Legendary British metal rock band Iron Maiden are suing 3D Realms, best known for the Duke Nukem series, for trademark infringement in Ion Maiden, a futuristic first-person shooter that released on Steam Early Access in February 2018.
Iron Maiden, or rather their holding company, filed the lawsuit in the Central District of California court on Tuesday claiming that the game’s logo is virtually identical to that of the band, confusing consumers into believing that the two entities are somehow related.
Among the claims in the court filing are that 3D Realms based Ion Maiden’s protagonist Shelly Harrison off of Iron Maiden founder and songwriter Steve Harris; based the yellow skull bomb emoji in the game’s title is off the character Eddie, who appears on virtually all of Iron Maiden’s albums, T-shirts and other merchandise; and adopted the steel cut font for the Ion Maiden name from the Iron Maiden mark.
Here’s Iron Maiden’s logo:
And here’s the logo for Ion Maiden:
The lawsuit also points out that actual confusion “has occurred in online articles and comments about the Ion Maiden video game including Iron Maiden fans,” from commenting that they were misled into believing that Ion Maiden is an Iron Maiden game, particularly a spin-off of the game The Legacy of the Beast, to wondering how 3D Realms got the license to use the Ion Maiden name from the band while reading an article about the game. Plus, they stated that a review of Ion Maiden references “Brit Rocker” Iron Maiden.
3D Realms issued a statement on Twitter regarding the lawsuit early this morning.
… (2/4) Shelly Harrison, originally debuting in 2016’s Bombshell, is based on their musician Steve Harris; our skull bomb icon found in-game is based on their skeleton mascot Eddie; our logo in itself is based on theirs; and other frivolous claims anyone who has played…
— 3D Realms (@3DRealms) May 30, 2019
(4/4)… lawsuit and will make any necessary decisions at the appropriate time.
Regardless, everyone continues to work diligently on Ion Maiden to deliver the best possible experience later this year.
— 3D Realms (@3DRealms) May 30, 2019
Iron Maiden Holdings, the band’s holding company, is seeking $2 million in damages, and also wants injunctions prohibiting the use or registration of the Ion Maiden logo and trademark, the destruction of any physical materials bearing it, and for the domain of the game’s website (ionmaiden.com) to be shut down or transferred to the band.
