Amsterdam hotel could take legal action over appearance in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
The five-star Conservatorium Hotel doesn’t appreciate being the scene of countless virtual gunfights.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
An Amsterdam hotel is displeased with its ersatz inclusion in the latest Call of Duty, and Dutch media reports it’s considering legal action against developer and publisherActivisionBlizzard. Though the Conservatorium Hotel appears under the name “Breenbergh” in-game, it’s undeniably the same building.
“We have taken note of the fact that the Conservatorium Hotel is undesirably the scene of the new Call of Duty,” the hotel’s manager Roy Tomassen toldde Volksrant. “More generally, we don’t support games that seem to encourage the use of violence. The game in no way reflects our core values and we regret our apparent and unwanted involvement.”
de Volksrant reports that the hotel is still considering what steps to take next. It’s clear from the phrasing, however, that the hotel has not ruled out legal action.
The Conservatorium stand-in Breenbergh appears in both the singleplayer mode and as a map in multiplayer. A quick look at images of the luxury hotel’s interior and the Call of Duty map confirm that the Breenbergh hotel in-game is based on the real life Conservatorium, a bank building from the 1800s redesigned in an extremely distinctive glass-and-steel style for use as a five-star hotel by an Italian architect.
The lawsuit may seem flippant to many, but architecture is copyrightable under both European and American law. As a five-star luxury hotel, it’s possible that the owners and manager of the Conservatorium desire absolute control over their business' depiction.
American law has sided with Activision in the past over depictions of the real world—notably the HMMV used by the American military—but laws in Europe are far less clear-cut on similar issues. The depiction of a hotel as setting for a shooting match is more debatable legally, and under various fair-use doctrines, than the depiction of an iconic military vehicle in a military game.
The closest thing I can remember was thedepiction of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Manback in 2006—but that was a far more famous building, represented for historical reasons, in another country. That incident ended with an official apology from Sony to the Church of England, which is frankly a very funny sentence.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
We’ll keep our eye out in case the hotel takes legal action against Activision. It’s not like their lawyers aren’t busy enough these days.
Thanks for reporting,NL Times.
Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he’s not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.
Black Ops 6 is wasting no time stinking up the joint with ugly skins
There is simply too much going on in Black Ops 6 Season 1
The first PUBG spinoff with real promise is a top-down take on Rainbow Six Siege
