Grand Theft Auto Developer Was in a Legal Dispute Over the Letter 'R': Yes, Really
Two veritable titans of the video game industry were apparently locked in a legal dispute over the 18th letter of the English alphabet, according to new court filings circulating online.
As originally reported on by Respawn First, Take-Two Interactive and Remedy Entertainment were in a legal spat over Remedy’s new company logo.
The article’s author took to X to share those legal documents, and the issue at hand is that Remedy’s new logo (a highly stylized white “R” on a black background) is too similar to the logo of Take-Two studio Rockstar (a stylized black “R” on a yellow background), the studio behind the wildly successful and popular Grand Theft Auto series of games.
Take-Two has filed a trademark dispute saying that Remedy’s new logo is too similar to their Rockstar Games logo.
(Source: https://t.co/thP5BoW5ND) pic.twitter.com/qllrxs9Aiv
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 16, 2024
As Respawn First notes, Take-Two has always been fiercely protective of anything that comes remotely near its domain, including a past case where the company took issue with co-op video game It Takes Two.
Of note, however, the author of the Respawn article seems confident this will ultimately be much ado about nothing.
“Both companies have a great working relationship. Won’t be long before this is sorted,” he posted to X.
And it turns out that the hunch was correct.
Remedy reached out to IGN and told the outlet that the trademark dispute was real, but handled amicably before it became an issue. Remedy even went so far as to describe the legal dispute as a mere “formality.”
Remedy Entertainment has reached out to IGN to clarify the trademark dispute with Grand Theft Auto owner Take-Two interactive stating, “The legal filing was simply an initial formality, and Remedy and Take-Two continue to work together in partnership.” https://t.co/3uSwjt2pFd pic.twitter.com/cyaj5ROH8e
— IGN (@IGN) January 18, 2024
Despite the quiet nature in which this particular issue was handled, it’s hardly the first (and certainly not the last) time that video game drama has turned into courtroom drama.
Beloved and popular Japanese video game titan Nintendo, of all companies, has developed something of a reputation for being aggressively litigious.
There are countless documented cases where things as benign as fan projects (which are typically dispersed for free on the internet) have been shut down by Nintendo’s lawyers.
Take-Two may not have quite the same litigious reputation as the Big N, at least among casual fans, but they may very well start cracking down on things after the way in which its ballyhooed GTA 6 trailer was unceremoniously leaked by an autistic hacker.
In September 2022, an autistic hacker who is part of the collective known as “Lapsus$” successfully hacked into and uncovered troves of footage and imagery from then-unannounced Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rockstar claimed that this hack cost the company $5 million and “thousands” of hours of manpower.
While the game company behind smash hits like GTA and Red Dead Redemption (a literal game about cowboys and bandits) is obviously less than thrilled with the hack, one has to wonder if the company behind those crime-driven games almost has a smidgen of respect for how the hack went down.
That’s because the 18-year-old hacker, who has since been sentenced to an indefinite hospital imprisonment, successfully hacked Rockstar with little more than “an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone,” BBC reported.
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