Take-Two’s Lawsuit Against Rockstar Logo Results in Backlash from Game Developers

Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Rockstar, has filed a trademark lawsuit against another company with an ‘R’ logo. The developers involved in the legal dispute are expressing dissatisfaction with the situation.

Stewart Chisam, the CEO of both Hi-Rez Studios (developer of Smite 2) and RallyHere, was the first to bring attention to Take-Two and its trademark lawyers for uncovering what he referred to as an “endless money glitch”and engaging in a dispute with RallyHere over their ‘R’ logo.

RallyHere is a provider of cross-platform multiplayer backend as a service for game studios. The image below showcases the appearance of its ‘R’ logo.

I’ll give it to them. Some trademark lawyers that represent TakeTwo have found an infinite money glitch to divert $$$’s away from actual game developers and into lawyers’ hands. We and they have spent weeks (duration time) and thousands of dollars senselessly arguing the obvious… pic.twitter.com/ojdSxLxjr9

— Stewart Chisam (@schisam) August 28, 2024

Clearly, Take-Two holds the belief that RallyHere’s emblem bears too much resemblance to Rockstar’s logo, leading to a trademark conflict.

Chisam publicly criticized Take-Two on X for their tendency to pursue legal action against any company in the gaming industry that uses the letter R in their logo, regardless of its similarity to the Rockstar logo. He believes this behavior is a form of harassment and a waste of resources that could have been used for game development.

He stated, “None of the beings in our star system will ever mistake the logo below for Rockstar’s famous ‘R with Star’ logo.”

Jessica Flowers, the general counsel for RallyHere and Hi-Rez Studios, responded to Chisam’s post. She sarcastically stated that it seems like no one in the gaming industry can use the letter R except for the other party involved, even though there is no chance of confusion. This situation has been a great use of our valuable time and resources.

The responses to Chisam’s initial post were equally perplexed and irritated by the disagreement. One comment stated, “This is ridiculous. The logos bear no resemblance whatsoever. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that was an R on the RallyHere logo.”

Some commenters expressed gratitude for Chisam’s speaking up about this issue, stating: “I appreciate these types of tweets as they offer a glimpse into the lesser-known and often overlooked side of the gaming industry.”

Regrettably, this is not the only conflict that Take-Two has raised regarding an ‘R’ logo. In January, the creator of Grand Theft Auto initiated a dispute with Remedy, the company responsible for Alan Wake and Control.

Not only did it involve ‘R’ logos, but Take-Two also took legal action against Hazelight Studios, the developer of It Takes Two, in 2021 for the game’s name bearing a resemblance to the company’s name.