None
As you may know, Rockstar Games is trying for a record to see if they can be the receiving company of the prized “Most Lawsuits In One Decade” Award. Add this one to their count.
A strip club in Los Angeles known as The Play Pen (officially known as E.S.S. Entertainment) has sued the company over trademark infringement. E.S.S. Entertainment’s claim was that a strip club featured in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas called The Pig Pen was too similar to The Play Pen. The Pig Pen’s name is written in a similar font and features the words “totally nude,” the same exact words, oddly enough, that The Play Pen uses on their sign. Rockstar Games employees did take reference pictures of The Play Pen for the artists to use while creating the game.
Despite the similarities, Judge Margaret Morrow sided with Rockstar Games. “(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 customer.”
Since The Pig Pen was not used in “TV or print ads for the game, doesn’t appear on the packaging, doesn’t play a role in the game’s missions, and that a gamer could play for hours and never encounter the club,” the judge stated that the game does not “explicitly mislead consumers as to the content of the game.”