Gabriel Toschi (he/him)Nov 13, 2023
Megan Fox

Don't use real brands in your games/novels

Not because you can't, but because you often can in novels at least— but shouldn't, because you're giving mega corps free advertising.

I mean there's other good reasons too, like "inventing dumb fake brands is half the fun", but that's plenty reason already. Don't lick boots, even if they taste like Oreo.

Nov 13, 2023 at 5:13amWeb
Show threadJanne MorenNov 13, 2023

@glassbottommeg
Also, you never know if that brand you tossed in will suddenly be tainted and have a completely different meaning to people a few years down the road.

Japanese state TV has strict prohibitions on any brand imaging at all. Every drama scene with a computer screen is full of stuff like a "Goggle" search screen, the "Ahomon" online retailer and so on.

NHK can't even call the May holiday "Golden Week" (that everyone uses) since it originated in a TV commercial decades ago.

Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKNov 13, 2023

@jannem @glassbottommeg

most PSBs (public service broadcasters) have similar rules - in UK the popular cartoon cat "Top Cat" was called "Boss Cat" on Childrens BBC until 1980s as there was an existing UK brand of cat food called "Top Cat.

Show threadjelteNov 13, 2023
@jannem @glassbottommeg Is there truly any difference when it's that clear which Big Brand (tm) is being referenced?
Show threadCarsten Straaberg 🇩🇰 🎮Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg also - people's perception of brands change over time. The cool brand of today may be the evil brand of tomorrow.
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg damn… strong disagree I think. Saying a character drank a Coke is just life. Hanging out behind the Taco Bell is a real thing people do. Hanging out behind the Taco Schmacko isn’t. If your story is taking place in the real world it’s okay to set it there. We live in a world full of brands. It’s also fine and great to make a subtly different AU where the same amount of brand presence exists but it’s all fake. It just won’t seem like it takes place in real life (in this one way)
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg eg it’s so satisfying to watch an old movie when someone walks down a grocery store aisle and it’s just the brands of that moment in the packaging of that moment. It seems real because it is! Games all subtly seem like Repo Man, even when the artist isn’t meaning to be doing that commentary.
Show threadCabel SasserNov 13, 2023
@ja2ke Loosely related, nothing makes my brain sadder than when a PA went through and rotated every item on the grocery store shelves so they’re all facing backwards for the shot
Show threaddragica kahlina (dr_kah)Nov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @glassbottommeg this context is mostly lost to your international audience for whom all these brands have no meaning or nostalgia attached except for being exotic and alien, there are brands that are ubiquitous like McDonalds, but there is no Taco Bell in my corner of the world, a strong anchor in the US may be what you are going for, but using fantasy names may help you not to relay on a brand as a shortcut for a meaning that will be hard to understand even in the US as time goes by
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@drka @glassbottommeg I think we both agree it’s okay for works to not be for an international audience. If that’s your aim, great, that gives your work some useful guardrails. I agree not everything should be specific - 30 name drops of brands in as many pages is absurd - but there is value in it sometimes. I don’t live in Chicago or Copenhagen or Mexico City but a story set there, written by an author from there, who left out specifics because it might alienate me would be a bizarre choice.
Show threadRon Gilbert (100% AI free)Nov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @glassbottommeg I had this explained to me by a real lawyer. You can use real brands in your game, book, movie, you just can't disparage them. You can't redraw their logos and that is a problem for non-text based stuff. Movies can film a McDonalds sign that is on the street. Animated films can't redraw it.
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@grumpygamer @glassbottommeg I’ve always assumed the redrawing part is why games and cartoons never have real stuff. I recently saw Perfect Blue for the first time at a rep screening and the main character uses an actual Macintosh Performa even though it’s an anime - it was shocking but so awesome because it seemed real, exactly the computer that character would buy at the time the movie was set/made. I bet they just didn’t ask permission and did it.
Show threadMegan FoxNov 13, 2023

@grumpygamer @ja2ke oh! Always wondered what the difference was for novel vs games.

Which means we could incorporate them into games via video? Weird thought. Until now wouldn't be sure how, but with Control and Alan Wake 2, well. Huh!

Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @grumpygamer I also wonder if this would apply to 3D scanned props.
Show threadMegan FoxNov 13, 2023

@ja2ke @grumpygamer right?

And even if they said no because it becomes an asset first, what if you did video based generation runtime? What if I pulled the Coke logo out of video with a shader and threw that around? Surely that flies.

Show threadRon Gilbert (100% AI free)Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke As explained to me, that would not fly because you're not using it in a way the IP holder would, like a street sign. I'm not a lawyer, it was just what was explained to me.
Show threadTom ForsythNov 13, 2023
@grumpygamer @glassbottommeg @ja2ke Right. If you're going to claim "it was just there when I did this, and it's too hard to remove" then you're claiming to be a documentary-maker. Which for a videogame is completely implausible. If it's there, you wanted it to be there, therefore it is active use.
Show threadTanys FosterNov 13, 2023
@grumpygamer @glassbottommeg @ja2ke
Hopefully the "disparaging the brand" thing can get by in works of parody & satire. Hopefully...
Show threadtuglawNov 13, 2023

@tanysfoster @grumpygamer @glassbottommeg @ja2ke

Yeah, who's not going to blow up a Shell gas station, and not have the S explode to have it spell "hell" instead?

Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @grumpygamer “incorporate via video” now makes me want a Myst game where the two brothers trapped in the books are also doing the Waynes World bit where they keep turning to the camera to eat a Dorito or whatever.
Show threadari velazquez 🌯Nov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @glassbottommeg @grumpygamer sorry i had to excise this from my mind
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@ari @glassbottommeg @grumpygamer [chefs kiss]
Show threadMirko SchenkNov 13, 2023
@grumpygamer @ja2ke @glassbottommeg I think it's a great thing the laws that were made to make companies money avoid free advertisement for them. Almost a pity this doesn't apply to books and non-animated movies as well.
Show threadRobinNov 13, 2023

@grumpygamer @ja2ke @glassbottommeg The way I understand it, you’re allowed to mention trademarks (company / product name) but when you make it visual you’re dealing with their copyrighted material which has much stricter rules on usage.

You can have a character who loves Pepsi, just can’t show the actual can.

Show threadloriNov 13, 2023

@Robin_Van_Ee @grumpygamer @ja2ke @glassbottommeg I don't know about the specific laws but I know John Waters has talked about there being brands he couldn't use, or had to pay a lot of money to use in his films, because the brands basically felt being in one of his movies at all was harm to their brand. It may have been a cautious lawyer thing though, no idea how it holds up in court, but brands did not want to be in his films.

(This was of course his later films, where there were lawyers at all, in his early films he was using copyrighted music for free and showing all the Campbell's soup cans he wanted. Ironically those were the ones you would be afraid to be in as a brand, nothing wrong with being in Serial Mom)

Show threadLangerJanNov 13, 2023
@grumpygamer @ja2ke @glassbottommeg was that the problem with Pepsi™ in Thimbleweed Park?
Show threadRon Gilbert (100% AI free)Nov 13, 2023
@LangerJan @ja2ke @glassbottommeg That was "can of non-trademark-infringing Poopsi™". There was Pepsi in Maniac Mansion, but we got permission. Lucasfilm had to be very carful because they were big (and also suing people). We had a Q-tip in MI, but they made me change it not due to trademark issues, but because it was used not as a Q-tip would be.
Show threadMegan FoxNov 13, 2023

@ja2ke soda, pop, regionally appropriate slang. Taco shack (or truck). Convenience store. local five n dime. Diner. Bodega. Pancake place.

Using the actual brands does little but instantly date the media 10 years from now, and materially supports their dominance in culture. Which sucks! Why help them? You can do better!

Show threadCheesenessNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke I'm with Megan on this, but I also watched the Bill & Ted movies with a friend the other day, and I struggle to think of what would land as well as "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K" does
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@Cheeseness @glassbottommeg strange things are afoot at the circle k is a perfect example of when it is correct to use a real thing. I see lots of concern in this thread that something will get dated or a brand will become not cool. so what? Imagine if half life had shipped with this Fruitopia machine. It would be good, not bad, that it’s dated. I’m not saying drown your work in brands but I think “don’t use them” as a rule is incorrect. Representing the specifics of world as it is, has a place.
Show threadCheesenessNov 13, 2023

@ja2ke @glassbottommeg Separate from the concept of referencing brands, the context a work was created in is an intrinsic part of it IMO, and intentionally obscuring that can be potentially be disrespectful to your work and audience.

Still feel hugely uncomfortable with my work subsidising brands' presence and power in culture unless it's something I'm personally invested in, though!

Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@Cheeseness @glassbottommeg I guess for me I just think it’s powerful as hell that you can point a video camera at the real world and put an actor in the middle of it, and you’re telling a story that immediately feels true and real because it’s in that place. And the idea of re-creating that reality through the lens of an artist drawing or modeling it or a writer describing it is interesting and valid as hell. To say the camera can do it but the artist or writer can’t because capitalism… nah.
Show threadJPNov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @Cheeseness @glassbottommeg i hate capitalism as much as anyone in this thread and i think specificity is good. citing a present day brand is just unexciting to me, i'd almost instinctively reach into a nearby parallel reality and make an -alike that better captures the spirit of the times. whereas for a period piece of any kind i love citing Fallen Brands like Fruitopia, as it reminds us that with the exception of a few immortal (mostly boring) brands, "this bullshit too shall pass".
Show threadJPNov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @Cheeseness @glassbottommeg on the other hand if i wanted to tell a present day story that was explicitly addressing current events, eg The Wire, i'd absolutely use real boring everyday brands because the content of the story would absolutely not be doing those brands any favors.
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@jplebreton @Cheeseness @glassbottommeg yeah, all this
Show threadJPNov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @Cheeseness @glassbottommeg i think my most strongly held opinion on this topic is more that these decisions (real vs fake, time period, cultural context, views of the creator on each thing they're depicting no matter how minute) do, always, matter, even if we initially feel they don't, and if an artist has put that work in i'll pretty much always follow along to see where they take it.
Show threadMegan FoxNov 13, 2023
@ja2ke @Cheeseness eh. Hard disagree. I'd find that as cringe as- trying to remember another game that had actual branding. SiN or something? Vaguely remember one did, hasn't aged well.
Show threadJake RodkinNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @Cheeseness okay to be fair the HL example is slightly a shitpost and I’d like to see it because it would make me giggle. (But that is a game that is supposed to take place in a set time, so it being dated wouldn’t be the worst.)
Show threadPelayoNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke @Cheeseness The original Shenmue used a mix of real and fake brands, the more recent HD ports replaced most or all of the real brands with fake ones. I think there are mods to restore the real brands for the PC version.
Show threadMegan FoxNov 13, 2023

@Cheeseness @ja2ke "taco truck" is close, albeit not quite as good.

It's the cadence. 1.5-2 beats, one beats. You'd be looking for something along those lines.

Circle K is also just, funny, for unclear reasons. It's weird. I'm sure you could find another though, you'd just run through similar cadence phrases.

Laundry mat. Vapeorium. Heh, I'm certain you'd find one eventually.

Show threadBedNov 14, 2023
@Cheeseness @glassbottommeg @ja2ke Circle K is US centric. We don’t have that here in Australia and I for one, as a child, just recognised it must be a convenience store and thoroughly enjoyed the movie
Show threadNickBellNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke I think it's a stylistic thing. In writing, maybe your narrator has a characterful voice, or you're trying to evoke a sense of consumerism vs quaintness or something.
Show threadNickBellNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke I made a game which includes a bunch of semi-recreations of classic toys with made up names, as well as a bunch of off-branding versions mixed in. It felt like the right decision there to make a thing that *looks* mostly like a Fisher Price toy but it's named differently in text because the kid whose eyes we're seeing through just uses their kid-names for things. If it was a story in which required realism, that'd be different.
Show threadNickBellNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @ja2ke (I was also deliberately walking the line between fair use vs trademark. Reproducing a pastiche of copyrighted work, or a representation of a patented design can be fair use, but if I'd slapped a Fisher Price logo on there or said this is a "Little Snoopy" or this is a "Chatter Telephone" then I've entered the "Macdonalds sign" territory.)
Show threadJanne MorenNov 13, 2023

@ja2ke @glassbottommeg
Mentioning them by name is a different thing from using their brand, I believe.

You can have the Fruit Murderer meet their latest victim in front of a McDonalds. But you can't have an illustration of Ronald McDonald splattered with blood and pineapple chunks.

Show threadTom ForsythNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg Well unless you get fucking paid. And then make it so obnoxiously obvious that you got paid so they pay you more to shut the fuck up about it.
Show threadMars Buttfield-Addison 🛰Nov 13, 2023

@glassbottommeg Also it seems like a sure-fire way to end up in a Demolition Man (1993) situation: where Taco Bell was mentioned and shown everywhere in the original film release, then later having to be awkwardly dubbed/comped to be Pizza Hut for product placement/licensing reasons.

Imagine having to awkwardly release a new version of your thing just to badly swap references to something meaningless like a brand. It’s not worth the risk.

Show threadScott MichaudNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg Some people even make fake brands tie canonical universes together. <cough>
Show threadfluffy 💜Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg One time I did some comical parodying of well-known brand names in a Stack Overflow answer and got a bunch of comments like "You know you don't have to obscure brand names here, right?" and I was like "but I *want* to"
Show threadI̵E̶E̸E̵ ̷1̵1̸4̴9̴.̷1̷Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg mini double stuff'd choco sammies*
Show threadThat Frisian Girl-ishNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg I get your point, though I doubt any of the brands mentioned in Jennifer Government feels like being advertised for free for. And that's really a shame, since I don't see a way that great book ever sees a movie or series adaptation.
Show threadKay OhtieNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg @SleepyZee While not entirely clever I still snort-giggle at how stupid my alternative store name 'Door-mart' is. Might rename it later but it's still amusing to me x3
Show threadCurtis "Ovid" Poe (he/him)Nov 13, 2023

@glassbottommeg

I tried to avoid that in a fantasy multiverse novel I'm writing for my daughter, but it was critical to the plot line that a well-known US brand show up on products in another universe.

Without the well-known brand, it was hard to succinctly convey the importance of the moment, with a character realizing that there was inter-universe commerce.

Show threadDan PriceNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg Also it can really date a piece that otherwise feels contemporary. I was reading something recently that was set in the present day, the author showed that one of the main characters was bored by having him playing a PSP while other characters were talking. Straight away it's either a late-2000s period piece or the guy's a retro gamer.
Show threadUli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg Related: So many stories set in a distant future, have all cultural references to things in the 21st (or 20th) century, even though most people have an awareness that goes back about 30 years before their birth. Unless they're hardcore fans, most people wouldn’t care about e.g. sports trivia from before that, and it would be much more realistic to create your own recent history (which you can get inspiration for from 21st century).
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg worth noting for all the folks who think using real brands is more immersive: it often doesn’t work cross-culturally anyway. The world is more global than it was and UK/US are more aligned than many, but still I often can’t tell if a lot of American brands are real or fictional 😉
Show threadCraig TimpanyNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg Though I did enjoy the disorientation of discovering that Don Quijote - the obviously fake discount store from Yakuza with the bizarre jingle - is in fact real
Show threadbluGillNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg use real brands if you are paid to advertise for that brand. I.refuse to wear tshirts with a logo or brand for the same reason, nobody pays me to advertise for the brand.
Show threadDamon L. WakesNov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg I've come up with a fictional fast food franchise - Outback Taco - that I've taken to using every time I need to feature such a place in anything. I've even set up merch for it: https://www.redbubble.com/i/hat/Outback-Taco-by-DamonWakes/116746635.NJ288
Show threadAndreas HartlNov 13, 2023

@glassbottommeg @uliwitness

“They'd left the place littered with the abstract white forms of the foam packing units, with crumpled plastic film and hundreds of tiny foam beads. The Ono-Sendai; next year's most expensive Hosaka computer; a Sony monitor; a dozen disks of corporate-grade ice; a Braun coffee maker.”

That already felt old when I read Neuromancer in the late 90ies, but it does convey the „they prefer high quality items with subdued modern design" in a throwaway kind of way.

Show threadAlisonW ♿🏳️‍🌈♾️Nov 13, 2023
@glassbottommeg
Always interesting in (fiction) movies that if plane is a real carrier you know it won't crash but if a made-up name it will.