The five-star Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam has expressed its displeasure at appearing in the game, where not peaceful moments happen…
One of Activision Blizzard’s cash-cows for this year has been released (we’re pretty sure the other one will be Overwatch 2, mainly because it’s free-to-play, but we can also mention Diablo Immortal), which we wrote about the other day, with cross-play can be disabled on one current-gen platform but not on the other two, and the translation of one of the store versions being pretty severely messed up. However, this time, it’s more of a negative topic that has got Infinity Ward’s game in the news.
The Conservatorium Hotel in the Dutch capital appears in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, not under its real name, but as Breenbergh… but it’s the same building. The hotel’s manager Roy Tomassen told de Volksrant: “We have taken note of the fact that the Conservatorium Hotel is undesirably the scene of the new Call of Duty. 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.” They do not rule out the possibility of a lawsuit against the publisher, which Microsoft could soon acquire…
The hotel isn’t exclusive to the story mode: it also shows up in multiplayer, as Breenbergh has become one of the maps there. The hotel’s lavish interior is almost identical to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. The Conservatorium Hotel building was originally built in the 19th century as a bank. Then, an Italian architect distinctively played with glass and steel to transform the building into a five-star hotel. The lawsuit may seem a bit far-fetched, but remember that architecture is protected by copyright in both US and European law, and the Conservatorium Hotel’s manager and owners want complete control over their product.
While the US legislature has sided with Activision Blizzard (in the case of using HMMV, for example), the situation in Europe could be more transparent. In the case of 2006’s Resistance: Fall of Man, Sony had to formally apologise to the Church of England for not depicting Manchester Cathedral inaccurately…
Source: VG247
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