Also, I would like to ask some of the famous Codex law experts for a helpful hint.
There I sat, googling Atom's name, like I always do, when suddenly I saw this reddit thread, that talked about me adding my favorite internet celebrity likenesses into the game as a homage to my favorite internet celebrities - the Red Letter Media people. They got that idea that we were stealing stuff with some sort of an internet scraper thing, so I came over and told them that it's a homage, and I emailed the guys (no reply tho) and we don't use those likenesses in commercial materials for the game, and we'll delete them as soon as they tell us if they tell us... But there are still people saying it's not legal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedLetterMedia/comments/aapsi8/this_npc_in_atomrpg_looks_kinda_hacky/
I'm by no means American, but I consider myself a man of culture and I heard of what you call fair use. Isn't drawing a picture that looks like a real person and using it as a homage considered transformative and thus fair use? Did Ethan Klein scam us with FUPA for nothing? Will Sam Hyde take me to court for using his likeness in a wanted poster as a joke? Jokes are transformative and fair use, aren't they? Aren't they? Makes me kinda worried, honestly. Here I was thinking I'm referencing people in good fun, building my time capsule and all that. I don't get it. What's fair use then? Will it be fair use if we put mustaches on the homages or give them silly hats? I'm using "humor" to mask real dread here, guys!
Edit: I also used a line from Depeche Mode, and a line from Dune, and several lines from movies and stuff. Is that fair use at least?
Edit 2: What are you yessing tho?
((((( My thoughts, or the inevitability of punishment from Sam?
I am not a practising barrister, but I did spend a substantial amount of time studying law from a media management perspective, so I do have some basic knowledge of this area.
What they're referring to is the right of publicity, more commonly called likeness rights, which essentially means your ability to control your image and make money from it. Now, in your case, they would have to show that their likeness had been used for an exploitative purpose, and they had not consented to that. On a technical level placing someone's likeness or name within a game is going to be classed as using their image for an exploitative purpose, and you've said you didn't get consent. The issue you'll have here is that the right of publicity is different from state to state in America, or at least was when I was studying this, and so the relevant law will depend on where the person you included as a homage is based.
Anyway, given that they don't appear in your advertising material, that you have edited their likenesses, you are not profiting from their likenesses appearing in your game, and there is a general acceptance for this sort of thing in video games of this type, at least at a low level highly edited point, I would imagine you'd be fine. Having said that do try and get consent if you're doing something like this again. I would also advise you to stop popping up on Reddit and publicly stating that you're making usage of the likenesses of particular people. There is a world of difference between something thinking you might have done something and leaving a written record saying you have.
In relation to fair use it relates to copyright, which is a related field but is distinct from likeness rights. Having said that the 5th factor of fair use, 'transformative work', would generally also be considered to cover you in this instance if the works were seen as having taken the images and made them something new and your own. As to if what you have done would be considered transformation, I'd have to see the images, but the Americans seem to wildly disagree on what is, and what is not, transformatory.
EDIT: On your point about referencing lines and things from movies in the game. I've don't recall the specifics here, but in general anything taken from movies, music, books, etc, is all copyrighted material. Again, I wouldn't really be worried about it given the way you've used it.