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Bethesda sues Warner Bros for ripping off Fallout Shelter with Westworld mobile game - taken down!

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Oh and why is this in General RPG?
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...sdas-baseless-accusation-in-westworld-lawsuit

Warner Bros surprised by Bethesda's “baseless accusation” in Westworld lawsuit
Publisher claims developer Behaviour Interactive has confirmed allegations are untrue

Warner Bros has spoken out on the legal battle it now faces against Bethesda Softworks over its recently released Westworld mobile game.

News of the case emerged last week, with Bethesda suing both Warner Bros and the Westworld game's developer Behaviour Interactive, claiming the two firms re-used the source code from Fallout Shelter - the mobile spin-off created by Behaviour.

Warner Bros disputes this, insisting the Westworld title - while built around a similar concept to Fallout Shelter - is nonetheless a completely new title, featuring no code from Behaviour's previous Bethesda project.

In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, the publisher said: "As one of the world's leading creators of intellectual property, including the ground-breaking television series Westworld, Warner Bros. has a deep respect for intellectual property rights. As such, the assertions by Bethesda Softworks that Warner's Westworld mobile game improperly used source code from Bethesda's Fallout Shelter are as surprising as they are unsubstantiated.

"Warner Bros. has been assured by the game developer, Behaviour Interactive, that Bethesda's allegations are untrue and that none of Bethesda's code was used in the Westworld game. Moreover, contrary to Bethesda's baseless accusation, Warner Bros. at no time 'induced' Behaviour to use the Fallout Shelter code in Westworld."

Fallout Shelter was first released for mobile devices in 2015, but continues to be a popular title for Bethesda. At E3 2018 earlier this month, the publisher announced the management game would also be ported to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

This is being handled by Bethesda's own mobile studio - based in Montreal, same as Behaviour - which took over live ops and further development on the game back in December 2015.

Bethesda is calling for the Westworld game to be scrapped and all current versions pulled from distribution, as well as actual and punitive damages.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

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fallout shelter is just a clone of the old tower builder games.

pls nuke Maryland
 

DosBuster

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the legal dispute isn't over it being a clone, more that Behaviour Interactive resued code from Fallout Shelter for this Westworld game.
 
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the legal dispute isn't over it being a clone, more that Behaviour Interactive resued code from Fallout Shelter for this Westworld game.


The legal dispute would seem to be over both.

Having heard about this and being very bored while not home for a week last week I decided to download this WestWorld game. Having played it, it's not really all that much like Fallout Shelter at all. The most Fallout Shelter thing about it is the side cutaway view, which can be found in games that predate Fallout Shelter like XCOM Enemy Unknown and SimTower/Yoot Tower, and has been around in art since the Renaissance; and then there's that thing mobile games do where you click on stuff to collect stuff. From what I played you don't actually do anything in the subterranean area, and the subterranean area doesn't act in a pseudo SimTower fashion. You also aren't trying to draw people to you to work in rooms you build to generate resources to kept the place up and running. In WestWorld you're building host to entertain guest across a range of activities that fall into specific classes in sets you build in the above ground area. There is a similar in that a character does a thing and you click on them when it's over, but they're also pretty different. At least what I played of it there's also no equivalent to sending people out into the wasteland to collect things in WestWorld

One of the things that falls within the misuse of Bethesda's IP in the suit is the very vague "know-how". I'd guess Bethesda's going to argue that without their "know-how" Behaviour wouldn't have been able to come up with pulling things from The Tower series and clicker games.


That's a pretty poor defense considering the evidence Bethesda provided. They should have just settled.

What evidence, that a cartoon characters drinks beer?

Going through the lawsuit the evidence they've cobbled together from articles is laughable. Although maybe more laughable would be their own evidence later in the suit, like, the concept of double tapping on a thing to zoom-in. And the camera centering on the thing you tapped on for the zoom. Other stuff is:

- Fallout Shelter has 3D rooms, so does WestWorld. They also say they use the same depth, perspective, and vanishing point to display the rooms. But, looking at the side by side images they put in their suit the depth of rooms in Fallout Shelter is very clearly deeper.
- 3D rooms have shifting perspective when moving up or down and left and right.
- Fallout Shelter displays location of each dweller in rooms of main gameplay view...so does WestWorld. This one is actually funny if you've played the game. Because the images they use in the suit to make them look more alike is the underground stuff in WestWorld. Only the underground isn't the main gameplay view, and the "dwellers" in WestWorld don't do their gameplay functions in the underground.
- Room options are on menus with information like: How much they cost to build, and what the room is used for. Additionally, when a room is locked away to the player this is displayed with the image of a (stylistically different) padlock image.
- In Fallout Shelter you can build rooms by pressing a hammer icon, in WestWorld you build rooms by pressing an icon with a hammer & wrench on it (maybe the Neo Scavenger guy should get in on this)
- In both games when you're good to go to build the area (in different ways) is green. This one's funny because it sounds like Bethesda is arguing the idea of red light, green light is their idea. The image they're showing doesn't seem to do the, any favors either, as the WestWorld one also have red areas showing where you can't build, make the traffic light parallel even more clear. They're also still showing the underground area where most of the game doesn't take place in the image. You're also in a smaller area in the underground area, more along the lines of XCOM
- Both games have 2D characters on 3D backgrounds. Bethesda seems to think "the contrast effect of flat-shaded 2D and smooth-shaded 3D" is unique to their source code and not something ever done by anyone else ever before. Not even in games where you put rooms down and put people in them like Capcom's One Piece Mansion. It also says something about the emotional state of the character being shown with a percentage and a smiley face. But I think these things are giving you information about different types of things in both games
- Both games always have characters that appear to be facing left of right
- Both games have exaggerated motions for expressions and movement like cartoon characters and The Sims. These kinds of aforementioned never before seen stylistic choices are a sign Behaviour and WB used Bethesda code.
- Characters do things like walk or run when moving. When moving in the environment either forward or backward they use the same animation cycle
- Characters do different things in rooms. Bethesda invented this idea. Example, in Fallout Shelter cartoon characters drink beer from oversized mugs; WestWorld copied this by having a bar in a western themed game where stylistically different looking cartoon characters drink beer from mugs that are drawn differently and not so proportionally large.
 
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