The Store Is Closed is a new survival game concept that’s still in development but has a fun premise – the player is stuck in an infinite furniture store where the mutant staff is trying to attack them. However, according to IKEA’s lawyers, The Store Is Closed infringes on the company’s reputation, trademarks, and trade dress.

IKEA to Sue for Trademark Infringement

The only way to stay alive in The Store Is Closed is to explore the different aisles and craft weapons and fortifications using the many types of furniture. According to IKEA, the infinite store in the game looks and feels like their store, and that’d make the player think of the Swedish purveyor of assemble-your-own furniture. It should also be mentioned that the game’s creator Jacob Shaw once referred to it as an infinite IKEA game, as some streamers and websites reported on the project.

The Game Looks Like an Infinite IKEA

Unfortunately for Jacob Shaw, The Store Is Closed came to the attention of IKEA soon after it gained some popularity. The store’s legal representatives sent Shaw a letter in which they demanded that the game gets changed and also threatened with a lawsuit if their request was denied. The letter stated that IKEA had learned of the development of the video game, The Store Is Closed, pointing out how it used indicia associated with its stores without their authorization.

IKEA Will Not Halt the Project

According to IKEA, the game uses a blue and yellow sign and a Scandinavian name on a store that looks like a blue box-like building. The staff was wearing yellow vertical-striped shirts that were identical to those that the IKEA personnel wears. Apparently, the furniture also looked like IKEA furniture, and there was even a gray path on the floor. According to the store’s lawyers, all that suggested that the game was happening in an IKEA.

Fortunately, IKEA will not demand the project be halted. They just wanted the game to be changed so it doesn’t look like an IKEA store. The problem for Shaw is that the store wasn’t perfectly clear on how he should achieve that. While some details of the game can easily be changed, others may not be so simple to change or remove, like the furniture. According to Shaw, he bought generic furniture asset packs for his game. Still, he’s now planning to comply with the demands because he’d rather not get sued. He also stated he was uncertain what would actually satisfy IKEA. Despite this surprise legal blunder, Shaw remains determined to go ahead with development on The Store Is Closed.

Fall Guys went free-to-play a few weeks ago after it left Steam and became an Epic Games Store exclusive. After the change in storefronts, the Fall Guys player count on Steam still received a huge spike, scoring almost five times as many players as it did at its peak. Unsurprisingly, it’s doing pretty good on Epic and even set a new record for active players on June 21, when Fall Guys went free.

Fall Guys Set a New Record for Active Players When it Became Free

It was a huge week for Fall Guys as they had more than doubled their previous active player record, contributing to a record number of players for the store. Epic thanked all the new players and clarified that the record number of active players referred to the cumulative number on the storefront during that day. Apparently, Fall Guys greatly contributed to the total number.

Player numbers for individual Epic Store games aren’t readily available but that is not the case on Steam. It enables people to draw conclusions about how a game is doing. According to Steamcharts, the all-time peak of players for Fall Guys on Steam was 172,026, putting the total number of players enjoying the game at 350,000.

Fall Guys Is Now Epic Store Exclusive but Is Still Played on Steam

So far, Fall Guys keeps getting significant attention on Steam, despite not being available for purchase there. It recently achieved a peak concurrent player count of over 56,500. Apparently, Fall Guys got 20 million total players during the first two days after going free to play. That kind of sudden rise in players is bound to bring about some challenges. Apparently, Mediatonic is still rolling out updates to ensure the new load of players gets handled properly.

The latest updates are really impactful. PS5 Players will be able to get into games when in a Party and teams will no longer spawn in the same place during Team Rounds. The company has also fixed some visual issues with Nintendo Switch and Spawn FX, some buttons and intro cameras, and issues with Airtime and Sweet Thieves intro cams.

Mediatonic Fixed Many Bugs That Fall Guys Had in the Past

Mediatonic fixed a bug that kept party members in the queue, even though a new player had joined the party. They also fixed visual issues like invisible tiles, control issues, and graphical corruption problems. Animation problems, communication issues, and a problem with freezing when changing controllers were all resolved as well, among other issues. Unfortunately, Mediatonic disabled the Daily Store while working on some of the more persistent issues. They then ensured the store was back online. Now that Fall Guys is getting even more popular, it is certain that it will receive more updates and fixes as time goes on.