Remember back to E3 2015, at Bethesda’s conference, where Todd Howard interrupted the hype of showing Fallout 4 gameplay to introduce a spinoff game for the mobile titled Fallout Shelter. People were hyped when it was announced that the game was available on the App Store on the same day.
The game managed to achieve many milestones with the number of downloads. Two weeks after the release of the game, it earned approximately $5.1 million in microtransaction sales. It is now available on many other platforms such as PC and Xbox, and recently announced for PS4 and Switch.
However, on the 22nd of June, reports came in about a current feud between Bethesda and Warner Bros.
In response to its release earlier last week, Bethesda has attacked Warner Bros. and called Westworld a “blatant rip-off of Fallout Shelter” using the “same copyrighted computer code” and a “similar game design, art style, animations, features and other gameplay elements”. The lawsuit was brought in.
The most obvious similarity between the two is the multi-levels of underground rooms. However, the similarities goes beyond the appearance, as Bethesda claims bugs that appeared in the early development of Fallout Shelter also appear in Westworld!
It doesn’t look good for Warner Bros. or Behaviour Interactive, with both of their infringement of Bethesda copyrights in terms of the code, and the “unfair competition through their development, marketing, and promotion” of the game.
Bethesda is going full-force in this ownership battle, declaring that they will “protect [their] legal rights in the valuable intellectual properties it owns, and take legal action whenever those rights are being infringed”. If you want to read more on the official complaint and lawsuit, head over to this website to have a look at the information with greater detail.
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