So a few days ago, you might have seen the news that Bethesda has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and its recently released Westworld mobile game, indicating that assets were stolen from its previously released hit Fallout Shelter.
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The suit claims that assets were stolen by Behaviour Interactive, who were previously hired by Bethesda to work on Fallout before shifting course and developing the Westworld game instead.
Since that time, a copy of the lawsuit has appeared online, with the legal documents noting more specifically what was stolen. “In so doing, Behaviour breached its contract with Bethesda and utilized its restricted access to Bethesda’s intellectual property, including 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 offer players the widely popular gameplay experience found in Fallout Shelter, the suit proclaims.
The company has since spoken to Variety about the suit, saying, “Bethesda Softworks has today filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Behaviour Interactive and Warner Bros. for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and misappropriation of its intellectual property. The case arises from Behaviour’s development of a Westworld mobile game for Warner Bros. Behaviour had previously worked with Bethesda to develop Bethesda’s hit game, Fallout Shelter, and under that contract, Bethesda alone owned all resulting intellectual property, including the game’s copyrighted code.
“Behaviour illegally used the same copyrighted source code from Fallout Shelter to develop Westworld, and copied Fallout Shelter‘s game design, art, animations, gameplay features, and other elements. As a result of Behaviour and Warner Bros’ unlawful conduct, Westworld is a blatant ripoff of Fallout Shelter with largely superficial, cosmetic changes.
“Bethesda will vigorously protect its legal rights in the valuable intellectual properties it owns, and take legal action whenever those rights are being infringed.”
Neither Warner Bros. nor Behaviour Interactive have said a word about the lawsuit yet, but we may hear something as soon as this week. We’ll keep you informed as to what progresses from said lawsuit.
Again, if you want to check out Westworld on mobile, you can do so now…and you probably should before it gets shut down.
