Rockstar and Remedy engage in dispute over trademark

Rockstar Games and Remedy Entertainment, developers of the Grand Theft Auto series and Alan Wake series respectively among other titles, have found themselves embroiled in a dispute over their iconic R-branded logos. As first reported by RespawnFirst, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, filed a trademark dispute in the United Kingdom against Remedy due to its redesigned logo unveiled last year allegedly being too similar to Rockstar’s branding.

To an extent, there is an argument that rebranding your company logo to predominantly be a big R on a solid background could cause confusion when another company which makes somewhat similar games to yours already has a logo like that. Although Remedy’s “R” logo attempts to, well, remedy the confusion by putting the company’s full name at the bottom, one of the company’s disputed logos lacks that element, making it somewhat less distinct. Take-Two Interactive has a history of vigorously defending its trademarks, having taken action against Hazelight’s It Takes Two in 2021 for the similar-sounding title.

One of the weirder elements of the timing of this suit is that both companies are currently working together on remastering the first two Max Payne games. First announced in 2022, the companies announced a joint agreement where Rockstar would finance Remedy developing updated remasters of Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. It is unlikely that this suit will complicate that project too much. Still, it has to make some aspects of it a little awkward.

Neither company has publicly commented on the dispute as of yet. As such, it will remain to be seen if Remedy will be made to go back to its original branding or if Rockstar’s action will fail. We will have to wait and see whether this results in any sort of logo changes in the future.