If you’ve had any experience with the Fallout series, you’ll know that the wasteland RPGs are no strangers to violence and bleak circumstances, often putting players in difficult moral decisions that usually end in a few casualties. But a songwriter who had one of his songs used in ads for Fallout 4 has taken issue with the attachment of his song to the violent themes in the Fallout games and has decided to file a lawsuit against Fallout’s parent company, ZeniMax Media.
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Developed by Bethesda and ultimately owned by ZeniMax, Fallout 4 uses the song “The Wanderer” written by singer/songwriter Dion DiMucci, typically known as just Dion, in the above trailer. Dion filed a lawsuit against ZeniMax in California with a claim that the ads were “repugnant.”
“Defendant’s Commercials were objectionable because they featured repeated homicides in a dark, dystopian landscape, where violence is glorified as sport,” the lawsuit reads. “The killings and physical violence were not to protect innocent life, but instead were repugnant and morally indefensible images designed to appeal to young consumers.”
According to the lawsuit, part of the agreement between Dion and the game’s creators was that the artist could negotiate outside of UMG Recordings with ZeniMax separately to receive a better pay rate and to prevent his song from being used if his terms weren’t met. Dion and the lawsuit claim that he did not get the chance to do so and was not able to give his consent for the song to be used in the ads.
Had ZeniMax negotiated with Dion as he claims they failed to do, he would’ve been able to object to the violent material that he found offensive within the ads or otherwise changed his price to “safeguard himself against the potential loss of goodwill from being associated with the immoral images in Defendant’s scripts,” the lawsuit continues.
ZeniMax has yet to issue a response on the lawsuit that Dion and his laywer have filed against the video game company, so the only information that’s currently available is what Dion claims happened and what’s been listed in the lawsuit. The damages he is seeking from the suit are said to be “in excess of $1 million.”
[via The Wrap]
