Yesterday, Behavior Interactive released a new mobile game based on the Westworld TV show of the same name. Shortly after, Bethesda Softworks filed a lawsuit against developer Behavior Interactive, as well as the game's publisher, Warner Bros. The company claimed that Behavior, who also worked on Bethesda's mobile game, Fallout Shelter, had re-used assets from Fallout Shelter to create Westworld. Also mentioned in the suit is that Behavior had allegedly taken the code from Fallout Shelter, which had been "blatantly re-used to rush out a new game after seeing the latter game's success."

Bethesda is quite confident that the exact code was stolen, due to a specific bug that Fallout Shelter had at launch, which would cause camera issues, relating to an off-center focus when zoomed in. Westworld supposedly has this exact same problem, leading them to believe that both games share the code, which is owned wholly by Bethesda Softworks.

The full list of charges against both Behavior and W.B. are copyright infringement, unfair competition, breach of contract, and distributing trade secrets. Bethesda has filed the case in the Maryland U.S. District Court, where a trial will potentially take place. The full court document is in the source below.

Source

 

[xdarkx]

Reminds me of Epic Games vs Silicon Knights court case in which Epic Games won.

 

[Bladexdsl]

good game looks like garbage get rid of one shitty mobile game

 

[Batpeter]

It's a very different game and better than Shelter. I hope they just settle

 

[dude1]

It's a very different game and better than Shelter. I hope they just settle

how is it different/better than shelter?

 

[PhyChris]

The 'bug' could be in whatever framework they used

 

[phailure]

I hope Bethesda loses. Getting tired of these sue happy companies thinking they own every little thing.

Confirmed: didn’t read the article

 

[FAST6191]

The 'bug' could be in whatever framework they used

While it could be (I don't know enough to argue the specifics of this instance) I can presume good faith here, both because it would be rather bad to lie at that level (courts do rather frown upon giving false evidence) and because Warner Brothers is not exactly a small company that will not turn around and nail them to the wall for a false thing like this.

 

[PhyChris]

While it could be (I don't know enough to argue the specifics of this instance) I can presume good faith here, both because it would be rather bad to lie at that level (courts do rather frown upon giving false evidence) and because Warner Brothers is not exactly a small company that will not turn around and nail them to the wall for a false thing like this.

Plus the assets. if they are close enough alike, defiantly.

 

[Batpeter]

how is it different/better than shelter?

Its hard to explain, but first of all there's no dragging people around - no real-time micromanagement - and there is no game over or loss position. It's more of a traditional idle game but it does get complex with leveling the right characters and choosing the most efficient way to progress. There is some sort of deeper strategy involved that i don't get with Shelter.
Shelter was felt like it was either too easy (normal mode) or too punishing (hardcore mode). Not that Shelter is bad though, both are great time sinks. Although last time i played Shelter on hardcore it didn't last long when i was raided 4 times in 15 minutes in the beginning of the game.
BTW graphically speaking you can easily see how they might have taken assets from Shelter, but the gameplay so different that they could change the code for the 3D environment and still have the same game.

 

[DarthDub]

Confirmed: didn’t read the article

I did read it. Knock it off with the assumptions. It'll probably end with a settlement.

 

[FAST6191]

I did read it. Knock it off with the assumptions. It'll probably end with a settlement.

Most things end with a settlement rather than a court award, just the nature of the law. As such I don't know if it is a terribly useful position to argue.

However when your earlier statement was
"I hope Bethesda loses. Getting tired of these sue happy companies thinking they own every little thing."
then we get to query things.

If it is as the info in the OP states and the devs reused code they sold in full to Bethesda (think session musician if you are into that world) then they clearly stole Bethesda's goods just the same as if I had hacked into their dev location and stolen a snapshot of the code myself (give or take computer trespass laws) before making a game, or disassembled and reskinned if we want to do the ROM hacker approach.

There have been some debates as to the ethics of such things as it applies to code like that over the years, to say nothing or art in general (to go back to session musicians then https://musicindustryinsideout.com.au/session-musicians-know-rights/ , Australia I know but it is fairly similar in most places). Right from sysadmins taking simple batch scripts or templates they made on company time to their next job, to devs using company computers to write things (see the history of Doom/ID actually as it was a nice example), to stuff like https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/21/github_worker_ip_contracts/ , to more nebulous things like ideas and methods even if written again from scratch. If you wanted to go there then please do, such a thing would make for a decent conversation, but from the above then assuming a misplaced ire is not unreasonable.

Whether Bethesda unleashes their IP lawyers too often or not is also up for debate. I saw the scrolls thing as well so I am slightly more suspicious than baseline. Here though it all seems pretty clear cut and fair, and not even just fair under the twisted abomination that is current US IP law but in general. Were it some software patent case I would once more be railing against software patents, however "do this job for us, we'll pay you, we'll own the results" is perfectly OK from where I sit.

 

[codezer0]

Excuse me, what? "Congratulations, you played yourself."

Suing because the game is bugged the same way? Bethesda itself has yet to release a finished game, so they definitely have no moral, or ethical, authority there. Eff outta here with that one.

They practically admitted, with this court filing, that they intentionally release broken, glitchy games. I don't know whether to call for it to be hubris or just stupidity.

 

[FAST6191]

Bug matching is a reasonable means to test for copied/reverse engineered software and has been used for quite a few years now. For others playing along at home a fundamental aspect of computing called the halting problem means that it is very very hard to take a compiled work and go back to human readable source code with it, this means legal tests for copied code are harder than simple books or videos or music, and compelling people to release their code would lead to all sorts of bad things so courts only do it in very serious cases.

Matching a bug then tends not to be a single one as much as multiple ones. The chances then of someone else's own unique code failing in all those exact same ways is rather low, especially if it is a more complicated error ( https://www.inf.unibz.it/~calvanese/teaching/ip/lecture-notes/uni10/node2.html ).

I don't know if it is the extent of their evidence (there are all sorts of other things like function name matching, unique patterns, output matching and the list goes on -- I think I have said before in another thread but people doing this kind of work are often stranger than data recovery people) or just a first filing/bring them to the table type setup.

 

[FAST6191]

While that is all a fine example of unpleasant behaviour (though I would question what merit "I'd consider complete or finished" has in that, not to mention paid mods as a general concept is fine by me) none of that has any real bearing on the merits of the case being discussed.

"it's like they continue to get a free pass, just like Rockstar does. Over, and over, and over again. "
I imagine it is some variation of "in spite of all that I still manage to be able to have some fun with what is offered".

 

[Pluupy]

Excuse me, what? "Congratulations, you played yourself."

Suing because the game is bugged the same way? Bethesda itself has yet to release a finished game, so they definitely have no moral, or ethical, authority there. Eff outta here with that one.

They practically admitted, with this court filing, that they intentionally release broken, glitchy games. I don't know whether to call for it to be hubris or just stupidity.

How naive are you? ALL software has some sort of bugs.

Bethesda has released many games. Having a bug doesn't make software unfinished. I'm pretty fucking sure you CAN complete quests and whatnot in Bethesda's games, so they are clearly what the publisher wanted to release as "finished".

 

[codezer0]

Bethesda has released and published many a game. Nothing Bethesda itself has made, is what I'd consider complete or finished. They have the nerve to release their Elder scrolls and fallout games, on platforms (read: consoles) where people are explicitly not allowed to mod the game in any way. Did you forget how Oblivion and Skyrim both had catastrophic memory leaks on the PS3 version? And while there's plenty of bugfix mods for every elder scrolls game on PC, they're almost all made by fans, because bethesda itself stopped working on it years ago. Yet wants to keep making people re-buy it for different systems (such as the Switch). Complete with all the game breaking mess that it's infamous for having.

There's also other examples I could pull. And Bethesda is far from being scummy.
$10 horse armor? did you forget about that, too?
Trying to force paid mods after Steam abandoned that because they realized how stupid of an idea it was?
Releasing blatantly unfinished games and expecting the fans to patch it for them? Too bad none of that benefit is available on the console versions.

The buglist for the vanilla Skyrim game without mods is long enough to write a Master's thesis paper on. Yet Bethesda has decided not to address any of it, and continues to re-release the game ad nauseum on platforms that can't be modded to fix what's wrong. And just to add fuel to the fire, it's like they continue to get a free pass, just like Rockstar does. Over, and over, and over again.

 

[bitjacker]

What if... YOU wrote a song. Then somehow with fancy lawyer speak some fuck owns the rights to it? would YOU be pissed? I sure would. I sure am...

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But i digress. I love bethesda.

 

[mgrev]

Using bugs that work the same way as they did in fallout shelter is the most bethesda thing to do

 

[FAST6191]

What if... YOU wrote a song. Then somehow with fancy lawyer speak some fuck owns the rights to it? would YOU be pissed? I sure would. I sure am...

It is not fancy lawyer speak. It is a common style of work done for hundreds of years, possibly thousands, one everybody generally agrees is a fair choice to be given.