions distributed by Asmodee, and were selling them through Amazon's storefront. Those card game expansions in question were for the child-focused storytelling card game Dixit, specifically the Daydreams and Revelations respectively. This is highlighted by customer complaints that Amazon had received where customers complained of the cards having dull and horrible artwork, a far cry from the evocative and whimsical style the official artwork sports. Multiple complaints mark everything from inferior materials, incorrect formatting and color palette, and so on. All of this was done while still using officially trademarked titles and logos officially owned by Asmodee, and were actively being sold from 2018 to 2020.
What makes these claims of counterfeiting even more damning is that not only was this done on Amazon's storefront. Amazon has invested millions of dollars into ensuring any and all products sold on its website across its multiple third parties maintain consistent quality and that are not being sold by fraudulent sources. This includes the creation of the Amazon Brand Registry in 2017, a free set of tools to allow for any rights owner of a government-registered trademark to easily protect and report violations, a unique serialization system called Transparency implemented in 2018, and Amazon Project Zero in 2019 which allows major brands to immediately remove store listings of counterfeit products from the storefront.
It's moderately fascinating to see how exactly Crazy Leaf and Gig Trading will defend themselves in court against companies with such extensive resources and services at hand. The silver lining to this at least is Dixit players going forward won't have to worry about off-brand, inferior expansions messing with their day.
