MOBA is a dead-end genre: the release of the free-to-play Spellcasters Chronicles by Quantic Dream has failed spectacularly.

Take-Two Revealed Vice City Stories Sales Due to Dispute over the Vice City Subs Brand

Take-Two Interactive didn’t drop the numbers in a shareholder update — they appeared in court papers. The reveal came amid a fight with DT Global Investment Holdings, which had tried to register the mark Vice City Subs for a sandwich venture.

According to those filings, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories has climbed to roughly approx. 7M copies sold since launch. Take-Two hadn’t published new totals since 2008, so the figure showed up after almost twenty years of silence.

By contrast, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City stayed put at 17.5M copies sold — no update, no explanation in the documents (a little odd, some might say).

The USPTO handled the dispute. Take-Two argued that “Vice City” is identified with their games and that allowing a similar name in another market could mislead customers. The office found that argument persuasive and refused the registration.

So: the mark was denied, and the litigation incidentally became a source for a rarely updated sales figure.

As a side note, a team called White Trash Games is developing a GTA Vice City Stories 20th Anniversary Edition — a fan-made PC port. Release date: TBD.