Do you have to pay for trademarked weapons?

My team and I are making a side-scrolling shooter and are planning to possibly sell it.
Outpost!!!
My question is easy to ask, but hard to answer…
Do we have to pay the makers of the guns for licensing or trademarking or something?, because I really don’t want to get sued :stuck_out_tongue:

Hi there Benproductions1,

It depends on if the creator of the gun says if people can use it for commercial use or not.
You could always ask the creator and see if he/she will let you use them for free or not.

Hope this helped :smiley:

Dependent on your country and the leagal situation there, the weapons you want to use and how accurate you rebuilt them, there might be issues with copyright and trademark for the weapon designs. However that is a question for a lawyer, not a gamedev. If you want legal security, find out who currently holds the trademark rights to the weapon designs that you want to use and talk to them.

My personal suggestion would be to simply not use the official name and slightly change the look of the gun (doesn’t have to be an awful lot). But I’m not a lawyer either.