Anyone know why games dont use real names for cities?

[spellmanuk]

So I get that using names of companies and government organizations might get you sued to hell and back but why do games like GTA, Mafia do this? come to think of it those a both games by Take Two Interactive maybe its just a company policy sinceIi cant think of any other games that do it 

[Mike Soda]

1 minute ago, peej said:

So I get that using names of companies and government organizations might get you sued to hell and back but why do games like GTA, Mafia do this? come to think of it those a both games by Take Two Interactive maybe its just a company policy sinceIi cant think of any other games that do it 

I'm guessing it's because of lame copyright issues, which seems absolutely ridiculous in regard to a place but yeah the world is greedy "gimmie it, it's mine!!!!!!!".

[Mira Yurizaki]

Because the city can still sue you. Or someone in that city who doesn't like you can sue you or make a big stink.

[SoundiBoy]

No city is interested in having such advertising and be related to violence, sex, drugs, crazy drivers or other GTA/Mafia affairs. So mostly just legality 

[Sauron]

Why would they use real names if the geography is made up...?

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, SoundiBoy said:

No city is interested in having such advertising and be related to violence, sex, drugs, crazy drivers or other GTA/Mafia affairs. So mostly just legality 

Well, that didn't stop True Crime or LA Noire. Then again you played the cop, not the "bad guy"

[Maxxie]

Plenty of games do use real names for cities. But there are definitely some people that would get upset if GTA was based in a real city, simply because that city would get a reputation for being full of crime and completely chaotic. So I can understand why people in the US would not want that, because it's totally not like that at all.

[Sakkura]

Prague was used in the latest Deus Ex game, does that mean Prague is a fictional city?

[SnakeDrone]

With fictional city names they have a creative freedom to do / let player do whatever they want in the city, but still having more legal defence incase they get sued. It's not only that cities might not like violence, drug and large scale corruption references, but just like movies they would be required to pay the city to be allowed to use the name.

 

Games like GTA are allready on the spotlight for violence and other things, they don't need the additional burden of people posting "Shooting up New York" posts on Youtube and other social medias. Sure, those are obvious to gamers, but we aren't the only one reading and searching the posts. And you don't even ant to go to the territory of someone claiming that someone is training in games for real things.

 

Just be happy that the developers/publishers are giving us such great areas to roam around. You know the references anyway.

[spellmanuk]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Why would they use real names if the geography is made up...?

GTA V at least the city part is fairly accurate shrunk down version of LA and from what I've heard Mafia 3 is pretty good representation of New Orleans 

[spellmanuk]

3 hours ago, Sakkura said:

Prague was used in the latest Deus Ex game, does that mean Prague is a fictional city?

No I'm not saying all game just a few lol 

[spellmanuk]

3 hours ago, Maxxie said:

Plenty of games do use real names for cities. But there are definitely some people that would get upset if GTA was based in a real city, simply because that city would get a reputation for being full of crime and completely chaotic. So I can understand why people in the US would not want that, because it's totally not like that at all.

 

2 hours ago, SnakeDrone said:

With fictional city names they have a creative freedom to do / let player do whatever they want in the city, but still having more legal defence incase they get sued. It's not only that cities might not like violence, drug and large scale corruption references, but just like movies they would be required to pay the city to be allowed to use the name.

 

Games like GTA are allready on the spotlight for violence and other things, they don't need the additional burden of people posting "Shooting up New York" posts on Youtube and other social medias. Sure, those are obvious to gamers, but we aren't the only one reading and searching the posts. And you don't even ant to go to the territory of someone claiming that someone is training in games for real things.

 

Just be happy that the developers/publishers are giving us such great areas to roam around. You know the references anyway.

 

3 hours ago, SoundiBoy said:

No city is interested in having such advertising and be related to violence, sex, drugs, crazy drivers or other GTA/Mafia affairs. So mostly just legality 

 

3 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Because the city can still sue you. Or someone in that city who doesn't like you can sue you or make a big stink.

I guess that sort of makes sense just seems kind of dumb to me really. 

[typographie]

Plenty of games do use real city names. The Division, Sleeping Dogs, Watch Dogs, and most of the Assassin's Creed series have done that. Those are games that are actively trying to recreate a real city.

 

The reason the rest don't use real cities probably has a lot more to do with artistic/design considerations than legal considerations. Tying yourself to a real city means players will expect it to be that city, and real cities aren't designed to make them great video game levels. There's probably a lot of value in the map designers having the freedom to do what they want. Real cities also have personalities and carry cultural baggage that will unavoidably be associated with the game—sometimes the developers want that, and sometimes they don't.

 

I don't think it's a major legal issue if a soulless megapublisher like Ubisoft is willing to do it so regularly. Such companies aren't known for exposing themselves to big legal risks.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, typographie said:

Plenty of games do use real city names. The Division, Sleeping Dogs, Watch Dogs, and most of the Assassin's Creed series have done that. Those are games that are actively trying to recreate a real city.

I know that Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs is no where near accurate, it just has some common points, and Chicago in Watch Dogs is a very basic approximation of it, or at least the downtown is.

 

Maybe the "it needs to be a game world" design has something to do with it, but from what I recall playing LA Noire and True Crime: Streets of LA, both use a really accurate map of LA. Plus GTA IV's middle island appeared to be a good approximation of Manhattan. Still, Rockstar was given flak by New York City about it.

[beingGamer]

one game i remember - midtown madness

[LogicalDrm]

I remember reading some interview from GTA devs. They said that main reason for using spoof names was that players (and parent and media) would be clear that there's difference between games and real world. Even when GTA was top-down. And since they are UK based, they are bit more careful when it comes to public opinion.

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, peej said:

GTA V at least the city part is fairly accurate shrunk down version of LA and from what I've heard Mafia 3 is pretty good representation of New Orleans 

but it's not the same, in the end calling it the same would cause pointless confusion