GTA maker blocks a sandwich shop from calling itself Vice City Subs

Take-Two is accusing a sandwich shop of trying to piggyback off the success of the GTA games, as it accidentally reveals sales figures for Vice City Stories.

Some companies can be overprotective of their branding to the point of ludicrousness. Monster Energy, for example, has challenged other trademarks just for including the word ‘monster,’ including Pokémon (the name’s an abbreviation for Pocket Monster).

Nintendo is no stranger to this sort of behaviour, having filed a lawsuit last year against a small supermarket in Costa Rica called Super Mario. Surprisingly though, things ended in the shop’s favour.

Now, Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games and owner of the GTA franchise, has taken umbrage with a sandwich shop, because it’s trying to include the words Vice City in its name.

The shop has yet to open, but a company by the name of DT Global Investment Holdings applied to trademark the term ‘Vice City Subs’ for the business last June.

Take-Two has moved to block this application on the grounds of ‘priority and likelihood of confusion’ and ‘dilution by blurring,’ stating in a filing from last month (as spotted and shared by Game File) that it owns the trademark for Vice City.

There’s a lot to read through but the long and short of it is that Take-Two believes the decision to name the shop Vice City Subs wasn’t a coincidence and is trying to piggyback off the popularity of GTA by suggesting it’s related to the games.

Elsewhere in the filing is a logo DT Global Investment Holdings tried to register for the shop, which Take-Two alleges is deliberately meant to resemble its own Vice City Logo.

‘The disputed logo is confusingly similar to, and mimics the appearance and style of, the Vice City logo and is displayed in neon pink and other neon colouring that is associated with the Vice City games and related Vice City artwork,’ reads the filing.

Vice City is an iconic location within the GTA series, having been a part of it since the very first game as one of its three cities. Since then, it’s served as the primary setting of 2002’s GTA: Vice City and 2006’s GTA: Vice City Stories.

It’s also coming back for GTA 6, which is scheduled to launch this year and expected to be the biggest video game release of all time. Surprisingly, though, Take-Two’s filing doesn’t reference GTA 6 at all.

If anything, Take-Two seems more concerned about Vice City Subs being associated with the Vice City and Vice City Stories games. The former is playable on modern hardware through the 2021 remaster, but the latter hasn’t been available since it’s digital re-release for the PlayStation 3 was removed in 2017.

Take-Two has gone as far as to share new sales figures to demonstrate how popular and well-known the Vice City branding is, revealing that Vice City Stories has sold over seven million copies.

Take-Two also mentioned Vice City selling 17.5 million copies, but that’s the same figure it shared in 2008.

Take-Two’s actions shouldn’t be surprising as it’s repeatedly demonstrated how protective it is of the GTA branding, having shut down numerous fan projects over the years.

More recently, the company fired a number of employees for allegedly leaking GTA 6 information, although Take-Two was turn in turn accused of using that as an excuse for union busting.

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