So I've noticed mappers in Rhododactylia have been using real world store/company names as opposed to fictitious equivalents. The rules don't clearly address this, and maybe they should. My rationale in favor of fictitious store/company names has two main points:
- Legal (trademark) issues. Walmart (for example) has to protect their trademark from all sources of possible infringement. Yes, it would be a real jerk move for them to bother a hobbyist project such as OpenGeoFiction, but the trademark lawyers do not see it that way.
- Creativity. I am fine with having a conglomerate, national/multinational retailer with a presence in many countries. However, the very least we can do is call it something that doesn't exist in the real world. Re-using real world company names is, at least to me, incredibly bland. I can see there being the occasional overlap between, say, city names in the real world and OGF, but there are myriad other names to select for stores/companies.
Thoughts?