Last week, in the U.S. District Court for Utah, retired World Championship Wrestling pro Maxx Payne, filed a USD 10 million lawsuit against the developers of Max Payne the video game.
Payne alleges Rockstar Games, 3D Realms Entertainment, Gathering of Developers and Remedy Entertainment stole his stage-name to create the highly successful game Max Payne.
None of the companies involved have accepted to comment on the litigation.
Maxx Payne also known as Maximum Payne, Max Pain and Lucifer Payne, was born Darryl Peterson. Although retired Peterson has retained some of wrestling's passion for overacted drama, which can be witnessed as he claims, I left wrestling to come home to Utah and be with my family and I find myself in the biggest battle of my life, to save my identity. They stole something from me that I'm not going to give up. I'll fight until there's no fight left.
According to the former wrestler the theft has even more sinister undertones since it is not only the name that was stolen, meanning that the extra X in his name is irrelevant to the litigation. Part of my persona is the film noir look.
The meat of the case however, lies in the data collected by Peterson's lawyer, Blake Atkin, the game has grossed at least USD 400 million on the "Max Payne" concept. They have not paid him anything to use his persona.
