Rockstar Games Sues BBC Over ‘Game Changer’ Drama

When I first learned that the BBC was producing a drama that depicted the earliest days of Rockstar Games and its Grand Theft Auto series, it took nothing more for me to get excited about it. However, a major flaw has just been exposed with the production: Rockstar Games itself had nothing to do with the show. Today, we find out how the company feels about the show, called Game Changer, as it’s just filed a lawsuit against the Beeb.

Rockstar says: “Our goal is to ensure that our trademarks are not misused in the BBC’s pursuit of an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games. We have attempted multiple times to resolve this matter with the BBC without any meaningful resolution. It is our obligation to protect our intellectual property and unfortunately in this case litigation was necessary.”

It’s hard to argue that. It does raise the suspicion that Rockstar is wanting to hide its past, but it has the right to pursue whatever avenue it can to defend itself. It’s up in the air if its lawsuit will impede the production, though, as we’ve seen similar productions slip through without showstopping legal issues before – even big productions, such as 2010’s The Social Network.

We’ll see where things go. Rockstar can either make what sounds like a cool drama fade away, or suffer the Streisand effect and cause even more eyeballs to take note of it.