Suppose, hypothetically, that you own a company. At one time, your company had a cutting edge product that has become somewhat iconic. It wasn’t exactly revolutionary in concept, and it was workshopped through amateurs in nerd forums for a while, but you were the first to do the dirty work of putting together a supply chain for large-scale production. By hook or crook, many begin to refer to your product as the thing, much like we do Kleenex or Post-Its.
As time passes, a newer generation of tinkerers, inspired by your initial design, begin to experiment with new variations of the product. They may add additional features, make it smaller, etc. – a completely predictable course of events in the sort of DIY communities that your product is popular with. But it’s not just enthusiasts; big companies that make peripherals in your field are now beginning to make their own variants. And little by little, your initial groundbreaking product starts to become a tad passé. Sure, there are still some areas where you excel, like customer service and exclusive contracts with vendors, but it is really tough to compete with companies that have far, far outstripped your small business in terms of budget and scope.
And sure, it might be beneficial to expand your horizons, possibly invest a bit of dough into R&D and see how you can put out a product that can adequately compete with the variety the marketplace appears to be embracing, but that shit is for nerds! Outdated doesn’t mean non-functional! Why fix what isn’t broke?
Luckily, there’s one last ace up your sleeve, something that can keep you in the game even if you’re a little a behind the times. Way back when, when you first got your business started, you had the foresight to protect your product for good by filing two different patents on it with the US Patent Office! It made sense – after all, this was a small garage-based outfit that was entering an ocean with sharks who could (and likely would) steal the idea for themselves if they could. With these patents, however, you now had strong legal recourse if someone were to lift your design for themselves, in addition to having a trademark on the product’s name.
Of course, the next problem is that even after all these years, you still don’t have the means of taking on a major corporation in a protracted legal battle. Worse, you don’t really have any leverage to get these corporations to come to the negotiating table – their spin-offs are distinct enough with a different name, and you don’t have anything but an online storefront that might change their minds.
But what you can do is notice those little pissants who are way more on your level.
They might not be able to do much but agree to a licensing fee of some kind, but you can still show ‘em a thing or two while you focus on your own product. There’s a catch though – the look of this is terrible. A company with established bonafides going after the exact same thing you were once upon a time, and all for a nominal fee? Those DIY communities suddenly feel like you’re taking on the role of big business, puffing your chest out and stamping out the little guy. It’s your legal right, but any good company has to look out for its rep too! What’s a small business owner to do?
You think long and hard to yourself, look at what larger, more successful companies have done in similar situations, and come up with a foolproof plan. The communities your product tends to be popular in all love that ‘community’ shit, right? And while you were just protecting your rights as an IP holder, it was what the kids might call an L to just have your lawyers send cease & desist orders.
What if instead you created a tiered licensing system, available to any who can pass inspection, and protect your inferior product that way?Now, you’re not strong-arming anyone with legal notices, you’re just putting it out there that you’re willing to offer a friendly hand and a big sticker of approval should they dare sell their competing product anywhere. Plus, other companies might have more to offer than these pissants you’ve already dealt with, that’s just being real. A shiny gold sticker will let the customer know right away that they don’t have a low tier product that merits a red sticker. As an added bonus, you can tie access to the customer data, such as emails and user info, as well as contact lists of vendors and potential clients that you’ve built up behind the tiers. The more clout you can get from a competing business, the better, and you have to pony up some valuable stuff in order to get them to go onboard with your much smaller company throwing its weight around.
Let’s say all that goes down. What could possibly go wrong!?
I’ll drop the irony-poisoned bit for a minute to say that everything hypothetically described above is genuinely happening with the leverless controller brand Hitbox. Just the other day they announced a 3-tiered licensing program with which they expect leverless controller makers to apply for. As noted, there is no imminent threat of legal action, but considering the company has an ongoing suit against JunkFood Arcades for making a micro version of their all-pushbutton design controller, I don’t have much faith that they won’t be litigious.
I won’t be a hack and say things like “that goes against the FGC!”, because it doesn’t. There is nothing more “FGC,” to me, than trying to squeeze blood from a stone and targeting those who are no real threat to you and letting major corporations dick you around. Hitbox, sadly, decided to continue that trend instead of bucking it. I also won’t pretend that I haven’t vigorously defended their particular product in a blog post some years ago, because I was right. Hitbox, like them or not, has received a ton of unfair, bad faith criticism from people who don’t understand the product or its history. Defending that is a whole separate thing than agreeing with their business decisions, which I couldn’t disagree more with.
What gets me is this is the kind of move we’ve seen from Nintendo and Capcom, who genuinely require some sort of licensing if you want to run big events and essentially profit off their IP. Sadly, there’s really not much you can do about it despite the obvious imbalance – they are the IP holders and even streaming the game without permission is technically in violation of that. But that’s Nintendo and Capcom…Hitbox? Really? They are in fact the pissant company that they believe all the other leverless controller makers are. They couldn’t turn a phrase let alone a profit, and now instead of competing in the marketplace, they want to bring it to heel through bullying?
When they sued Junkfood Arcade, I didn’t like it, but I recognized it was their right and wondered if that smoke was going to come for Sony and Razor’s Kitsune. After all, if the snackbox infringes on the patent, then the Kitsune should be a slam dunk, right? Wrong! Hitbox is, like most bullies, only going to go after who they can effectively take down. Stunning and brave.
It’s an absurd tactic from an absurd company. They make a grand proclamation about “protecting their IP” from shoddy products, when this has never been an issue. Who is trying to make a quick buck with an inferior product other than you? The twisted irony in all of this is they could probably do with a quality control sticker more than anybody, but they prefer to lord that over other small businesses rather than shoot your shot at the big boys. Instead of holding them accountable for stealing your patent, as you claim these much smaller businesses do, you are desperate for clout from them by offering up our information and data to them so they can continue to trounce you in the market. It’s rare to see something so embarrassing happen in broad daylight.
Just cut the horseshit. Get back to doing what you did in 2010 and make a damn thing that people want to buy. Yes, there is a flood of alternatives now, but tough shit. That’s the business we’re in, it happens to everybody. If they truly think that this vague threat of litigation is actually going to solve their alleged “issue”, then they’re even dumber than I thought. What it will do, of course, is earn the ire of a lot of people, while nothing really changes and the world keeps on spinning.
Just cut the shit, man.
Them's fighting words!! 
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