Has EA Nicked Ideas from GW?
April 12, 2012 by crew
Eagle-eyed gamers have spotted that some of the designs in Electronic Art’s latest Command & Conquer title bear more than a passing resemblance to 40K designs.
The online browser online Tiberium Alliances (currently in open beta) includes a faction named Forgotten which includes tanks Bombard Grinder, but it has been pointed out that these vehicles are gobsmackingly similar to the Ork Bonecruncha and the Imperial Guard Baneblade.
Claims of plagiarism certainly aren’t what EA need at the minute, after the backlash over the Mass Effect 3 ending, which has led US watchdog the Better Business Bureau to accuse the company of falsely advertising the fact that players had the power to completely shape the game’s outcome.
On top of that EA have been recently voted the worst company in the States by The Consumerist.
As we know, THQ still has the rights to the 40K universe, although as it seems that they aren't going to be pursuing the 40K MMO who knows what will happen with that tasty piece of intellectual property.
To check out the whole story on the EA/GW accusations, see Kotaku.com.
BoW Tom
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Let the great “Yeah, well GamesWorkshop just ripped off X anyway” debate begin!
*sounds gong*
Don’t you know – GW only ever take “inspiration” from other sources.
If anyone else is makes anything similar to GW, then it’s god-damned thievery is what it is!
I find it a comforting double standard. 😛
I am just happy that they are making new CnC game so it dosen’t really matter to me are those rip-offs from 40k designs.
Not the biggest fan of GW – but even less of a fan of EA. Any company that effectively put’s Spyware in their games deserve all they get as far as I’m concerned. Just look up “Origin”. It’s practically malware, regardless of how much they try to deny it.
That’s so funny, it’s not like they have made any effort at all to disguise it and make their tanks just a little bit different.
It’s got to be some digruntled game designer sticking two fingers up at his employer or EA have got themselves a great legal team.
I think maybe EA were counting on the fact that C&C4 drove so many people away not enough people would play this one, even if its free, for GW to notice.
Which is kind of a stupid idea, really. They want people to play this and it only takes one of them to notice the similarity and dash off an email to Kotaku or some other news site and bam; it’s floating around the GW offices and Matt Ward’s getting annoyed that they didn’t copy the Land Raider. 😛
🙂 I was originally being sarcastic, but now you mention it, EA do push ahead with stupid ideas quite a lot nowadays. 😐
Will keep an eye on this outcome.
It’s far too blatant a rip off to be allowed through surely. It’s not even ‘similar’, its actually identical lol. If GW don’t have a go a EA then THQ surely will. At least for the games sake it wasn’t that far along in production so it can easily be changed (you’d hope).
BoW Ben
Well actually, if its in an “open beta”(which nowadays is just the industries new buzz-phrase for “playable demo”) that means its probably mostly finished, more likely even more finished than the version the “beta testers” play, and by that time the modelling and texture artists might even have been pulled and put on other projects, or possibly even the whole studio wrapped up and a post release patch thrown at another of the publisher’s studios- though in this case it would seem more likely that Phenomic will be tasked with creating the premium content that goes with a “free to… Read more »
If it were just the baneblade, despite it being pretty much a direct copy , its certainly much closer to my Forgeworld 40K baneblade than it is to the epic model they show there, they could probably argue a coincedence given its pretty much just ‘tank’ with lots of guns stuck on.
The kicker though is the orky thing, its a blatant copy and not something anyone could argue was just coincidental.
Epic failure from the artist there, thinking that no one will notice.
Goodness knows GW are a pain when it comes to IP but fair play there does seem to be more than a passing resemblance.
No becuase GW takes it’s ideas from actual tanks and vehicles and ork vehicles are just regular vehicles with various things glued on but I imagine GW fanboys will deny this and get up-in-arms over this.
I like GW, though not for their prices or failcast, but EA really shouldn’t get away with this.
GW, I say sue!
Well I remember EA buying Mythic who created a game called Dark Age of Camelot which is a MMORPG… I can remember asking myself if EA would celebrate the buy out of a really cool game by putting a basketball court in the middle of Camelot. However I find myself pondering the epic downfall from that day forward of what was a really great video game, at that time. To pull this random thought together, for the sole purpose of adding something productive to this thread. To EA, I can only say leave my war gaming alone and stick to… Read more »
The only “difference” is more guns on the front of the baneblade look-alike!
The Baneblade is inspired by WW2’s Super Heavy Tanks
However these really *are* taking the piss. Copying them word for word as it were.
Cool, I always wanted to see a combined army of Orks and Imperial Guard.
…actually that’s dumb.
Yes, put GWs lawyers to work on a real IP infringement case rather than chasing the little guys with C&D letters all over the shop. That being said, it’s not as if Halo, Starcraft, GoW haven’t knocked off 40K already and gotten away with it – albeit not in such a bare faced fashion (I’ve never seen actual proof that the Starcraft-Tyranid case ever occurred) – I wouldn’t be surprised if this case just “goes away” like many previous cases. They did get some settlement with Chaos League/Blood Bowl though – not comparable cases here though. Interesting though that when… Read more »