Megan Fox
Don't use real brands in your games/novels
Not because you can't, but because you often can in novels at least— but shouldn't, because you're giving mega corps free advertising.
I mean there's other good reasons too, like "inventing dumb fake brands is half the fun", but that's plenty reason already. Don't lick boots, even if they taste like Oreo.
Scott Michaud
@glassbottommeg Some people even make fake brands tie canonical universes together. <cough>
Tom Forsyth
@glassbottommeg Well unless you get fucking paid. And then make it so obnoxiously obvious that you got paid so they pay you more to shut the fuck up about it.
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
most PSBs (public service broadcasters) have similar rules - in UK the popular cartoon cat "Top Cat" was called "Boss Cat" on Childrens BBC until 1980s as there was an existing UK brand of cat food called "Top Cat.
Janne Moren
@glassbottommeg
Also, you never know if that brand you tossed in will suddenly be tainted and have a completely different meaning to people a few years down the road.
Japanese state TV has strict prohibitions on any brand imaging at all. Every drama scene with a computer screen is full of stuff like a "Goggle" search screen, the "Ahomon" online retailer and so on.
NHK can't even call the May holiday "Golden Week" (that everyone uses) since it originated in a TV commercial decades ago.
The Seven Voyages Of Steve
@glassbottommeg worth noting for all the folks who think using real brands is more immersive: it often doesn’t work cross-culturally anyway. The world is more global than it was and UK/US are more aligned than many, but still I often can’t tell if a lot of American brands are real or fictional 😉
Tom Forsyth
@grumpygamer @glassbottommeg @ja2ke Right. If you're going to claim "it was just there when I did this, and it's too hard to remove" then you're claiming to be a documentary-maker. Which for a videogame is completely implausible. If it's there, you wanted it to be there, therefore it is active use.
Ron Gilbert, Esq.
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke As explained to me, that would not fly because you're not using it in a way the IP holder would, like a street sign. I'm not a lawyer, it was just what was explained to me.
Megan Fox
@ja2ke @grumpygamer right?
And even if they said no because it becomes an asset first, what if you did video based generation runtime? What if I pulled the Coke logo out of video with a shader and threw that around? Surely that flies.
Jake Rodkin
@glassbottommeg @grumpygamer I also wonder if this would apply to 3D scanned props.
Megan Fox
@grumpygamer @ja2ke oh! Always wondered what the difference was for novel vs games.
Which means we could incorporate them into games via video? Weird thought. Until now wouldn't be sure how, but with Control and Alan Wake 2, well. Huh!
Jake Rodkin
@glassbottommeg damn… strong disagree I think. Saying a character drank a Coke is just life. Hanging out behind the Taco Bell is a real thing people do. Hanging out behind the Taco Schmacko isn’t. If your story is taking place in the real world it’s okay to set it there. We live in a world full of brands. It’s also fine and great to make a subtly different AU where the same amount of brand presence exists but it’s all fake. It just won’t seem like it takes place in real life (in this one way)
Ron Gilbert, Esq.
@ja2ke @glassbottommeg I had this explained to me by a real lawyer. You can use real brands in your game, book, movie, you just can't disparage them. You can't redraw their logos and that is a problem for non-text based stuff. Movies can film a McDonalds sign that is on the street. Animated films can't redraw it.
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