Hacker News Reader

Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

Ehh, I think Humvee saw a company making a truckload of money and felt they had a right to some of it given that they own a major vehicle that's used in the game. I could easily see an ego-maniacal CEO or founder getting pissed that he's not getting paid for something he feels entitled to.

Maybe they're seeing how pro athletes are licensing their likeness to games and thought they could make a compelling argument for why they should too. Whatever the reason, I also agree with outcome of the suit.

View on HN

The flow is typically in the other direction, though -- companies pay for placement of their products in media, like movies and video games, as it's seen as a form of advertising.

That's what I thought too, but then your comment got me thinking deeper. What you said definitely seems to be the case for general media, but what about something that relies almost entirely on the realistic products to be compelling?

The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them?

The game makers pay for racing games, or at least work out deals regarding marketing etc. I've read that car companies also care a lot about the presentation in-game, so e.g. games with real cars can't have extreme damage models because many companies don't want horribly wrecked versions of their cars to be shown.

> The specific example I was thinking of was racing games that use real cars (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.). Do those companies get paid to feature real cars or do they have to pay to use them?

I'm not sure, but I imagine so.

What gets complicated is how the cars are depicted in the games. I've heard stories of racing simulators which couldn't use realistic damage models because the licensors for their cars wouldn't approve of having their cars depicted in a damaged state. I can imagine there might be issues with having some models of cars modelled as having worse performance than their competitors (slower, worse handling, etc) as well.

It's not as though this is unique to video games, though. A company that's paying to have their car appear in a movie might stipulate that it not appear in situations involving it breaking down or crashing, for instance.

This makes me think of the report [1] that Apple won’t let movie bad guys have iPhones, or apparently soda companies won’t let you see branded soda cans being thrown in the trash in movies.

It does seem to me like it shouldn’t be in the public interest to allow brands to fully control representations of their products in media since that clearly provides a mechanism to stifle critical representations (or even simply accurate ones that don’t match the desired corporate image).

It goes both ways. Back when James Bond was sorta new, they had to buy or rent Aston Martins in order to make Bond look cool, now Aston Martin has to pay for Bond to drive one, in order for Aston Martins to look cool.

To play devil's advocate, it's not just Activision using the HUMVEE name in the games, but also the likeness of the vehicle. This could be construed as a tacit approval by AM General of the CoD product line, which they may not wish to be associated with.

Personally, I think this should fall into the same sort of fair use as if a HUMVEE was used in a movie without AM General's approval.

Also, I think both sides are being a little childish amd ahould have come to terma outside of court.

Licensing for games is common for car manufacturers as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com