wow i would have thought it coincidence. kinda sad they didn't go with it, but i guess the whole conflict of interest thing. oh well.

(hope he isn't too mad at dan for this :D )

Why would he sue? Talk about horrible karma. He runs a website that makes money off of content footage from other properties.

lol It's whatever.

Time for a gimmick change! In comes Dr. Lawsuit.

@pmmcl said:

You're jumping to several different conclusions. But yeah, it's possible that someone from CBSi legal emailed somebody at 2K and then they just took down the trailer to smooth everything over. Or it's possible that a 2K community person saw some of the reactions (mainly Jeff's) to using Dr. Tracksuit, and nipped the whole thing in the bud as a preventative measure. This seems like the kind of thing that would quickly be resolved through back channels (email, brief phone call), not CBSi suing the developer. It wouldn't be worth the time of either party to take this to court unless 2K really adamantly kept the trailer up as is and kept using Dr. Tracksuit to show off the create-a-wrestler.

I mean facially the character looks nothing like Jeff, unless you think Jeff is the guy from that shitty Comedy Central prank show. Sure the silly character stuff's there, but it's not Jeff.

@bisonhero: Well, I was just presenting a hypothetical as to why 1) Jeff would tweet he wasn't thrilled about it, 2) why I can understand how others could get so upset (we've seen how crazy the internet can go over presumed "ethics breaches", and 3) that CBSi could potentially own the rights to the character.

It was probably my fault for using the word "sue" since it's not part of the actual game and only showing possible character creations, not actual game characters. Still, they'd put up a character resembling Mickey Mouse in the trailer, because it's the property of a major corporation and even a "nod to Disney fans" in the trailer would never fly. Now that the trailer has been taken down (it wasn't when I posted), that's the last we'll see of it, I'm sure, so there's no reason for anyone to take it any further. If they had kept it, it may be a different story.

I admitted that I don't know the specifics of anyone's contract and thus it was speculation. I also wrote it before the video itself was taken down. I do not think there will be any legal action -- I'm just saying that if use of his likeness comes into question, it is a can of worms that the developer should have cleared with the parties involved before adding to a promo trailer. I'm sure the majority of the people it had to go through before it was approved had no idea what Dr. Tracksuit is, so it'll likely get blamed on the rogue GB fan who stuck him in there.

I'm assuming this is the WWE 2K16 Create a Suite trailer.

If so, whoever posted the original trailer (which I'm guessing is 2K) seems to have pulled it.

It is still up on Machinima, though. Dr. Tracksuit would be at the 1:24 spot.

Unsolicited GB cameos are always the best or the worst. I'm sure the intent was harmless but given this franchise's history it just comes off as desperate.

@pmmcl: Yeah, fair enough. I mostly replied because I thought "sue" was a little strong.

Nope.

haha You see, this is the internet so you can quick change your version on youtube, but everybody else still knows what you did 2K and it won't ever go away now =P

God dammit, that's the kind of clever writing the WWE is missing.

Anyway, I don't see Jeff anywhere in that screenshot of Dr. Tracksuit.

Is Jeff genuinely not happy about it or is he not happy about it in a jokey way? I can't tell. Its hard to perceive sarcasm through twitter.

I don't know about this discussion, but it seems tangentially on-topic that I just want the fake Michael Jackson back in PvZ so I can roll a lawnmower over him. (as in 2K doing a Men In Black "did you see what happened? Nope" moment)

Polygon Article

Well shit, polygon wrote an article about this.

I don't think he's TMZ feud style unhappy about it, but some places seem to think it's newsworthy.

Nine Minutes Later

Um.. hmm...

@pmmcl a company can't sue over personality rights. Only the individual in question. CBS also can't really claim any rights to the "Dr. Tracksuit" character, since he was created outside of Giant Bomb exclusively for the PAX Rumble.

Speaking of the PAX Rumble; Why didn't anyone get upset about Harmonix's infringement of the WWE's "Royal Rumble" trademark with the first PAX event? Now that's something you could actually sue over. lol

From that Polygon article:

In wrestling parlance, this foofaraw appears to be a "shoot" (i.e. legit) and not a "work" (scripted for storyline purposes).

I think PAXWrestling.com still got the scoop on this hot news story.

You can't beat 100 percent.

Christ, it's like nobody has a sense of humour anymore.

I doubt anything regarding lawyers happened here or would've happened if the trailer hadn't been changed. I'm guessing someone slipped it into the trailer, and then when they realized Jeff's reaction wasn't flattering to the game, they pulled the rip cord because it would be preferable to have Jeff saying nothing about WWE 2K16 as opposed to trashing it.

I was content to just snigger along at how daft this all is and then Polygon went and wrote a news article.

Lights off, close it down, we're done.

This post deserves more love. That's some Godfather/Goodfather shit right there.

I'm not trying to start any debates or stir up any shit but if we lived in a alternate timeline where the WWE 2K games were actually good, do you guys think Jeff would still have an issue with this scenario?

@chaser324: Nah I get all that, I'm talking about the reaction threads I'm seeing pop up everywhere I frequent. Everyone is frothing at the mouth working themselves into a shoot and in the end it's all over a dumb two second reference that nobody outside of this website would even understand.

It's just, man, do we as a species have nothing better to do?

You already know the answer to that.

@oldirtybearon: The Internet certainly doesn't. Far dumber things have fueled far worse frothing internet rage.

@namoo said:

First world problems: getting more riled up about the use of an internet celebrity's wrestling persona without his permission than you get about federal politics.

I think he'd be weirded out regardless, because I think anyone would be kinda weirded out seeing their likeness appear in an official ad for a video game without any prior knowledge. Especially when Jeff seems to consider himself just some random dude on the Internet who talks about games, not a celebrity.

Ask the average joe on the street about the latest "reality" celebs and they can talk your ear off for half an hour. Ask them about TTIP and all you get is a blank stare. Roll on WW3 I say.

CHEMTRAILS

The fact that Polygon actually wrote an article about this seems to bother Jeff more than fake Tracksuit.

Man, I genuinely love a lot of what Polygon produces, but it seems more and more that their frequently hilarious, insightful and entertaining video and written features are completely in stark contrast from the trashy, publish anything approach of their news team.

Owen Good and Brian Crecente need to get their shit together ASAP.

That about sums it up, in every way possible.

Had a feeling something really stupid was going to come out of this (the polygon article). As I said in the wrestling thread, I really hope no one gets fired because of this idiocy. That shit with Nintendo a couple of months back makes me wary of situations like this. The actual thing in question is so obviously innocuous, it doesn't deserve this kind of attention.

I feel like this whole thing is just one big joke.

People wanted WWE to Push Dr. Tracksuit. Well they started pushing him. And now no one is happy.

They pushed him... too far.

Wow, 2k got it totally wrong, Tracksuit would never do a pose like that!

Someone needs to dress up as the guy that they replaced Dr Tracksuit with to the next PAX wrestling thing!

Don't worry, the good doctor always gets his.

Dr. Tracksuit needs to adopt the Faces Of Foley shtick and take on the persona of Dr. Lawsuit! Followed shortly by the good Dr. Swimsuit and Dr. Spacesuit with all that money he be due from 2K!

I was unsure until I saw the M.D on the tracksuit. So fucking strange. And yeah, kinda not cool.

I get the feeling some intern working on the trailer was a big fan of GiantBomb and snuck that in without anyone higher-up realizing the connection. And now things have gone horribly wrong/right.

@milkman: yeah that was...

what is everyone doing?

We're doing this now?