Call of Duty's Legal Victory Could Change the Racing Game Landscape

[Slapped]

Seriously, I feel that everytime the topic of licensing comes up, gamers will use any angle to justify getting more of what they want. That's not to say this isn't an interesting ruling, I wonder which title would a sim racer be more likely to buy, one that 150 unlicensed cars, or one that had 50 licensed cars? Which would they have more faith in being an accurate representation of the cars they were using? I'd suggest it should be the latter, but I suspect they'd fall back on some argument around tyres, and then buy the one with more cars in it. Maybe with eSports that doesn't matter anymore anyway. An accurate representation of the cars is falling behind the need to provide a level playing field for competitors, in real life, BOP has to account for this... in gaming, they can just say... LOL and give everything the same physics model.

Personally, I'd rather licensing found a more a favourable level for gamers naturally, rather than relying on the courts to take manufacturers IP out of manufacturers hands. If games provided more tangible benefits for car makers, licensing would be less about money, because they'd be getting more back for giving away their brand equity... at the moment that's seemingly done with money, it would be nice if it was value instead.

In response to the selected part of your quote I would say that depends on who's developing the title. Put it this way if it was EA that had the 50 licenced cars for yet another installment of NFS would you, as a sim-racer, buy it over say something from Kunos that had 150 unlicenced cars?

 

[MatskiMonk]

Put it this way if it was EA that had the 50 licenced cars for yet another installment of NFS would you, as a sim-racer, buy it over say something from Kunos that had 150 unlicenced cars?

I'm not sure I follow, simulation accuracy has never appeared to be the goal of NFS, nor is it likely to be high on the list of criteria for people that by the game. The purpose of the license there is more simply about brand presence, so for an NFS game I'd probably prioritise car count over accuracy... but there'd be a number of other factors equally important, or more so. If the decision is, do I buy NFS or ACC, it's apples and oranges, I buy the one that offers the experience I want... illegal street racing and customisation, or pretending to be a real racing driver.

 

[Roger the Horse]

There is a clash here between how Gamers (and especially sim racers) use the term 'realistic' and how the court is using the term 'realistic'.

 

[sesselpupser]

The way I see it, as interesting as this is, can you call simulators, as they exist today, art? They are literally the opposite, in my opinion, in that art usually has creativity involved somewhere (either in the creation of the art or in the reinterpretation of something that already exists in a different way) but there's not really much of that in laser scanning tracks and importing CAD data to achieve as close to 1:1 parity as possible, is there?

So are we going to have to deal with simulators having stories added as a loophole or something?

 

[Famine]

Isn't selling worldwide covered by the fact that CoD is?

No. In this instance the case was brought by a US vehicle manufacturer which sells to the US military, in the US. AM General has zero presence outside the US (in that it doesn't sell in markets outside the US; you can still see HMMWV outside the US, primarily in or around US bases or in a combat zone), thus no similar suit can be brought in other territories.

In the case of a Japanese developer including an Italian supercar brand, there could be suits in literally every territory. The exception would be if the publisher is a US publisher and the brand bringing the case was the US arm of the Italian supercar brand, where this case now gives legal precedent for the car to be in the game as art - though I agree with @Tornado that it'd be a brave move from the publisher and not one that will necessarily occur in the real world (hence the "could" in our article title).

The way I see it, as interesting as this is, can you call simulators, as they exist today, art?

The ruling includes the comment that realism is an artistic goal. So yes.


For general consumption, I linked the 29-page ruling in the article. It doesn't say anything about whether the game profits off the inclusion of the marque, trades off the inclusion of the marque, whether the central theme is cars or not cars, or any of several other things brought up in this thread as a reason why, say, Forza Motorsport can't have an Auburn Speedster in the game without having to pay for it - except that this is essentially a 1A ruling which, yes, only applies to US brands and within the USA (the ruling for COD is inapplicable outside the USA, but the brand in question has no presence and thus no case to bring outside the USA).

From reading through the ruling thoroughly, the only stumbling point I can see is that of player expectation; players expect to see US Marines riding around Arabic countries in Hummvees in a game striving for realistic depictions of war in the Middle East, thus the Hummvee is allowed to be there even if it's technically (or "metaphysically", as it says in the ruling) possible for it not to be. That's something you could easily apply to a racing game with a career mode striving for a realistic depiction of a race driver's career: the player reaches the highest level of motorsport within the game's narrative and would expect to be able to drive an LMP1H around Le Mans - or an F1 car around Monaco - thus the car and track are allowed to be there even if it's metaphysically possible for them not to be.

Whether it would apply to a random supercar street-racing around a fictional representation of a random city... well, that'll end up as the basis of a future lawsuit against a terribly brave publisher.

I'll re-link the whole ruling here. It is worth reading to form a basis for an opinion: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6823541-Humvee.html

 

[Lord Protector]

Companies like PD would never go and feature cars without the brand’s permission. There have long-lasting partnerships and I highly doubt they would jeopardize them like that.

 

[ShawnPhillips]

I highly doubt this ruling would out right kill the need for licensing, or manufactures placing restrictions on what games can do with their products, But it might open a few doors that where previously closed.

 

[sirjim73]

Companies like PD would never go and feature cars without the brand’s permission. There have long-lasting partnerships and I highly doubt they would jeopardize them like that.

I'd cite Lotus as an example, in a way, of this attitude.

From what we know, PD have gone to great pains to indicate that the exclusion from GTS is purely a financial issue being dealt with by the relevant lawyers on each side and is not intended to have any impact on their current or future relationship, keeping emotion out of the dispute.

 

[C5-R_Racer_84]

Holy crap, it seems that Activision's massively over-rated and over-hyped Call of Duty series may have actually done something good for the gaming community at large.

 

[omgitsbees]

There is a clash here between how Gamers (and especially sim racers) use the term 'realistic' and how the court is using the term 'realistic'.

Considering the court that made the ruling in Activisions favor, called Call of Duty realistic, you would be correct.

 

[wheelhp]

Ahhhhhh. so THIS is how Car X drift Racing online has it's debadged but identical cars in game. Neato!