When I saw the Guild Wars 2 dragon today, I did a double take because of all the Dragon Age assets being shoved at us this past year. Seemed remarkably similar, only slightly different enough for someone who knew BOTH games well to tell them apart. I think the average consumer doesn’t analyze these things on such a detailed level — whatever impact branding has on the masses is there, but subconscious.

I’m sure ArenaNet already had their dragon worked out when BioWare/EA came out going, “Hey! Dragon Age!” and it seemed pointless for them to change it after so much effort. So I think the similarities are coincidental. Unfortunate, though, because I imagine from a marketing standpoint, you don’t want your logo to remind consumers of something ELSE… or as little as possible, since it’s hard being truly original these days without some jerks on the Internet crying things like, “God of War clone!! GRRR” (people have developed a habit of labeling action game “God of War clone”). I mean, it’s not a HUGE deal in this case, since you already stated that Dragon Age and GW2 are not direct competitors, but the similarity is awkward.

If these two logos ran into each other at a cocktail party, their exchange would be rather tense.