Why real life stages have fake names in Dirt Rally 2?

[Fanatyk91 16]

Today Rally Poland had ended. Some stages are in game but with fake names.

Why we have in game Łęczna County instead of Mrągowo County? Łęczna County really exists but it is completly different place.

Why we have Zaróbka instead of Użranki, Kopina instead of Baranowo? Lack of license? But what is licensed, town name?

Below is end of Kopina stage comparision with real life (Baranowo town in Mrągowo County).

Here is source of rl screenshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQAIGt8Feg

Here is map from today Rally Poland stage 12 - it will be the same as reverse version of Zaróbka (don't remember name) if you go straight through Użranki instead of going around through Kosewo: https://rally-poland-maps.topracing.pl/uzranki/

 

kopina_rl.bmp

[warpengage 177]

Short answer: Licensing.

Longer answer: The WRC Promoter reserves rights to certain stage names. You may not be able to copyright real roads but you can copyright a stage name, particularly one of iconic relevance in the sport. Therefore, to avoid complications, Codemasters typically chooses names of areas in the vicinity of those roads. This isn't always the case though as sometimes they have to go pretty far or create a plausible sounding name.

[Fanatyk91 16]

4 minutes ago, warpengage said:

Codemasters typically chooses names of areas in the vicinity of those roads.

No, they didn't.

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/dirt-rally-2-stages-in-real-life.167966/

[warpengage 177]

2 minutes ago, Fanatyk91 said:

No, they didn't.

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/dirt-rally-2-stages-in-real-life.167966/

Vicinity is a loose term. I did say they sometimes go pretty far.

Still it's licensing, to avoid events and championships from claiming copyright.

[ShodanCat 231]

Also, aren't the stages not 1:1 real locations? IIRC they were kind of like bits and pieces from real locations stitched together with some hand-crafted stuff in between. But IDK, maybe someone matched up the entire things with GPS?

[Mike Dee 1,248]

Even the closest 1:1 stages aren't true 1:1 WRC stages because of legal issues. It all comes down to lawyer vs lawyer in the end, and CM doesn't want to deal with the legal headache.

It is 100x easier to rename the same "stage" and chop off 500m from each side, than fight the legal battle to get the official WRC stage + name in the game.

[RallyLover19 176]

Rajd Polski is an ERC event, not WRC

[PJTierney 4,909]

On 6/30/2019 at 10:59 PM, warpengage said:

Short answer: Licensing.

Best answer.