MLB strikes out Fallout 4 mod with David Ortiz jersey

Fans of the newly released Fallout 4 video game who were also baseball fans — or more particularly, fans of the Boston Red Sox and David Ortiz — had an exciting modification available made for them last week, courtesy of developer Richie Branson.

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Boston which has been overrun by monsters mutated by nuclear war. Though city landmarks like Fenway Park are part of the game play scenery, Branson thought the setting lacked some authenticity. So he created a download that would allow players to wear a Red Sox Ortiz jersey.

Here’s a video of the modification Branson uploaded to YouTube:

https://youtu.be/jq3EKv-HNR8

“Basically, I think it was the only thing missing from the game,” Branson told the Boston Globe. “You’ve got Fenway Park, the Green Monster, and all of Boston, but there weren’t any Red Sox jerseys.”

Pretty cool, right? Especially if you’re a David Ortiz fan. Except MLB didn’t think so.

“The use of these marks is an infringement of our rights,” said a MLB spokesperson in an email to the Globe. “We plan to enforce those rights.”

Whether or not MLB actually followed up with a formal cease-and-desist order to Branson isn’t known. But he apparently did hear from someone in baseball’s legal department, killing plans to create more mods with different Red Sox player uniforms. The Ortiz mod is no longer available for download, according to For The Win.

It seems like characters can wear anything they want in a book, movie, or music video …but video games get treated totally different.

— Richie Branson (@richiebranson) November 13, 2015

But Branson, who’s also a music composer and producer based in Texas, is already moving on to his next sports-themed video game modification. On his Twitter page, he said he plans to create a Holly Holm vs. Ronda Rousey mod of Street Fighter. Unless one of the fighters wears a MLB jersey, Branson isn’t likely to run into the same legal issues this time around.

[Boston Globe]