Why are all the newer maps pretend real places instead of actual real places? Like the “Golden Bay” naval map that is clearly supposed to be San Francisco, why not just make the actual San Francisco? Or the “Southeastern City” map that is just Hong Kong, but with a different name. It feels as if there was a Berlin map made now it would be called “German Capital” and a Normandy map would be called “European Landing” or something, and it makes the game lose a feeling of authenticity
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Rights of many many buildings/towns names/… ect. Which are meant to be paid to be used.
Even more considering this would likely make you able to “visit” the area without going there and spend money there.
→ thats about millions of US. Dollars for San Francisco, if you wanted an exemple,…
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While true, as far as I know you don’t need legal permission to depict the outside of anywhere. If you did, mapping services wouldn’t really work, but because they are public domain you can make something like that. What requires licensing is the interior of specific buildings, which in War Thunder’s case isn’t an issue at all.
At the very least, names of places (such as city names) are public domain. So having a map set in San Francisco but not calling it San Francisco just seems odd.
Most games are avoiding real places names because of possible Law pursuits, even on AAA games :
GTA Series
ARMA 3
…
Here a link to a reddit thread, in which they states many reasons why you would/should not use real places names in video games
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/lb0f44/can_i_use_real_places_in_my_game/
It also says that “the names of places are public domain”
But if a game like DCS can make maps that use the names of real places, why can’t War Thunder also do it?