It is not a good day to be Booker T today as Sportico is reporting that the former five-time WCW champion has lost his lawsuit against video game publisher Activision over the use of his wrestling gimmick G.I. Bro in the popular video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
In the original lawsuit, filed in 2019, Booker alleged that the character Prophet in the video game is too similar to the G.I. Bro comic book action hero character he created and copyrighted based on one of his wrestling personas.
In the first three days of its 2018 release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sold more than $500 million in physical copies and downloads. Total sales to date are thought to exceed $1 billion. Last year, Judge Robert Schroeder of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas denied the request by Activision to dismiss or transfer the litigation, upholding an earlier ruling by a magistrate judge.
But things did not go well for Booker this time around with Activision claiming that the character of Prophet is a “cybernetically enhanced soldier” who in the game replaces 70% of his body with technology, while G.I. Bro is a “retired special operations soldier, fighting an old enemy he thought he had finished off years before, with the support of his old military friends.”
The attorney for Activision, E. Leon Carter, said that that they were pleased with the outcome. “Bottom line, to call this a frivolous case would be a massive understatement. Activision creates games with the utmost integrity and is extremely proud of everyone involved with the development and creative process for all of our games including Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, including the incredible talent like William Romeo who helped bring our vision to life. Today, the jury validated that process,” he said.
The jury sided with the video game publisher when Activision said that Booker T had exaggerated similarities between G.I. Bro in the poster and an image of Prophet owned by Activision.