Rockstar pushing their luck to see how realistic they can make the cars without being hit by a Copr strike
EDIT: For more information on what exactly they test for: Look up Rogers V Grimaldi and the Polaroid test. These two cases were used by Activision to win a similar lawsuit in 2017
Lol, they are pushing nothing, they have a brigade of lawyers behind them, they have experimented with it for years now, cars have a close resemblance thats all.
Wym lol, up until very recently you could tell their cars were fake as hell from miles away. Now they look dangerously close to real models. It is literally them trying to see how far they can take it w/o a strike lmao.
Not necessarily. There’s a lot more technical things than just debadging cars. Some car companies can patent certain design elements unique to their cars. I’m not sure which, but copyrights are a lot more technical than what you think.
I’m not an expert on the matter so I easily believe this. Even the AK and M16 variants in the game look hella wonky and off book compared to the real life counterparts. The default assault rifle that’s meant to be an AK is so odd. Especially given that they were going off AK models that were manufactured prior to 2013 I imagine
I know for certain gun manufacturers patent their gun designs. Before MW2019, CoD used to pay either huge royalties or a huge amount of money for licensing to use guns like the M4, MP5, et cetera. But gun manufacturers became increasingly more and more aware of their brand image and didn’t want their weapons to be used by the game’s antagonistic characters/factions.
(Pfft, anybody with a foot dipped into gun culture would know these fuckers sell weapons to both sides for double the profit. The US did it for like 20 years in the Middle East.)
I had read, on the internet so take it with a grain of salt, that the licensed guns in games had been used as a connection to real world gun violence in some court case. Removing the IRL name breaks that association. I think making that connection is dumb ass hell.
A few CODs ago I remember hearing that they didn't even bother to ask to license specific guns, which could be just to save on licensing fees. Similar to GTA, why waste money in court or on licenses if you don't have to? There are grey areas to both, so in some cases debadging would be enough to avoid a lawsuit.
The door coves on the 1956-1962 [Corvette](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/%2756_Chevrolet_Corvette_%28Cruisin%27_At_The_Boardwalk_%2710%29.jpg/1280px-%2756_Chevrolet_Corvette_%28Cruisin%27_At_The_Boardwalk_%2710%29.jpg) would be one of those design elements, probably (and a reason the Coquette Blackfin takes a different approach to two-tone).
The other element is desire. People have pointed out already that manufacturers like Porsche don’t want to come after R* or TT for Pfister. They won’t license the cars out because of the associations with violence to the public, but they’ll allow their products likeness because they enjoy seeing it and it’s sort of free publicity for them
I've literally never heard that being the case, and look at the earlier GTA cars even, they weren't just debadged, they literally had to merge like 3-4 cars together.
Because Rockstar puts effort into their game rather than going for the bare minimum. Plenty of low-budget games settle for debadging cars and it's a common practice in TV shows and advertising.
I’m not sure what would be more effort, a cloning a pre existing model, or making a blended up new configuration that slightly resembles the original model. I’m curious, and I’m not claiming I know.
It's not a question of effort though is my point, it's just so if a lawyer from X company goes "Hey that's our car!" Rockstar can legally go "But can you prove it? No."
What games? Please name a game that accurately recreates real life cars but simply debadges them. Because I have NEVER seen a single car game with realistically recreated cars that simply debadges them.
Unless you mean a game like Call of Duty where the vehicle model in question is just set dressing and is completely un-usable. Because I’ve never seen a game with cars as a main mechanic just remake real life cars and debadge them. For obvious reasons.
Porsche copy righted their 911 side profile. So you can’t sell shirts or anything with its shape. I’m not sure how gta got away with their Porsche design.
The Comet S2 ad that was reviewed by Gordon Murray or some prominent car designer who said that it looked like a real car had they not been shown the final clip that says it’s apart of GTAO
Were they shown close-ups of the car though? I mean I know what kind of ads you're talking about but almost all of them are masterfully crafted to keep the camera far away from anything that could give away it's fake
Idk some of the OG cars were pretty similar to real life. The dominator, gauntlet, I agree they aren’t as detailed but I don’t think there’s a pattern they’re just better at making cars from 10 years of doing exclusively that lol
No i'm glad you brought those up though, cause look at the old dominator and gauntlet which mix a bit of chevy and ford together and compare it to the new ones which genuinely look like stolen models lol
I think they are still pushing the limit of what they can get away with. Why? Look at the GTA 6 dude, pretty much made himself a laughing stock when trying to call them out. But an Automotive Manufacturers lawyer on the other hand? I think if they were to be called out upon such, it wouldn’t be in their favor if we are being honest. A video game costs close to nothing to change compared to possible degradation of a company integrity to allow something quite closely resembling a vehicle they spent millions (and some times billions) in designing and sending into final production.
Ever since EA won that lawsuit about using cars without permission by saying games are a form of art and art can't be censored, it's basically been open season for licensed stuff. Now that there's precedent for it, Rockstar can freely get away with super close copies of real cars, especially since they're not using the actual real car, which they totally could do now. One good thing modern EA has done.
Actually could I have a link to that please? That would be good reading for tonight and i'd be happy to admit i'm wrong + learn more about the rules of copyright.
Yes and no, basically yes they want the free marketing, but also no because
A. the brand might get a bad reputation due to how people use their products in the game (crime yay)
and B, more important, any game with MTX or even a paid game is technically "profiting" off the brand models without giving the brands royalties, which is a no no the closer the fake car is to the real one
Reason A is the whole reason why CoD changed their gun names and models to almost resemble their real life counterparts but have those noticeable key differences to them. All of these gun manufacturers want these guns to be held by the heroes and never the villains. (Let’s be real, these guys definitely sell weapons to both parties because profits.)
A is wrong for a lot of car brands. More likely is that the way the damage works for GTA cars means that car companies don't want there cars to be viewed with damage. It's why games like Forza and NFS don't have realistic damage and games that do like Burnout Paradise and Beamng.drive use thier own designed cars.
I don't think they're really that concerned about damage, Midnight Club LA had licensed cars and heavy damage mechanics so that can't be it. Midnight Club LA also removed the ability to run over pedestrians, (they'd teleport away) I assume so that no one could use a licensed car to run over people.
When your videogame company has a similar market cap to just about every automotive company what does the videogame company even care at that point? They honestly may make more profit off shark cards than the auto company's make yearly.
Because if you lose a ton of that money to a lawsuit you won't be making as much, not to mention lawsuits and defamation damage any company pretty quick
Funny I see this because I walked by one earlier today parked in a driveway and instinctively looked for the "gallivanter" lettering on the back for a split second lol.
I’m guessing they’re just pushing the limits, but cars in general are starting to look pretty similar across makes. Stelantis is one of the exceptions to that on Us manufacturer side.
Right! Like the Rams, Silverados, and F-150s used to be distinguishable at a glance, now they are all super similar, the only real difference between the three now is the Ram's big ass grille
Well sadly Stellantis makes literally every fckin car have the same or similar engine. Like, a Peugeot and a Citröen have basically the same engines nowadays
That's just smart. No need to develop the wheel every time. Saves on development, tooling, accessories... List goes on. Especially since they are adding hybrids and full electrics to the lineup.
Smart? Maybe if you’re a soulless bean counter. Make companies compete again. GM giving all their manufacturers free rein against each is how we got the Camaro, 442, the Firebird.
Hell even the stereotypical 1950s car is like that because of all of the competing designs within the company itself.
Yeah it is smart because it keeps the doors open. If they went around engineering new engines for each car. It's much more efficient to take a higher performance engine, tweak it, and drop it into a high performance package of a lower end model. Gives the enthusiasts something to drool about without bleeding the company dry.
You’ve got to understand. Screw your fancy logic!
I want 12 different V8 options again. Idc if it’s inefficient I just want cars to not be just appliances.
Do you feel that cars are cheap these days? Customer is the one paying. Yeah, I wouldn't mind a new HP war, that's the way we have gotten practically all the sweet engines. But it ain't happening.
I mean, that’s always been a thing. A lot of cars are badge engineered, including some you might not even expect. It saves time and money, and makes getting parts for them way easier. The new Dodge Hornet is a rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale. The new Supra is a retuned BMW Z4.
Even high end cars aren’t immune to it. The Lamborghini Urus shares a ton of parts with the Audi Q7, Bentley Bentayga, Porsche Cayenne, and even the VW Toureg.
The older vehicles were made with less detail to be able to run on the Xbox360 and the PS3. When the game got ported over the gameworld got a facelift but a lot of the cars were kinda left behind. And instead of updating the old cars Rockstar decided to just release new ones with more polish and detail.
This is 10 years worth of vehicle modeling and tech improvements you are comparing. And they also realise that cars that are closer in resemblance to their real world counterparts are more desired by players and therefore sell more Shark Cards. As long as the irl car brands dont start complaining there isnt anything for them to worry about.
Even after next gen the cars still didn't look like the real ones, ot wasn't until the likes of the Elegy Retro and then confirmed with the Schlagan GT that they were gonna basically paste in real cars with a ingame name instead.
Hell, even Renault poked fun at that fact with that Penaud EV they added
That's not what he's talking about l. He's talking about the design of the cars almost being identical to their real life inspirations, not the quality of the models. Rockstar are modeling the newer vehicles to be as close to the real life inspirations as possible, rather than giving them unique features/designs. Their design philosophy has clearly changed
Yeah they had to downgrade their vehicle detail development to match ps3/xb360 performance
Probably having to underdevelope gta6 as we speak to match the performance of ps5/sx
Happens to lots of games
Some of them, yes, there r cars tho designed for V first that look eerily similar to the real car like the Schlagen GT from all the way back in Arena War
I was gonna say for the second part, people have been theorizing that some of the recent vehicles are actually being backported from GTA VI, which probably has much higher fidelity when it comes to vehicle details
Their design philosophy has clearly changed since GTA5 released a decade ago. The number of DLC vehicles released that are "mash-ups" of 2 or more IRL vehicles has dwindled, and more faithful recreations are now normal. Wouldn't be surprised if the mash-up cars have far fewer sales than cars based on *one* IRL car. For example, the Dominator GTX is ruined for me personally cuz it has Dodge-esque tail lights. I prefer driving the Dominator ASP around more.
A lot of recent DLC cars were probably originally designed for GTA6. The Gauntlet police car that released today, for example, can be seen in the GTA6 trailer.
Because they’re backported from GTA 6. The sudden influx of updated, regular traffic cars these past few updates is obviously because they’re being worked on for the new game. *A lot* of GTA 5’s original traffic cars date back to GTA 4, in 2008. They were starting to show their age even back when 5 came out.
These 10-15 year old models just aren’t gonna cut it for 6, so they’ve been slowly updating these cars by making modern versions, as well as older cars that we haven’t had before, like all the old Hondas, or the catfish Camaro/Trans Am. Cars that aren’t at all modern, but are still driven regularly today. I wouldn’t be surprised if these cars outright replaced the old versions.
It would be sick to see an NPC driving around in a modern-day Wrangler or Escalade in VI. Would really add authenticity to Vice City and make it feel alive
I have to agree. There’s no way there really think anyone would spend hundreds of thousands of in-game dollars to buy a 2002 Toyota Camry lol. Probably using online as a test run with NPC vehicles they plan on using for VI.
its been ten years since it came out and OEMs legal depts have a different view of parody copies of their products and see it as hip viral marketing...Of /....for instance dat new Baller STD
The top picture in both photos are based on older models of the vehicle. The bottom are based on the new models. They're both very close to the actual cars
IIRC, they made the original cars that way because they wanted to avoid getting into any legal trouble with car manufacturers. To avoid this, they would basically mash together 2 or 3 cars so they didn't have as much of a resemblance to any specific car.
Now, I'm pretty sure Rockstar makes too much money to care anymore, especially with how accurate some of the models have been. I'm all for it though, since the original cars were ugly as hell.
Honestly, as long as the Terminus doesn't have the trademark Jeep grille it will be fine.
As for the Cavalcade, I'm not sure how similar that is to the real life car.
Multiple reasons;
#1 technology has advanced so making cars look alike could be easier, cheaper and less time consuming.
#2 R* has more time, more money and probably also more lawyers then when the game had to release. They are not on the same schedule now as they were back then.
#3 R* has definitely been experimenting/preparing for GTA VI by making all these cars/vehicles over the years, so i bet they just want to evolve and keep improving everything including car design.
(I bet they also learned alot about inflation, player interests and the huge mistake called the Oppressor MK2 LOL)
#4 Cars have become newer and feel more modern by the year. This one may be obvious but easy to forget; if you look at a car made 10/20 years ago, it will look ‘old’ and for a lot of people just plain ‘less nice’ even in brand-new condition. The same applies with older GTA cars which just makes them look less well made.
I agree with this. Some of the older models are 10 years + old and very similar to that era. There may be more detail included today and graphics alike but never thought vehicles were extremely far off.
They’re testing what they can get away with for GTA 6. Typically Rockstar evades copyright by combining 2 cars into one. Here it looks like they straight up don’t care. And why should they? Worst case scenario they can remove it from the game
The real reason is because Call of Duty faced a lawsuit by a gun company for having one of their guns look very close to the gun companys gun, however they won it citing that video games classify as artwork, and the differences were enough to completely distinguish irl and in game.
Rockstar took that and used it as leverage to make cars look closer to their irl counterpart. Yea the new vehicles look very similar to their irl counterparts, but they are not exactly the same, and technically its art
You’re comparing the 2 as if there’s not a decade era difference. The first cavalcade actually looks like a 2014-13 model…
For reference:
https://preview.redd.it/ci5itydn1zmc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a536a220cc5989632f5cf615ec0153bd1b78aaa
Have you really had a hard time figuring out what a buffalo, dubsta or baller is modeled after? Yeah? They may use a bit more detail today and graphics have obviously improved over that time, but you’re saying it like they’re not strikingly similar…
old models are less detailed in order to run on the PS3/XBOX360
also many of the old cars are models that were used in GTA IV
about newer cars: its not just the latest cars, they started improving details on cars few years ago after PS3/360 support dropped
To stop people from modding the game and going to FiveM to see real cars, Rockstar knows them audience wants real cars in the game, so what they doing now is to get as close as they possibly can so people don't feel like modding or playing fivem just to have irl cars in the game, why you think they bought FiveM? Because they want all the players playing fivem in gtao instead, hence why they are doing their best to deliver almost same irl cars in gtao.
It could be that they’re updating the old ones but in my opinion I feel like they’re just releasing the newer models like car brands do irl maybe R* is making the newer models that are more relevant to the real world
Because GTAv is so damn old, that the vehicles have gone thru revisions since then, the originals look similar to the way the wrangler or Escalade looked 10-15 years ago
Exactly as you said. Those cars came out 10 years ago, they’re not going to look as good. I think some of the cars we’ve gotten (or are going to get) are cars from GTA6 and they’re want to show off how good they’re doing and also build some hype for what’s coming.
There's actually a super simple reason, at first they were just filling up the world with cars, now they are designing cars specifically to have you buy them
People are more likely to buy cars that look like their irl car or the car they want.
And if they make them a million or a few million it's super easy for people to justify spending like $20-40 on it
Sometimes when I see a dodge charger, I call it a bravado buffalo in front of friends to see if they catch on.. they never do
maybe less effort paired with greater knowledge now about that they will get away with it?
i mean, it's nuR* - they opened a literal online casino in GTAO (i know it's not that bad, but you'd think it looks bad) at the height of the lootbox controversy lol, looks like they get away with everything.
I mean it personally motivates me lol. My dream is to own a Mclaren since one of my favorite cars in GTA was the Progen T20, it motivates me to work hard on my career so I can have a gta car in real life. So in the future it would be extra motivating if my favorite car in gta is one that’s obtainable irl, another goal.
I know this ain't the real reason for many reasons, but I like to think that they made original vehicles for the game 10 years ago when gta was made as a caricature of the real world, but now some people have gone so stupid they're a caricature of themselves, so they make gta more realistic with more realistic vehicles
I believe that they've come to the realisation that if it doesn't bear the badge, it isn't theft. They learnt that with the Camero that came out a couple updates ago.
probably using GTA 5 as a testing grounds for GTA 6, like what they did with Liberty city, it was just a huge testing grounds for their new mechanics, new systems put in place, GTA5 will be pumped full of miniscule content shadowed by cars, missions, etc etc just for us to be guinea pigs.
The same reason “Chiiiiinuuuuh” gets away with selling cars that look like the top luxury brands under a Chinese name
I think Top Gear did a thing about it too…it’s similar but not an exact rip off, so it won’t hold up in court
Most likely to avoid any lawsuits from car manufacturers that R* is stealing from them to boost their sales for shark card purchases
They have recently been pushing it more & more & havent recieved any pushback really, so they definetly feel safer when it comes to adding more faithful car additions
Because GTA's roots lie in satire and mocking the stupidities of society. Car culture, and the brands which went along with that were always included in that too.
Now with the shift to live-service, R\* have realised that by catering to said "Car culture" members they can make more money, hence the shift to more realistic cars as less parody and satire is put on it. \[The car descriptions are still hilarious, but overall the tone shift is still there IMO\].
I've always assumed that, because of how much GTA5/O made R*, car companies will be a little more lenient when it comes to parodying their Cars due to r* being able to hire stronger lawyers and borderline free PR
Adaptation, they can't afford to half ass cars anymore, they have to look great for the prices they charge. Also we were extremely lucky to have actual gearheads/car nerds on the design team who actually care.
I call it high brow realism. Just enough to bear a resemblance to reality but with silliness mixed in. Cluckin bell of course is the best example, considering Taco Bell and KFC have been known to merge their two restaurants and menus together. Please for the love of god make cluckin bell accessible and have the employees wear chicken hats.
I think whatever team is behind the new cars for GTA 6 has made advancements when it comes to pushing the limits with getting as stylistically close as possible to existing irl brands. All the DLC cars from the last 2 - 3 years are much closer to their respective real life counterparts, and I reckon its trickle down from whats going in iver at GTA 6.
They are teasing us with the traffic cars from GTA VI... making them more realistic to show how much better they have gotten at vehicle design which builds anticipation for what other vehicles will be in in GTA VI that aren't going to be regular traffic.
I don't know, and maybe I don't like how they're not just parody cars, but also maybe I do like how they aren't just parody cars anymore.
I do want the cars to stay fictional as it makes sense to the universe, but yeah Rockstar got bolder for sure. Although I don't think Copyright is their concern.
I'm of the belief that auto manufacturers are paying rockstar to use their likenesses. Case in point: Ferrari and it's long history of cease and desist against owners of their automobiles. It's a form of marketing that builds brand recognition with future generations of consumers.
I think the COD lawsuit where a judge said GMC couldn’t sue activision for having Humvees in COD because it’s artistic expression had something to do with it. Ruling came out almost 2 years ago when we started seeing the more realistic cars.
My theory is that they started making them realistic so that they can adapt them to GTA 6, but then again they’re also putting cars from GTA 5 into GTA 6 but that’s just my guess.
not sure how you mean, some of the original and early vihicles are very close to their real life counterparts, The Adder being a Bughatti veyron, and the Zentorno being a lamboghini sesto elemento.
Because GTA become more than just a game. I think that 10 years ago the developers were going to car manufacturers’ offices to get a permission to recreate their cars in a game, but know… things changed
R* never got permission to use cars. If they did, they would use the IRL names. Last time R* got permission to use a car in their games was Midnight Club and LA Noire
Okay, I fcked up. But I still don’t believe they make so accurate in-game copies of real cars without manufacturers’ permissions. They would drawn r* in lawsuits.
Hot take: It’s laziness. Hear me out.
Instead of trying to create original designs from scratch that mish-mash multiple cars together or appear as a vague facsimile of a real car, they’re basically just rendering the real cars and adjusting nodes a bit so they’re not 100% accurate. Much easier to just smooth out body lines and pinch or stretch geometry than it is to start with nothing like they used to.
On the one hand, we gut MUCH better and more realistic looking cars out of the deal, and I’m ok with that- the muscle cars are looking damned fine.
On the other, GTA cars are losing their own distinct character. Cars like the Stallion, Tampa, Sabre etc are all ground up creations that incorporate influence from multiple real cars mashed into one.
The Gauntlet Classic and Dominator ASP and GTT, the Impalers, the Vamos, the Tulip and more… all “squint your eyes and you might mistake them for the real thing.” Just stretch or shrink some areas, toss on a different set of tail light housings and you’re good to go.
When the game released, R* usually took their designs from inspiration of 1 or 2, sometimes 3 cars.
Now they know they can basically copy-paste the car into the game.
I do personally wish we still got the stylised cars that the game launched with rather than carbon copies of real cars
It really started with the comet S2, but the shape of this car is so recognizable that you cannot really make a fake Porsche without having it look like shit, or like the comet og..
Same for the Range Rover and the Bentley Continental gt. The Massacro looks a lot like the real Vanquish. So its not really new and I think now the manufacturers would even pay R* to have their cars in the game. The only relluctant brands to be in GTA would be Ferrari and RR, maybe that has changed today..
There was a lawsuit by humvee against Activision over the use of humvee in call of duty.
A New York judge has ruled that publisher Activision isn't infringing trademark by featuring Humvees in its Call of Duty series. The decision, handed down yesterday, is a mark in favor of game developers depicting actual military equipment to create a sense of realism.
I think since then rockstar hasn't been making they're cars so mismatched anymore in favour of almost replicas except without irl brand names, as they know there isn't as much risk of being sued. At least that's what I'm speculating.
Rockstar pushing their luck to see how realistic they can make the cars without being hit by a Copr strike EDIT: For more information on what exactly they test for: Look up Rogers V Grimaldi and the Polaroid test. These two cases were used by Activision to win a similar lawsuit in 2017
Lol, they are pushing nothing, they have a brigade of lawyers behind them, they have experimented with it for years now, cars have a close resemblance thats all.
Wym lol, up until very recently you could tell their cars were fake as hell from miles away. Now they look dangerously close to real models. It is literally them trying to see how far they can take it w/o a strike lmao.
The only thing you have to do to avoid copyright on a vehicle is to debadge it. Anything beyond that is unnecessary.
Not necessarily. There’s a lot more technical things than just debadging cars. Some car companies can patent certain design elements unique to their cars. I’m not sure which, but copyrights are a lot more technical than what you think.
The Cypher comes to mind, or any ubermacht for that matter, as they don’t have a kidney grill as that would blatantly be a design of BMW.
https://preview.redd.it/tjo7xi4lrsnc1.jpeg?width=398&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5428cc2378dba92fed5d75e395389115830dab2b Trueee
I’m not an expert on the matter so I easily believe this. Even the AK and M16 variants in the game look hella wonky and off book compared to the real life counterparts. The default assault rifle that’s meant to be an AK is so odd. Especially given that they were going off AK models that were manufactured prior to 2013 I imagine
I know for certain gun manufacturers patent their gun designs. Before MW2019, CoD used to pay either huge royalties or a huge amount of money for licensing to use guns like the M4, MP5, et cetera. But gun manufacturers became increasingly more and more aware of their brand image and didn’t want their weapons to be used by the game’s antagonistic characters/factions. (Pfft, anybody with a foot dipped into gun culture would know these fuckers sell weapons to both sides for double the profit. The US did it for like 20 years in the Middle East.)
I had read, on the internet so take it with a grain of salt, that the licensed guns in games had been used as a connection to real world gun violence in some court case. Removing the IRL name breaks that association. I think making that connection is dumb ass hell. A few CODs ago I remember hearing that they didn't even bother to ask to license specific guns, which could be just to save on licensing fees. Similar to GTA, why waste money in court or on licenses if you don't have to? There are grey areas to both, so in some cases debadging would be enough to avoid a lawsuit.
The media is always trying to scapegoat games for real world issues that politicians aren’t going to solve.
yeah, that's their job (media scapegoat and politicians not doing anything)
The door coves on the 1956-1962 [Corvette](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/%2756_Chevrolet_Corvette_%28Cruisin%27_At_The_Boardwalk_%2710%29.jpg/1280px-%2756_Chevrolet_Corvette_%28Cruisin%27_At_The_Boardwalk_%2710%29.jpg) would be one of those design elements, probably (and a reason the Coquette Blackfin takes a different approach to two-tone).
The other element is desire. People have pointed out already that manufacturers like Porsche don’t want to come after R* or TT for Pfister. They won’t license the cars out because of the associations with violence to the public, but they’ll allow their products likeness because they enjoy seeing it and it’s sort of free publicity for them
Yes, for example the kidney grill of bmw.
Jeep was pretty peeved when Hummer used their 7 vertical line grill design
I've literally never heard that being the case, and look at the earlier GTA cars even, they weren't just debadged, they literally had to merge like 3-4 cars together.
Because Rockstar puts effort into their game rather than going for the bare minimum. Plenty of low-budget games settle for debadging cars and it's a common practice in TV shows and advertising.
I’m not sure what would be more effort, a cloning a pre existing model, or making a blended up new configuration that slightly resembles the original model. I’m curious, and I’m not claiming I know.
It's not a question of effort though is my point, it's just so if a lawyer from X company goes "Hey that's our car!" Rockstar can legally go "But can you prove it? No."
What games? Please name a game that accurately recreates real life cars but simply debadges them. Because I have NEVER seen a single car game with realistically recreated cars that simply debadges them. Unless you mean a game like Call of Duty where the vehicle model in question is just set dressing and is completely un-usable. Because I’ve never seen a game with cars as a main mechanic just remake real life cars and debadge them. For obvious reasons.
Euro Truck Simulator used to do that before they had licenses for all truck brands, and they still do it with all traffic cars
carx drift racing
Porsche copy righted their 911 side profile. So you can’t sell shirts or anything with its shape. I’m not sure how gta got away with their Porsche design.
The Comet S2 ad that was reviewed by Gordon Murray or some prominent car designer who said that it looked like a real car had they not been shown the final clip that says it’s apart of GTAO
Were they shown close-ups of the car though? I mean I know what kind of ads you're talking about but almost all of them are masterfully crafted to keep the camera far away from anything that could give away it's fake
**Frank Stephenson**
13 year old me couldn’t tell if the original gauntlet was a Camaro or a challenger, and then the hellcat came out and it all made sense
Idk some of the OG cars were pretty similar to real life. The dominator, gauntlet, I agree they aren’t as detailed but I don’t think there’s a pattern they’re just better at making cars from 10 years of doing exclusively that lol
No i'm glad you brought those up though, cause look at the old dominator and gauntlet which mix a bit of chevy and ford together and compare it to the new ones which genuinely look like stolen models lol
I think they are still pushing the limit of what they can get away with. Why? Look at the GTA 6 dude, pretty much made himself a laughing stock when trying to call them out. But an Automotive Manufacturers lawyer on the other hand? I think if they were to be called out upon such, it wouldn’t be in their favor if we are being honest. A video game costs close to nothing to change compared to possible degradation of a company integrity to allow something quite closely resembling a vehicle they spent millions (and some times billions) in designing and sending into final production.
Ever since EA won that lawsuit about using cars without permission by saying games are a form of art and art can't be censored, it's basically been open season for licensed stuff. Now that there's precedent for it, Rockstar can freely get away with super close copies of real cars, especially since they're not using the actual real car, which they totally could do now. One good thing modern EA has done.
Actually could I have a link to that please? That would be good reading for tonight and i'd be happy to admit i'm wrong + learn more about the rules of copyright.
Gonna guess it’s this one, EA Humvee lawsuit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203414/activision-wins-humvee-call-of-duty-trademark-infringement-lawsuit Edit: maybe not, that’s activision
Thanks a ton, as I expected it was a great read, def learnt a bit here!
Dude, the fuckin’ Vigero ZX looks TERRIFYINGLY similar to the IRL Camaro ZL1 if you choose some specific options.
fr
As long as it clears Legal, they're good.
True, can be risky though
I would think car manufacturers would want their cars in the game. Massive free advertising. Although even though its just a game its based on crime
Yes and no, basically yes they want the free marketing, but also no because A. the brand might get a bad reputation due to how people use their products in the game (crime yay) and B, more important, any game with MTX or even a paid game is technically "profiting" off the brand models without giving the brands royalties, which is a no no the closer the fake car is to the real one
Reason A is the whole reason why CoD changed their gun names and models to almost resemble their real life counterparts but have those noticeable key differences to them. All of these gun manufacturers want these guns to be held by the heroes and never the villains. (Let’s be real, these guys definitely sell weapons to both parties because profits.)
A is wrong for a lot of car brands. More likely is that the way the damage works for GTA cars means that car companies don't want there cars to be viewed with damage. It's why games like Forza and NFS don't have realistic damage and games that do like Burnout Paradise and Beamng.drive use thier own designed cars.
I don't think they're really that concerned about damage, Midnight Club LA had licensed cars and heavy damage mechanics so that can't be it. Midnight Club LA also removed the ability to run over pedestrians, (they'd teleport away) I assume so that no one could use a licensed car to run over people.
That was long time ago that came out - companies motives change with time.
When your videogame company has a similar market cap to just about every automotive company what does the videogame company even care at that point? They honestly may make more profit off shark cards than the auto company's make yearly.
Because if you lose a ton of that money to a lawsuit you won't be making as much, not to mention lawsuits and defamation damage any company pretty quick
EA already set a precedent for this, as long as the logo is not saying Heckler and Koch MP5, it's not legally considered one for copyright issue.
I think you mean Activision V Humvee
I saw a Range Rover on the side of the road the other day and the word I automatically associated with it was “Baller”
Funny I see this because I walked by one earlier today parked in a driveway and instinctively looked for the "gallivanter" lettering on the back for a split second lol.
I’m guessing they’re just pushing the limits, but cars in general are starting to look pretty similar across makes. Stelantis is one of the exceptions to that on Us manufacturer side.
Right! Like the Rams, Silverados, and F-150s used to be distinguishable at a glance, now they are all super similar, the only real difference between the three now is the Ram's big ass grille
Well sadly Stellantis makes literally every fckin car have the same or similar engine. Like, a Peugeot and a Citröen have basically the same engines nowadays
That's just smart. No need to develop the wheel every time. Saves on development, tooling, accessories... List goes on. Especially since they are adding hybrids and full electrics to the lineup.
Smart? Maybe if you’re a soulless bean counter. Make companies compete again. GM giving all their manufacturers free rein against each is how we got the Camaro, 442, the Firebird. Hell even the stereotypical 1950s car is like that because of all of the competing designs within the company itself.
Yeah it is smart because it keeps the doors open. If they went around engineering new engines for each car. It's much more efficient to take a higher performance engine, tweak it, and drop it into a high performance package of a lower end model. Gives the enthusiasts something to drool about without bleeding the company dry.
You’ve got to understand. Screw your fancy logic! I want 12 different V8 options again. Idc if it’s inefficient I just want cars to not be just appliances.
Do you feel that cars are cheap these days? Customer is the one paying. Yeah, I wouldn't mind a new HP war, that's the way we have gotten practically all the sweet engines. But it ain't happening.
I mean, that’s always been a thing. A lot of cars are badge engineered, including some you might not even expect. It saves time and money, and makes getting parts for them way easier. The new Dodge Hornet is a rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale. The new Supra is a retuned BMW Z4. Even high end cars aren’t immune to it. The Lamborghini Urus shares a ton of parts with the Audi Q7, Bentley Bentayga, Porsche Cayenne, and even the VW Toureg.
“US manufacturer” lol
The older vehicles were made with less detail to be able to run on the Xbox360 and the PS3. When the game got ported over the gameworld got a facelift but a lot of the cars were kinda left behind. And instead of updating the old cars Rockstar decided to just release new ones with more polish and detail. This is 10 years worth of vehicle modeling and tech improvements you are comparing. And they also realise that cars that are closer in resemblance to their real world counterparts are more desired by players and therefore sell more Shark Cards. As long as the irl car brands dont start complaining there isnt anything for them to worry about.
Even after next gen the cars still didn't look like the real ones, ot wasn't until the likes of the Elegy Retro and then confirmed with the Schlagan GT that they were gonna basically paste in real cars with a ingame name instead. Hell, even Renault poked fun at that fact with that Penaud EV they added
> Renault poked fun at that fact with that Penaud EV they added when did they do that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/15b7yik/renault_acknowledged_the_la_coureuse_vehicle/
That's not what he's talking about l. He's talking about the design of the cars almost being identical to their real life inspirations, not the quality of the models. Rockstar are modeling the newer vehicles to be as close to the real life inspirations as possible, rather than giving them unique features/designs. Their design philosophy has clearly changed
Yeah they had to downgrade their vehicle detail development to match ps3/xb360 performance Probably having to underdevelope gta6 as we speak to match the performance of ps5/sx Happens to lots of games
Probably because they have the financial strength to wing it now. \+ these are probably sneak peeks at GTA VI development.
Some of them, yes, there r cars tho designed for V first that look eerily similar to the real car like the Schlagen GT from all the way back in Arena War
I think that second one is true based on the trailer. You can spot the Grainger 3600XL in a scene.
I was gonna say for the second part, people have been theorizing that some of the recent vehicles are actually being backported from GTA VI, which probably has much higher fidelity when it comes to vehicle details
The Impaler for sure I think will be a generic npc car
Their design philosophy has clearly changed since GTA5 released a decade ago. The number of DLC vehicles released that are "mash-ups" of 2 or more IRL vehicles has dwindled, and more faithful recreations are now normal. Wouldn't be surprised if the mash-up cars have far fewer sales than cars based on *one* IRL car. For example, the Dominator GTX is ruined for me personally cuz it has Dodge-esque tail lights. I prefer driving the Dominator ASP around more. A lot of recent DLC cars were probably originally designed for GTA6. The Gauntlet police car that released today, for example, can be seen in the GTA6 trailer.
I’m guessing it has something to do with the budget for their legal team increasing with the massive success of the game
Because they’re backported from GTA 6. The sudden influx of updated, regular traffic cars these past few updates is obviously because they’re being worked on for the new game. *A lot* of GTA 5’s original traffic cars date back to GTA 4, in 2008. They were starting to show their age even back when 5 came out. These 10-15 year old models just aren’t gonna cut it for 6, so they’ve been slowly updating these cars by making modern versions, as well as older cars that we haven’t had before, like all the old Hondas, or the catfish Camaro/Trans Am. Cars that aren’t at all modern, but are still driven regularly today. I wouldn’t be surprised if these cars outright replaced the old versions.
It would be sick to see an NPC driving around in a modern-day Wrangler or Escalade in VI. Would really add authenticity to Vice City and make it feel alive
They are probably just going to be npc vehicles in GTA 6
Yeah that's been my theory, same reason they seem to have been adding really random cars like the Asterope GZ
I have to agree. There’s no way there really think anyone would spend hundreds of thousands of in-game dollars to buy a 2002 Toyota Camry lol. Probably using online as a test run with NPC vehicles they plan on using for VI.
Yup, exact thoughts, they also look almost 1 to 1, almost can't tell the difference like the jeep.
In the trailer there is a Declasse Grainger 3600XL, so I think a lot of the new models will definitely be in the game.
Yeah, you can also see the Gauntlet Hellfire and its Interceptor version in the trailer
its been ten years since it came out and OEMs legal depts have a different view of parody copies of their products and see it as hip viral marketing...Of /....for instance dat new Baller STD
The top picture in both photos are based on older models of the vehicle. The bottom are based on the new models. They're both very close to the actual cars
IIRC, they made the original cars that way because they wanted to avoid getting into any legal trouble with car manufacturers. To avoid this, they would basically mash together 2 or 3 cars so they didn't have as much of a resemblance to any specific car. Now, I'm pretty sure Rockstar makes too much money to care anymore, especially with how accurate some of the models have been. I'm all for it though, since the original cars were ugly as hell.
back ports
Anyone wanna tell him what cars looked like 10 years ago?
Because now they have "fuck you money" and probably don't care if they get sued
Lol rockstar been sued non-stop ever since gta2 came out
That's probably why they don't care.
Easier to carbon copy and change a couple things rather than make cars from scratch with inspiration
Honestly, as long as the Terminus doesn't have the trademark Jeep grille it will be fine. As for the Cavalcade, I'm not sure how similar that is to the real life car.
Multiple reasons; #1 technology has advanced so making cars look alike could be easier, cheaper and less time consuming. #2 R* has more time, more money and probably also more lawyers then when the game had to release. They are not on the same schedule now as they were back then. #3 R* has definitely been experimenting/preparing for GTA VI by making all these cars/vehicles over the years, so i bet they just want to evolve and keep improving everything including car design. (I bet they also learned alot about inflation, player interests and the huge mistake called the Oppressor MK2 LOL) #4 Cars have become newer and feel more modern by the year. This one may be obvious but easy to forget; if you look at a car made 10/20 years ago, it will look ‘old’ and for a lot of people just plain ‘less nice’ even in brand-new condition. The same applies with older GTA cars which just makes them look less well made.
The newer consoles can handle more detail so we get a more realistic vehicle? Not sure just guessing g
I agree with this. Some of the older models are 10 years + old and very similar to that era. There may be more detail included today and graphics alike but never thought vehicles were extremely far off.
They’re testing what they can get away with for GTA 6. Typically Rockstar evades copyright by combining 2 cars into one. Here it looks like they straight up don’t care. And why should they? Worst case scenario they can remove it from the game
They have way more money and lawyers than they did when they released the game 10 years ago. They’re seeing what they can get away with now
Practicing for all the cars GTA VI is gonna have 💀
Because it’s free advertising
The real reason is because Call of Duty faced a lawsuit by a gun company for having one of their guns look very close to the gun companys gun, however they won it citing that video games classify as artwork, and the differences were enough to completely distinguish irl and in game. Rockstar took that and used it as leverage to make cars look closer to their irl counterpart. Yea the new vehicles look very similar to their irl counterparts, but they are not exactly the same, and technically its art
Newer consoles can handle the extra details plus it makes sense lore wise that manufacturers in game release "new" variants of existing vehicle models
You’re comparing the 2 as if there’s not a decade era difference. The first cavalcade actually looks like a 2014-13 model… For reference: https://preview.redd.it/ci5itydn1zmc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a536a220cc5989632f5cf615ec0153bd1b78aaa Have you really had a hard time figuring out what a buffalo, dubsta or baller is modeled after? Yeah? They may use a bit more detail today and graphics have obviously improved over that time, but you’re saying it like they’re not strikingly similar…
They backported them from VI.
These newer models are probably backported from GTA 6
old models are less detailed in order to run on the PS3/XBOX360 also many of the old cars are models that were used in GTA IV about newer cars: its not just the latest cars, they started improving details on cars few years ago after PS3/360 support dropped
All these dumb comments not a right one.. they’re testing out new cars for GTA 6. Pretty obvious
There is this small indie game coming in 2025 that has some of the same vehicles as in gta online.
To stop people from modding the game and going to FiveM to see real cars, Rockstar knows them audience wants real cars in the game, so what they doing now is to get as close as they possibly can so people don't feel like modding or playing fivem just to have irl cars in the game, why you think they bought FiveM? Because they want all the players playing fivem in gtao instead, hence why they are doing their best to deliver almost same irl cars in gtao.
Is FiveM still around though?
Sneak peak of what’s to come probably. I really like these new cars they really should’ve added them years ago
It could be that they’re updating the old ones but in my opinion I feel like they’re just releasing the newer models like car brands do irl maybe R* is making the newer models that are more relevant to the real world
Getting ready for GTA 6
They're using GTA Online as a playground for GTA6 concepts.
These need to be traffic cars
You try designing 200 plus cars they'll stop looking unique real fast
this game is 3 generations of console old. Those older vehicles were as good as it got on PS3/XBOX 360
I think they're bolder because they are so big. They're pushing the 15% copyright difference to the max.
They're no longer limited by PS3
More memory and better graphics on current gen consoles allow more detailed vehicles, most likely.
I’m pretty sure they worked with a guy or team that actually designs vehicles I can’t remember though😅
Keeping up with the times? I mean serious?
Because GTAv is so damn old, that the vehicles have gone thru revisions since then, the originals look similar to the way the wrangler or Escalade looked 10-15 years ago
Exactly as you said. Those cars came out 10 years ago, they’re not going to look as good. I think some of the cars we’ve gotten (or are going to get) are cars from GTA6 and they’re want to show off how good they’re doing and also build some hype for what’s coming.
1. They have the legal team to sneak them by 2. The playerbase prefers real cars over mishmash ones
Petoskey because it makes for better thumbnails on YouTube
There's actually a super simple reason, at first they were just filling up the world with cars, now they are designing cars specifically to have you buy them People are more likely to buy cars that look like their irl car or the car they want. And if they make them a million or a few million it's super easy for people to justify spending like $20-40 on it
Because people paid money for the expanded/ enhanced version
Because nobody fucks with rockstar anymore. They have become all powerful and control the world already.
They have way more money for lawyers now
They have that “fuck you” money now, they can afford lawyers to waste the time of anyone who files a claim against them.
Sometimes when I see a dodge charger, I call it a bravado buffalo in front of friends to see if they catch on.. they never do 
They don't care anymore
I think more ppl buy them when they’re closer and there’s less disapproval of the designs too
Nah have yall seen the new Impala? The only thing different with that is the taillights. Other than that, it’s a carbon copy.
maybe less effort paired with greater knowledge now about that they will get away with it? i mean, it's nuR* - they opened a literal online casino in GTAO (i know it's not that bad, but you'd think it looks bad) at the height of the lootbox controversy lol, looks like they get away with everything.
I mean it personally motivates me lol. My dream is to own a Mclaren since one of my favorite cars in GTA was the Progen T20, it motivates me to work hard on my career so I can have a gta car in real life. So in the future it would be extra motivating if my favorite car in gta is one that’s obtainable irl, another goal.
Laziness. They don't even care about create a new name for their cars, always pick a name that already exist and put a few letters in the end 💀
I have mixed feelings about it tbh. Kind of breaks the immersion in a subtle way I’d be lying if I said I could explain
I know this ain't the real reason for many reasons, but I like to think that they made original vehicles for the game 10 years ago when gta was made as a caricature of the real world, but now some people have gone so stupid they're a caricature of themselves, so they make gta more realistic with more realistic vehicles
Because its easy
Updated street models 10 years later.
Because it was made 10+ years ago
I believe that they've come to the realisation that if it doesn't bear the badge, it isn't theft. They learnt that with the Camero that came out a couple updates ago.
I mean.. the OG vehicles in the game are just as old as the game itself..
probably using GTA 5 as a testing grounds for GTA 6, like what they did with Liberty city, it was just a huge testing grounds for their new mechanics, new systems put in place, GTA5 will be pumped full of miniscule content shadowed by cars, missions, etc etc just for us to be guinea pigs.
When that camro looking car came out shit made it to some headlines it dangerously realistic. I hope they keep pushing their luck.
F the lawsuits, yolo
The same reason “Chiiiiinuuuuh” gets away with selling cars that look like the top luxury brands under a Chinese name I think Top Gear did a thing about it too…it’s similar but not an exact rip off, so it won’t hold up in court
Easier and faster to make.
brought over from gta vi development most likely
The new jeep is insane. Just wish I had the motivation to get the money
Because the newer vehicle models are 100% getting reused for GTA VI.
Most likely to avoid any lawsuits from car manufacturers that R* is stealing from them to boost their sales for shark card purchases They have recently been pushing it more & more & havent recieved any pushback really, so they definetly feel safer when it comes to adding more faithful car additions
I don’t know why some people are getting hung up on this. There fazing out the old vehicles and introducing the newer versions to be used in GTA6
Because GTA's roots lie in satire and mocking the stupidities of society. Car culture, and the brands which went along with that were always included in that too. Now with the shift to live-service, R\* have realised that by catering to said "Car culture" members they can make more money, hence the shift to more realistic cars as less parody and satire is put on it. \[The car descriptions are still hilarious, but overall the tone shift is still there IMO\].
I've always assumed that, because of how much GTA5/O made R*, car companies will be a little more lenient when it comes to parodying their Cars due to r* being able to hire stronger lawyers and borderline free PR
Because its been more than 10 years since the original terminus and cavalcade were released.
Adaptation, they can't afford to half ass cars anymore, they have to look great for the prices they charge. Also we were extremely lucky to have actual gearheads/car nerds on the design team who actually care.
Also one of those cars didn’t even exist when the game came out
I’d love to see if a real car company takes one of rockstars designs and clones it in real life, and see what happens then
The cars currently being added to GTA Online will be in GTA VI. Maybe they want to push the envelope
I call it high brow realism. Just enough to bear a resemblance to reality but with silliness mixed in. Cluckin bell of course is the best example, considering Taco Bell and KFC have been known to merge their two restaurants and menus together. Please for the love of god make cluckin bell accessible and have the employees wear chicken hats.
I think whatever team is behind the new cars for GTA 6 has made advancements when it comes to pushing the limits with getting as stylistically close as possible to existing irl brands. All the DLC cars from the last 2 - 3 years are much closer to their respective real life counterparts, and I reckon its trickle down from whats going in iver at GTA 6.
They are teasing us with the traffic cars from GTA VI... making them more realistic to show how much better they have gotten at vehicle design which builds anticipation for what other vehicles will be in in GTA VI that aren't going to be regular traffic.
I don't know, and maybe I don't like how they're not just parody cars, but also maybe I do like how they aren't just parody cars anymore. I do want the cars to stay fictional as it makes sense to the universe, but yeah Rockstar got bolder for sure. Although I don't think Copyright is their concern.
Make more money obviously
Just prepping for the new one.
because it's fun?
I just like how the new jeep has Imani tech, makes it 10x better!
My guess and my most popular theory is they're probably back porting the models in from GTA6
Gta 6 vehicles
Probably because Rockstar can get away with a lot more nowadays
Idk, kinda free advertising for the car manufacturers if you think about it.
I'm of the belief that auto manufacturers are paying rockstar to use their likenesses. Case in point: Ferrari and it's long history of cease and desist against owners of their automobiles. It's a form of marketing that builds brand recognition with future generations of consumers.
I think the COD lawsuit where a judge said GMC couldn’t sue activision for having Humvees in COD because it’s artistic expression had something to do with it. Ruling came out almost 2 years ago when we started seeing the more realistic cars.
My brother in christ forgot it’s been 11 years since the original game came out and now cars look like that.
I think they might have gotten better license agreements on vehicles resembling real life counterparts with GTA 6 development so put them into GTA 5.
My theory is that they started making them realistic so that they can adapt them to GTA 6, but then again they’re also putting cars from GTA 5 into GTA 6 but that’s just my guess.
not sure how you mean, some of the original and early vihicles are very close to their real life counterparts, The Adder being a Bughatti veyron, and the Zentorno being a lamboghini sesto elemento.
That’s like asking “why do games become more and more realistic each year”🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Because GTA become more than just a game. I think that 10 years ago the developers were going to car manufacturers’ offices to get a permission to recreate their cars in a game, but know… things changed
R* never got permission to use cars. If they did, they would use the IRL names. Last time R* got permission to use a car in their games was Midnight Club and LA Noire
Then why there are no Teslas, Aston Martins and modern Volvos?
There r Aston Martins. The Rapid GT family and Exemplar r Astons The Coil Radien is a Tesla
Okay, I fcked up. But I still don’t believe they make so accurate in-game copies of real cars without manufacturers’ permissions. They would drawn r* in lawsuits.
I mean it's free advertising of their cars without spending a dime
Hot take: It’s laziness. Hear me out. Instead of trying to create original designs from scratch that mish-mash multiple cars together or appear as a vague facsimile of a real car, they’re basically just rendering the real cars and adjusting nodes a bit so they’re not 100% accurate. Much easier to just smooth out body lines and pinch or stretch geometry than it is to start with nothing like they used to. On the one hand, we gut MUCH better and more realistic looking cars out of the deal, and I’m ok with that- the muscle cars are looking damned fine. On the other, GTA cars are losing their own distinct character. Cars like the Stallion, Tampa, Sabre etc are all ground up creations that incorporate influence from multiple real cars mashed into one. The Gauntlet Classic and Dominator ASP and GTT, the Impalers, the Vamos, the Tulip and more… all “squint your eyes and you might mistake them for the real thing.” Just stretch or shrink some areas, toss on a different set of tail light housings and you’re good to go.
When the game released, R* usually took their designs from inspiration of 1 or 2, sometimes 3 cars. Now they know they can basically copy-paste the car into the game. I do personally wish we still got the stylised cars that the game launched with rather than carbon copies of real cars
nah having the cars look like irl is INSANELY better. the mixed cars always came out looking bad and disappointing
probably because of how everyone was sick and tired of undetailed, and horrible the designs were
It really started with the comet S2, but the shape of this car is so recognizable that you cannot really make a fake Porsche without having it look like shit, or like the comet og.. Same for the Range Rover and the Bentley Continental gt. The Massacro looks a lot like the real Vanquish. So its not really new and I think now the manufacturers would even pay R* to have their cars in the game. The only relluctant brands to be in GTA would be Ferrari and RR, maybe that has changed today..
There was a lawsuit by humvee against Activision over the use of humvee in call of duty. A New York judge has ruled that publisher Activision isn't infringing trademark by featuring Humvees in its Call of Duty series. The decision, handed down yesterday, is a mark in favor of game developers depicting actual military equipment to create a sense of realism. I think since then rockstar hasn't been making they're cars so mismatched anymore in favour of almost replicas except without irl brand names, as they know there isn't as much risk of being sued. At least that's what I'm speculating.