Good Week For Rockstar

No, that wasn’t a sarcastic or hypothetical header. The emerging kings of table tennis (really, is there any competition for that title?) managed to stay out of the “oh my, you’ll never guess what they did now” news, though even their triumphs involved bullies, ‘exotic dancers’, and houses of ill-repute.

Hot on the heels of the confirmation that the very controversial PS2 game Bully will be on the shelves just in time for little Jimmy’s stocking, Rockstar appears to have scored a legal victory over The Play Pen, a entertainment venue in Los Angeles. The companies corporate overlord, E.S.S. Entertainment, took issue with the similarity between the logo and awning used in GTA: San Andreas’ “The Pig Pen”, and their own visible brand presence.

The judge in the case, addressing concerns from The Play Pen that Rockstar’s use of their likeness somehow misled consumers on both ends, declared:

The Pig Pen has artistic relevance to the defendants’ twisted, irreverent image of urban Los Angeles… [Rockstar’s] aim in creating East Los Santos was to evoke an image of East Los Angeles, but to tweak that image to fit the overall ‘look and feel’ of San Andreas, as well as the narrative of a city overrun by gangs, drug dealers, and prostitutes. Any visual work that seeks to offer an artistic commentary on a particular subject must use identifiable features of that subject so that the commentary will be understood and appreciated by the consumer.

Seems to me that the judge is assuming San Andreas players are habitual stage-stalkers at The Play Pen, and thus must rightly know and recognize their favourite pad, even subconsciously, while playing the game. Sadly, for me, this is not the case and the supposed artistic commentary was completely lost and underappreciated.

My strip club experience isn’t the point mind you….Rockstar actually won a lawsuit, so congratulations to their embattled legal team. Call me crazy, but something tells me that the critics are already queued up and slavering to take a chomp at Bully, so time in the court room may not be finished.

Via|SPOnG