Bethesda Suing Warner Bros. And Behaviour Interactive Over Fallout Shelter/Westworld Similarities

Jason Winter June 22, 2018

Bethesda Softworks is suing Behaviour Interactive and Warner Bros. over alleged copyright theft related to the latter companies' Westworld mobile game and its resemblance to Bethesda's Fallout Shelter. Behaviour worked on an early version of Fallout Shelter before Bethesda took over development in late 2015.

According to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by Polygon, Westworld "has the same or highly similar game design, art style, animations, features and other gameplay elements" as Fallout Shelter." Looking at a video preview of Westworld, it's easy to see similarities between the two games, especially as it relates to the "underground" section of Westworld and its similarity to the Vault of Fallout Shelter. Bethesda also alleges that Westworld has some of the exact same bugs that were present in early versions of Fallout Shelter. That would be ironic -- Bethesda using bugs in its game to prove a legal point.

According to the lawsuit, Bethesda is suing for "breach of contract, inducement to breach of contract, copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition."

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In this article: Behaviour Interactive, Bethesda Softworks, fallout shelter, Westworld, Warner Bros..

About the Author

Jason Winter, News Editor
Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

ReadFirstBeforeComment 3 years ago

The thing is they straight up stole game code. Rad the article from polygon, or watch videos of youtube detailing the lawsuit.

Ravors 3 years ago

They have similar game engines/frameworks, this is the same in thousands of other games. Basic mechanics. I would not call the game a straight up copy. Yes they can change the UI , but I would still call this a completely different game.

rickshaw 3 years ago

What a load of rubbish,
Bethesda needs to get their head out of their ass.
They do not own under boxing or level progression or anything like what west world did,
its this sort of gaming was done way before Bethesda and to top it off Bethesda "stole " their game designs from indi designers and past games anyway, so Bethesda should be happy to get what they got. LOADS OF MONEY from copy cat game design.
This action is so typical of the pure distinction of GREED. Once a company becomes so rich it chokes on its own cash they go after who and whatever they can because they think they can.
I hope Bethesda loses as I think they are doing the most stupidest thing any game company can do and that is to humiliate themselves with a lawsuit on things they did in the past as well.
Bethesda can't be happy that another company has followed in a slight way and not copied their game fully. That's what Bethesda did to make their riches.
Gaming is about learning from other game developments and doing it your way to create a game you would prefer to play.
Gaming is supposed to be a platform of fun not a courtroom with a hypocrite in it. i.e. Bethesda.
One black mark to Bethesda from me.

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