I've recently looked at the chat that talks about the question of referencing actual military weapons in your writing. Since I'm writing a science-fiction novel, that's not too big of a problem for me; however, this causes me to raise a question: how does this apply to weapons from video games? For instance, Pixonic's game War Robots has some weapon names that I would like to use in the novel, as some of the things in the book have weapons with the same function.
Is it safe to include the names of these weapons (like Zenit or Molot) to correspond to the guns, or do I have to come up with another, original name and reference it to have a similar function to the actual in-game weapon? As of now, I'm assuming I can use the name because I'm clearly stating in my novel that the designers in the story gave it the name because they were lazy and decided to use the name featured in the actual game that uses it. In that case, I will tell where the original name came from.
Answer
As a general rule on copyright infringement: If you have to ask, the answer is "No".
Now, that doesn't mean you cant be clever about it. Zenit does look like a real word "Zenith" which isn't just a TV brand but also means "Pinnical or Height of achievement". Molot looks like Morlock (sp) which is a god in some pantheon I can't remember.
Or you can get clever with the naming of the weapons system. Zenit could easily be leeted to "Zen-1+" or "Z-En-1+" and explained by backronym as using the word Zen, which is not copyrighted or Z-engine for the machine that drives the gun. Molot could be an "Mo-10+" or "M-010+" and similarly explain the elements of the code (the later could be binary code). The repeated plus sign could explain that they come from the same company and this is used as a superior model. If you take this route, don't acknowledge it in the story. It's triva for astute fans of the game and those who want to learn more about your creative process.
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