Saban Brands Lawyers Up on Chroma Squad – Wants Royalties

We haven’t talked much about it here, but there’s this awesome indie game being created, thanks to a crowd-funded Kickstarter, called Chroma Squad! The premise behind the game was that you created your own Super Sentai television show – complete from picking the Rangers, the actors, and played the game in a semi-RPG style to gain ratings, more funding, and unlock cool things as you progressed through your created season. The game was successfully funded through Kickstarter on August 21st, 2013 at $97,148 with a goal of $55,000.

However, the villain that faces the Chroma Squad right now isn’t digital or even made of rubber – it’s made of suits that represent Saban Brands, owners of the Power Rangers intellectual property across the globe, which of course, is adapted from Super Sentai. According to an E-mail sent to backers of the Kickstarter, Saban Brands has threatened to sue the developers if they continue to release the game … unless they agree to split royalties. Now, as many note, Chroma Squad is more based on Super Sentai than it is anything Power Rangers, but alas – Saban Brands does own the adaption rights nearly worldwide for Super Sentai.

Either way, the fan community is split – those who followed and backed the Chroma Squad project are angry. There are others who didn’t follow it because they weren’t interested and they don’t seem to care either way. This only begs the question – why can’t Saban Brands go after something that calls itself Power Rangers, has those involved referring to themselves as Power Rangers (even to sick kids in hospitals), has names directly taken from Power Rangers, and has potentially ripped off hundreds of fans for tens of thousands of dollars? Especially instead of something that doesn’t refer to itself as such and was going to be made simply to give a lot of video game fans who enjoy Super Sentai and Power Rangers a chance to live out their imagination? If you need some help Haim Saban, we’re more than happy to point you in the right direction.

Sound off #RangerNation … is Saban Brands going too far? Or are they justified in their decision? We’d love to hear your thoughts! Stay tuned for further updates on this story.