TMZ reports that Bethesda Softworks and Warner Bros. are engaged in a lawsuit about the mobile app Westworld developed by Behaviour Interactive. Back in 2014, Bethesda hired Behaviour Interactive to work on Fallout Shelter mobile app. After Westworld (the TV show) has premiered in 2016, Warner Bros. then hired Behaviour to create a mobile app of the show. According to Bethesda, Warner Bros. and Behaviour then used the work Behaviour did on Fallout Shelter to make the Westworld game.
Behaviour’s breach of its contract with Bethesda is evidenced by the gameplay of Westworld, which uses the same copyrighted computer code created for Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter game. Behaviour’s use of the computer code owned by Bethesda to develop Westworld even included the very same ‘bugs’ or defects present in the Fallout Shelter code. For example, the demonstration version of the Westworld game includes a visible software ‘bug’ or code defect present in an early version of Fallout Shelter code delivered by Behaviour to Bethesda during game development. This software ‘bug’ appears when a player starts up the demonstration version of the Westworld game. Specifically, the view is out-of-focus and the scene that appears is far to the right and below the targeted landscape image. It is as if a camera capturing the scene had been inadvertently pointed to the lower right foreground and then slowly refocuses on the central image. The identical problem appeared in initial versions of Fallout Shelter but was addressed before Fallout Shelter was released to the public. While this error was ultimately fixed in subsequent builds of Fallout Shelter, the appearance of the bug in the Westworld game demo makes clear that the Fallout Shelter source code was used by Behaviour in developing the Westworld game.
You can find the full text of the suit by downloading the document here.
Thanks to GameSpace for the story.
