Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations Inc., the modern-day corporation that succeeded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, is suing the makers of "Red Dead Redemption 2" for portraying their agents as villains in the game.
"When you read on Twitter that the best part of the game is to murder a bloody Pinkerton, it becomes a concern," Jack Zahran, Pinkerton's president, told The Wall Street Journal.
"We're the good guys," he added.
In the game, which came out last year, players control a member of a gang of outlaws in the Old West in 1899, and spend much of the game on the run from Pinkerton agents, who at that time in real-life had recently disbanded the notorious train and bank robber Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, according to their website.
Pinkerton, which is currently owned by the Swedish security company Securitas AB, sent a letter last month to Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., which published Red Dead Redemption 2, asking them for compensation for using the Pinkerton name.
"You can't rewrite history to profit," Zahran said told the Journal.
In January, Take-Two filed a suit in New York district court alleging Pinkerton "cannot use trademark law to own the past," and argued the game was intended to be highly historically accurate.
"We're a behind-the-scenes organization. We don't seek the limelight," Zahran added.
Take-Two declined to comment to the Journal about the suit.
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