Tencent seems ready to make big changes to Light of Motiram, but Sony isn’t buying it.

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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    13 hours ago

    Sony (Horizon vs Light of Motiram) and Nintendo (Pokemon vs Palword), man. They really hurt the gaming industries freedom. Now we just need Microsoft (Blizzard) to sue Marvel Rivals for copying Overwatch in some form, then the Triforce is complete.

    • RightEdofer@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      Nah. This is waaay more of an infringement than Palworld. I can’t even tell the difference in screenshots.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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        3 hours ago

        You not being able to tell the difference in screenshots is not an infringement. These are two different games, that look similar and play similar. Its totally fine to do this. It’s sad that companies and even some players (like you) do not want that. Doing something similar should be okay.

        Imagine cars couldn’t look the same, or websites couldn’t look the same or couldn’t be structured the same. Or imagine every music you listen to has to be vastly different from anything else. This stifles creativity and competition. Otherwise no one can improve on existing games.

        As long as nothing directly is stolen, like the exact art, program code or whatever copyright is, it’s okay. I want more of the “same”, from more devs, more competition. I want more Pokemon, more Horizon, more Overwatch and I’m not even joking.

      • excursion22@piefed.ca
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        5 hours ago

        Tencent’s Arena Breakout is very similar to Tarkov. Like, watching it, you’d just think tarkov got a bit of an update. They don’t really care about IP unless it’s their own.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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    19 hours ago

    This one is pretty clear. Tencent is saying that Sony is trying to copyright an entire genre, like sci fi.

    In reality it’s more like if Sony made Star wars, and tencent made the star of death with the jidoos with lasersabres. Tencent is just trying to say “how dare you trying to copyright sci fi!”

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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      8 hours ago

      It’s not copyright, it’s trademark. Sony isn’t claiming they’re the same characters, they’re claiming that the style is so similar that people would mistakenly believe that Light of Motiram is actually a Horizon game, which is why this case is so stupid; it is a blatant ripoff, but ripoffs aren’t illegal, and no one is going to actually mix them up.

    • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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      15 hours ago

      Why wouldn’t they? I’m all for the fuck Sony train when they fuck up (like when they pushed PSN onto PC users and then blocked the sale of their games in countries that aren’t supported by PSN) but in this case Tencent is/was blatantly copying the Horizon IP.

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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        8 hours ago

        It’s not copying it, it’s ripping it off, which isn’t illegal. Copying (i.e. copyright infringement) has a specific legal meaning, and it’s not being asserted by Sony. Sony is trying to claim that it being a ripoff means customers would be confused into believing it’s actually a Horizon game and purchasing it in error, which is stupid.

        If Tencent had called this Horizons: Motiram, they’d be 100% in the right. But they are just trying to essentially claim they own the combination of style and theme of “colorful world with tribal humans vs robot animals”. That’s not how trademark works (this is trademark btw, not copyright, just in case anyone is getting them mixed up).

        • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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          7 hours ago

          You’re going to tell me people won’t think this is Horizon?

          Light of Motiram

          That’s an image from the official reveal trailer.

            • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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              5 hours ago

              That was a random image from the trailer. You can stop the trailer at a random point and there’s like 90% chance you’re going to end up with an image that could easily be from the Horizon series. It’s also worth pointing out that the trailer has been removed from all official Lights of Motiram accounts along with a dozen images that looked like they were from the Horizon series.

              I will also remind you that you said it would be absurd to take Sony seriously, which is not the same thing as stating “there’s no trademark violations here”. The latter is literally what the court has to make a decision on. The former is about whether there’s any basis to go to court which already means you think you know better than Sony lawyers and, if the court doesn’t instantly throw out the case, also better than the legal system. Maybe you are some godlike lawyer who knows better than everyone else, but if you are I think you can understand why I’m calling bullshit on that.