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Westworld

Platform(s): Android, iOS
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Behaviour Interactive
Release Date: 2018

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Bethesda Sues Warner Bros. Over 'Westworld' Infringement With 'Fallout Shelter'

by Rainier on June 22, 2018 @ 10:44 a.m. PDT

Based on HBO’s popular original series, the Westworld mobile game lets players assume the role of a newly hired Delos Trainee, who has been granted access to the Delos Park Training Simulation (DPTS).

In full control of the simulation, players will take over all aspects of the Westworld park operations — including manufacturing and care-taking of artificially intelligent hosts and satisfying guest desires. As a new Delos employee, learn to control Westworld. From bloody sunrises to romantic sunsets, you’ll pair Guests with Hosts, fulfilling their wildest dreams from the shadows. Because in a world ruled by desire, everyone has a role to play. Including you.

Build, optimize, and unlock park locations including Sweetwater, Escalante and Las Mudas. It’s a tough job keeping the trains on the track. Are you up to the challenge?

Manufacture, collect, and upgrade over 170 A.I Hosts as you create the ultimate experience for Guests. From their Props to their Reveries, everything is customizable.

Match Guests with the perfect Host in order to satisfy their every desire. From romance to robbery, Guests are here to live without limits.

The Westworld mobile game was just released the other day and Warner Bros. immediatly got slapped with a lawsuit for copyright infringement with Bethesda's Fallout Shelter. The games do look eerly similar, and if you factor in that both games have the same developer (Behaviour Interactive) then there does seem to be good reason for the legal entanglement (thanks Polygon).

Bethesda brings this action against Behaviour Interactive, Inc. (“Behaviour”) for breach of its contract regarding the development and ownership of FALLOUT SHELTER, a mobile game owned and published by Bethesda. Bethesda also brings this action against Warner Bros. Entertainment (“Warner Bros.”) for inducement to breach that contract. Bethesda further brings this action against Behaviour and Warner Bros. (together, “Defendants”) for their willful and intentional infringement of Bethesda’s copyrights, misappropriation of Bethesda’s trade secrets, and deceptive business practices and unfair competition through their development, marketing, and  promotion of the Westworld mobile game.

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 ab initio  as works made for hire.

To bring the Westworld mobile game to market, Behaviour and Warner Bros. utilized Bethesda’s intellectual property without authorization to develop a mobile game with the same or substantially similar gameplay experience as that provided by the copyrighted FALLOUT SHELTER mobile game. In so doing, Behaviour breached its contract with Bethesda and utilized its restricted access to Bethesda’s intellectual property, includin g 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 o ffer  players the widely popular gameplay experience found in FALLOUT SHELTER. The unlawful use of FALLOUT SHELTER’s design, gameplay, and copyrighted computer or source code allowed Behaviour and Warner Bros. to develop a mobile game with features and gameplay highly similar to those in FALLOUT SHELTER.

The Westworld game is a blatant rip-off of FALLOUT SHELTER. Working with the same copyrighted computer code used by FALLOUT SHELTER, Westworld has the same or highly similar game design, art style, animations, features and other gameplay elements as FALLOUT SHELTER, all of which are owned by Bethesda.

Behaviour’s breach of its contract with Bethesda is evidenced by the gameplay of Westworld, which uses the same copyrighted computer cod e created for Bethesda’s FALLOUT SHELTER game. Behaviour’s use of the computer code owned by Bethesda to develop Westworld even included the very same ‘bugs’ or defects present in the FALLOUT SHELTER code. For example, the demonstration version of the Westworld game includes a visible software ‘bug’ or code defect present in an early version of FALLOUT SHELTER code delivered by Behaviour to Bethesda during game development. This software ‘bug’ appears when a player starts up the demonstration version of the Westworld game. Specifically, the view is out-of-focus and the scene that appears is far to the right and below the ta rgeted landscape image. It is as if a camera capturing the scene had been inadvertently pointed to the lower right foreground and then slowly refocuses on the central image. The identical problem appeared in initial versions of FALLOUT SHELTER but was addressed before FALLOUT SHELTER was released to the public. While this error was ultimately fixed in subsequent builds of FALLOUT SHELTER, the appearance of the bug in the Westworld game demo makes clear that the FALLOUT SHELTER source code was used by Behaviour in developing the Westworld game.

Bethesda seeks to enjoin such activities and recover statutory damages, actual damages, Behaviour’s and Warner Bros.’ profits, restitution, and attorneys’ fees and costs.


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