Bethesda drags Warner Bros to court, claiming Westworld Mobile Game uses FO Shelter code

[ItsMitch]

S: Eurogamer | Scribd 

Bethesda is now dragging Warner Bros and Behaviour Interactive, the developer of WestWorld to court over copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets claiming it stole assets, art and animations from Bethesda. 

Quote

Bethesda Softworks is suing Warner Bros. and Fallout Shelter co-developer Behaviour Interactive over the recently released Westworld, alleging that the mobile game based on HBO’s TV series is a “blatant rip-off” of Fallout Shelter.

 

In a suit filed in a Maryland U.S. District Court, Bethesda alleges that Westworld — developed by Behaviour and released this week for Android and iOS — “has the same or highly similar game design, art style, animations, features and other gameplay elements” as Fallout Shelter.

 

Fallout Shelter was originally released in 2015 for mobile devices. The game was later ported to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.

This is a very funny thing as it also goes onto mention that Westworld had a bug that Fallout Shelter had in a earlier version of the game (which Bethesda later fixed) 

 

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Bethesda said in its suit that Behaviour uses “the same copyrighted computer code created for Fallout Shelter in Westworld,” alleging that a bug evident in an early version of Fallout Shelter (which was later fixed) also appears in Westworld. Bethesda alleges the companies “copied Fallout Shelter features and then made cosmetic modifications for Westworld’s ‘western’ theme.”

The suit also alleges that “Behaviour breached its contract with Bethesda and utilized its restricted access to Bethesda’s intellectual property, including Bethesda’s copyrighted code, trade secrets, and other rights, to compress its development timeline, reduce costs, and quickly bring the Westworld mobile game to market, and offer players the widely popular gameplay experience found in Fallout Shelter.”

 

The suit points out similar gameplay features, including “cartoonish 2D characters in a 3D environment” and the underground multi-room facilities that players explore and build, in both Fallout Shelter and Westworld

 

Bethesda are seeking damages for copyright infringement, breach of contract and misappropriation trade secrets and demands a jury trial. 

After looking through the paperwork, it does seem that Bethesda's smoking gun itself is the bug that appeared in Fallout Shelter then it "appeared" in Westworld.  Going to be a very interesting trial, will be following it closely. Don't think Warner will be able to win this, unless they settle out of court and pay a hell of a lot to Bethesda. 

[ItsMitch]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

hell's bells, did someone bring the entire work home at one point?! o_o

Bethesda has worked with Warner before and had a contract with them I believe, hence the breach of contract t.t 

e: Yup I'm right

To realize its design, Bethesda contracted with Behaviour under a work-for-hire agreement to develop FALLOUT SHELTER to Bethesda’s specifications solely for use by Bethesda, and no one else, including Behaviour or any third party. Under the agreement, all Behaviour work product of any kind, including code, designs, artwork, layouts, and other assets and materials for FALLOUT SHELTER were authored and owned by Bethesda.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

12 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

pay a hell of a lot to Bethesda.

Maybe with this we can finally get Elder Scrolls VI faster.

 

 

 

Off-topics: Yay 1000 posts!

[Froody129]

Hang on so they literally copy-pasted game code and stuck a different UI on? When they knew it was copyrighted?

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

Hang on so they literally copy-pasted game code and stuck a different UI on? When they knew it was copyrighted?

THEY CODED IT! 

[Deus Voltage]

 

[Bananasplit_00]

Bethesda probably has this in the bag tbh. If the exact same bug is present, in an extremely similar game with the same theme and gameplay developed by the same studio it does seem like pretty solid grounds to sue on

Edited June 22, 2018 by Bananasplit_00
Bug not bag lol

[AlTech]

25 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Bethesda has worked with Warner before and had a contract with them I believe, hence the breach of contract t.t 

e: Yup I'm right

To realize its design, Bethesda contracted with Behaviour under a work-for-hire agreement to develop FALLOUT SHELTER to Bethesda’s specifications solely for use by Bethesda, and no one else, including Behaviour or any third party. Under the agreement, all Behaviour work product of any kind, including code, designs, artwork, layouts, and other assets and materials for FALLOUT SHELTER were authored and owned by Bethesda.

You might want to clarify that this article refers to the WestWorld Mobile Game and not WestWorld. Cos the title was a bit confusing at first.

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

You might want to clarify that this article refers to the WestWorld Mobile Game and not WestWorld. Cos the title was a bit confusing at first.

added mobile game to the title to clear up issues 

[Froody129]

21 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

THEY CODED IT! 

Not sure what you mean here

 

Anyway, if the exact same bug is found id say it's solid grounds to say they copied the code 

[ItsMitch]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

Not sure what you mean here

Bethesda contracted Behaviour to develop Fallout Shelter, then Behaviour went to Warner Bro's to design Shelter, maybe Behaviour took along the code they used w/ FO:S

[Cheezdoodlez]

The westworld game wasn't released this week tho? I remember downloading it months ago and trying it out. Stopped playing after a short while when I realised it was just fallout shelter in another setting. I just checked and I can see patch notes and reviews going back to February in the iOS app store. 

 

But most games in the app store these days are just copies of other games so didn't think much of the blatant ripoff.. But if the same bug appears in the code of both apps it's likely they just copy-pasted the same code.

But considering the same developers worked on both apps, it could also be that one developer actually wrote two pieces of code producing the same kind of bug. Not really likely but there is a slight possibility that happened. 

[PocketNerd]

3 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

The westworld game wasn't released this week tho? I remember downloading it months ago and trying it out. Stopped playing after a short while when I realised it was just fallout shelter in another setting. I just checked and I can see patch notes and reviews going back to February in the iOS app store. 

 

But most games in the app store these days are just copies of other games so didn't think much of the blatant ripoff.. But if the same bug appears in the code of both apps it's likely they just copy-pasted the same code.

But considering the same developers worked on both apps, it could also be that one developer actually wrote two pieces of code producing the same kind of bug. Not really likely but there is a slight possibility that happened. 

Plausible, but so HIGHLY unlikely.

[Brooksie359]

28 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

The westworld game wasn't released this week tho? I remember downloading it months ago and trying it out. Stopped playing after a short while when I realised it was just fallout shelter in another setting. I just checked and I can see patch notes and reviews going back to February in the iOS app store. 

 

But most games in the app store these days are just copies of other games so didn't think much of the blatant ripoff.. But if the same bug appears in the code of both apps it's likely they just copy-pasted the same code.

But considering the same developers worked on both apps, it could also be that one developer actually wrote two pieces of code producing the same kind of bug. Not really likely but there is a slight possibility that happened. 

Yep they just happened to work on both games and make the second one with basically identical features to the point where people could call it a reskined version and then happen to make the same error in code to make an identical bug. It would be a miracle to end up doing that without just copying the code. 

[matrix07012]

It's not a bug It's a feature.

[Cheezdoodlez]

22 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Yep they just happened to work on both games and make the second one with basically identical features to the point where people could call it a reskined version and then happen to make the same error in code to make an identical bug. It would be a miracle to end up doing that without just copying the code. 

Its obvious they ripped off Fallout Shelter and most likely looked at the code they wrote for that game. I'm just saying that the bug could very well be because the same people worked on both games. Humans makes errors and writing two pieces of code with the same logical error resulting in the same bug could very well happen.

 

I think Bethesda will win this easy and not only because of the bug, but there is still a probability they ripped off the game without copy-pasta and re-wrote from memory, its extremely small and highly unlikely but still plausible.

[Cole5]

HAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHA

Fuck WB

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

Its obvious they ripped off Fallout Shelter and most likely looked at the code they wrote for that game. I'm just saying that the bug could very well be because the same people worked on both games. Humans makes errors and writing two pieces of code with the same logical error resulting in the same bug could very well happen.

 

I think Bethesda will win this easy and not only because of the bug, but there is still a probability they ripped off the game without copy-pasta and re-wrote from memory, its extremely small and highly unlikely but still plausible.

Even if it was from memory they still would be breaching their agreement. 

[dalekphalm]

On 6/22/2018 at 4:26 PM, SC2Mitch said:

Bethesda contracted Behaviour to develop Fallout Shelter, then Behaviour went to Warner Bro's to design Shelter, maybe Behaviour took along the code they used w/ FO:S

Yeah. I think everyone here understands this.

 

So... what's your point? It doesn't matter if Behaviour Interactive coded it. They were contracted to code something, and that code doesn't belong to them, it belongs to Bethesda.

 

Behaviour Interactive re-using code that they don't have permission to use is illegal, even if they were the ones who made that code.

 

If Behaviour wanted to re-use that code, they should have negotiated in the contract that they retain ownership of the base platform code - but they didn't.

[Zodiark1593]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

 

 

If Behaviour wanted to re-use that code, they should have negotiated in the contract that they retain ownership of the base platform code - but they didn't.

More likely, I would guess, they tried to negotiate for (some) ownership of the code when drawing the contract, were shot down, went through with the Bethesda deal because high paying client, and reused the code anyway.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

More likely, I would guess, they tried to negotiate for (some) ownership of the code when drawing the contract, were shot down, went through with the Bethesda deal because high paying client, and reused the code anyway.

If so, they're fucking morons and deserve everything they get. I mean, there should be no way they are stupid enough to think they could get away with doing that.

[Zodiark1593]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

If so, they're fucking morons and deserve everything they get. I mean, there should be no way they are stupid enough to think they could get away with doing that.

Abnormally high pressure, and a backlog of other high paying clients (Warner Bros is certainly such a client) to deliver for can make someone do some, intellectually challenged things. I could certainly imagine a scenerio where, potentially without management approval (do managers even peruse code in depth?), programmers may use snippets (or entire sections) of previously written code in an effort to make deadlines. 

 

Certainly not an excuse, and a judge will deem what is deserved, though I wouldn't rush to call them scum of the earth either until the the legal battle commences. 

[Brooksie359]

20 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Abnormally high pressure, and a backlog of other high paying clients (Warner Bros is certainly such a client) to deliver for can make someone do some, intellectually challenged things. I could certainly imagine a scenerio where, potentially without management approval (do managers even peruse code in depth?), programmers may use snippets (or entire sections) of previously written code in an effort to make deadlines. 

 

Certainly not an excuse, and a judge will deem what is deserved, though I wouldn't rush to call them scum of the earth either until the the legal battle commences. 

Part of the code? It's looks like they just copypasta the entire thing. I mean if they were trying to use some of the code they could have tried to make it look a little less blatant. 

[Skankhunt420]

It does seem like a fairly open and shut case, particularly with that bug showing up in both games.

 

Forgive my uneducated brain, but would they be likely to prove their point by applying the same patch to Westworld's game in order to show that this resolves the bug, hence proving that the game code (and its failings) are one and the same?

[rcmaehl]

On 6/22/2018 at 3:42 PM, SC2Mitch said:

Bethesda's smoking gun itself is the bug that appeared in Fallout Shelter then it "appeared" in Westworld. 

It's not a bug it's a security feature. :kappa: