Love In The First Degree: Devs Warned Realism Brings Lawsuits
REALISM. Everybody wants realism, right? Course we do! We want to see the sweat on Ray Lewis' big manly arms, we want our cars to not crash but disintegrate on contact, we want Dead or Alive's primary art assets to bounce like we think they should be bouncing. Realism's all the rage.
Pity it can also bring a ton of lawsuits down on the industry. Over at GameDaily.biz, Orrick attorneys Jason S. Angell and Siddhartha Venkatesan have sounded out a warning to the games industry that the more realistic games are becoming, the more likely they are to attract copyright infrigement lawsuits, from both people and institutions.
In modeling the real world in a virtual environment, game developers should always think carefully when including distinctive individuals, landmarks, or locally known businesses or logos. Any such inclusion could ultimately result in an intellectual property lawsuit.
Yes, they can, and the lawyers raise two recent cases involving Sega (Ulala) and Rockstar (the PigPen in San Andreas) as examples. Best part of the story, though? The fact these two lawyers are warning people off hiring them! Unheard of.
Developers Beware: Realism Can Come with a Lawsuit and a Hefty Price Tag [GameDaily.biz]
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