Stealing in the gaming industry

[Paul Holzman]

Okay there have been many time's that gaming company's have stolen idea, character concept's, box art etc. I am curious which one's people have found and how they noticed since i just finished heavy rain and noticed that background is the same as mass effect 2's special edition cover art with the pic flipped and a few detail changes. Not saying it's exactly the same but it does look spot on.

 

[Imbrium]

One thing I noticed about Crackdown is that the majority of the songs of the radio in the Los Muertos cars were all in Total Overdose, another sandbox game released a couple of years before.
Also, Metro 2033 is apparently running on stolen software - when the guys who developed it left GSC Game World (the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) to make Metro they reportedly took a beta version of the X-Ray engine with them and started developing it. If you look at the two games side-by-side it's easy to see why this is more than just a rumour.

 

[Plurralbles]

I got pissed that a Metroid Prime 2 Echoes swamp thing(with the hard shelled head and soft back that chomped you) was just resized to giant and thrown into Lost odyssey. I'm going to try to find pics.

They look the exact freakin' same.

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/9/2/5/5/3/a_med_lo1.jpg.jpg

http://conglometroid.com/magazine/griever/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/grenchler-300x236.jpg

 

[Aeshi]

The only difference between the Portals in Portal and the Portals in Prey is that the ones in Prey can float in midair.

 

[Dublin Solo]

I got pissed that a Metroid Prime 2 Echoes swamp thing(with the hard shelled head and soft back that chomped you) was just resized to giant and thrown into Lost odyssey. I'm going to try to find pics.

They look the exact freakin' same.

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/9/2/5/5/3/a_med_lo1.jpg.jpg

http://conglometroid.com/magazine/griever/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/grenchler-300x236.jpg

The second link doesn't work, says the page doesn't exist.

 

[Void(null)]

One thing I noticed about Crackdown is that the majority of the songs of the radio in the Los Muertos cars were all in Total Overdose, another sandbox game released a couple of years before.
Also, Metro 2033 is apparently running on stolen software - when the guys who developed it left GSC Game World (the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) to make Metro they reportedly took a beta version of the X-Ray engine with them and started developing it. If you look at the two games side-by-side it's easy to see why this is more than just a rumour.

Not to mention that S.T.A.L.K.E.R is entirely based upon a 1979 Film by Andrei Tarkovsky. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_%28film%29] Which is in turn taken from the book Roadside Picnic. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic]

Although not an official tie-in, the 2007 Ukrainian PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl borrowed several elements from the film. The game's Anomalies and Artifacts are analogous to the enhanced gravity fields in Stalker, while the golden globe featured in Roadside Picnic and the room in Stalker are represented in the game by "The Monolith", a huge object in the destroyed reactor hall of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which has wish-granting abilities.

...

The game later grew into an entire S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise, all taking place in the same Zone and heavily borrowing from the movie.

 

[Plurralbles]

I got pissed that a Metroid Prime 2 Echoes swamp thing(with the hard shelled head and soft back that chomped you) was just resized to giant and thrown into Lost odyssey. I'm going to try to find pics.

They look the exact freakin' same.

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/9/2/5/5/3/a_med_lo1.jpg.jpg

http://conglometroid.com/magazine/griever/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/grenchler-300x236.jpg

The second link doesn't work, says the page doesn't exist.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=grenchler&aql=&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Hmm strange. A google search of Grenchler, the thing that looks uncannily similar to the whatever they called the otehr thing.

 

[Angerwing]

I thought Warhammer 40K: Fire Warrior was a blatant and horribly done rip-off of Halo, just thrown in the Warhammer universe.

I don't even like Halo, so this is not a fanboy opinion.

 

[kunklebunkle]

mass effect 2 straight up copied one of the aliens in Half Life and made it robotic. those little fat things that look kinda like dogs i guess?

 

[Mehall]

The background on the Wii edition of Okami actually has an IGN watermark embedded in it.

Want to know how they fixed the problem in the UK? Pasted a full IGN logo, score and soundbyte on top of it.

http://kotaku.com/381846/ign-watermark-in-okami-cover-art

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Also, Metro 2033 is apparently running on stolen software - when the guys who developed it left GSC Game World (the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) to make Metro they reportedly took a beta version of the X-Ray engine with them and started developing it. If you look at the two games side-by-side it's easy to see why this is more than just a rumour.

considering that they already said that the STALKER engine would never be able to be used for Metro 2033, I would say its nothing but a rumor.


OT: I had an idea once for a zombie game, Ikept the details secret except for one or two multiplayer ones, few months later? LEFT 4 DEAD....


I swear, they stole my idea and made it better!

That happened with a game called "Killing Floor" it was a mod (for half-life perhaps?) That got made into a game, but Left 4 Dead came out between the release of the mod and the game and it borrowed many of the mods concepts (certain special infected, etc). When Killing Floor the game was released many reviewers called it a left 4 dead rip-off.

 

[theownerer]

Also, Metro 2033 is apparently running on stolen software - when the guys who developed it left GSC Game World (the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) to make Metro they reportedly took a beta version of the X-Ray engine with them and started developing it. If you look at the two games side-by-side it's easy to see why this is more than just a rumour.

considering that they already said that the STALKER engine would never be able to be used for Metro 2033, I would say its nothing but a rumor.


OT: I had an idea once for a zombie game, Ikept the details secret except for one or two multiplayer ones, few months later? LEFT 4 DEAD....


I swear, they stole my idea and made it better!

That happened with a game called "Killing Floor" it was a mod (for half-life perhaps?) That got made into a game, but Left 4 Dead came out between the release of the mod and the game and it borrowed many of the mods concepts (certain special infected, etc). When Killing Floor the game was released many reviewers called it a left 4 dead rip-off.

It was a mod using the unreal engine and I dont see alot of similarities. Sure theyre both zombie shooters but they have completely different playstyles. Its probably called a rip off because of the massive flame wars between kf and l4d fans.