GTA And Alan Wake Devs Are Beefing Over The Letter ‘R’

Two gaming giants have entered the legal colosseum. GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive has dragged the Alan Wake developer into a trademark dispute over Remedy Entertainment’s new logo design.

As reported by Eurogamer (via RespawnFirst), Take-Two Interactive filed two trademark disputes against Remedy Entertainment back in May 2023. Remedy’s logo, a stylized “R” that looks like it’s been cut three times, was revealed in April 2023 and aimed to signify a new era for the Finland-based developer. But, according to RespawnFirst, Take-Two Interactive claims Remedy Entertainment’s new design creates “a likelihood of confusion on the part of the public” with Rockstar Games, creators of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series.

Kotaku reached out to Remedy Entertainment and Take-Two Interactive for comment.

In Twitter DMs with Kotaku, Haley MacLean, a lawyer with the Canadian firm Voyer Law, said the concern here is whether consumers can easily tell the difference between the two logos.

“With this ‘average consumer’ in mind, the question is would this legally fictitious person be confused between the Rockstar ‘R’ with the added star and the Remedy logo with the repeating ‘R’ design,” MacLean tells Kotaku. “They both are selling goods/services in the same market, namely video games, which is critical in the assessment, too. But the logos have numerous distinctions, like different fonts, the added stylizations of each (a star added for Rockstar vs a split R for Remedy), and in particular the Remedy logo that also has their studio name “Remedy” at the bottom makes it quite distinctive. Just because they both use the letter ‘R’ in their logo doesn’t inherently mean the average and reasonably informed consumer is going to be confused.”

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This isn’t the first time Take-Two Interactive has pursued legal action to protect its trademarks. Back in December 2021, the publisher pursued a similar trademark claim against indie studio Hazelight Studios over the developer’s hit 2021 puzzle-platformer It Takes Two. Take-Two claimed consumers could confuse their company and the game’s title, which led Hazelight Studios to abandon its trademark for the name.