Sony sues Tencent over blatant Horizon Zero Dawn clone, Light of Motiram

[midian182]

What just happened? In a move that is only surprising because of how long it's taken, Sony has launched a lawsuit against Tencent over a game that looks so much like Horizon Zero Dawn it's hard to believe it isn't a sequel. Light of Motiram is described by the Japanese company as a "slavish clone" of the popular robot-dinosaur-fighting adventure games, which is an accurate description.

Gamers were excited to see what everyone assumed was another entry in the Horizon Zero Dawn series last November. But that excitement turned to bewilderment when the trailer revealed this was a game from Tencent called Light of Motiram.

The game is essentially the Temu version of Horizon. It has all the most recognizable elements of Guerilla Games' excellent series. Beyond the wild jungle, mountain, and desert environments dotted with dilapidated modern buildings, there's a red-haired young female protagonist, the post-apocalyptic setting, copied clothing, near-identical weapons, replicated flying mechanics, and so on – even the music is similar. Then there are the robotic dinosaurs, which look like Tencent copied Sony's homework without even trying to change it.

As we said at the time, the trailer likely had Sony's lawyers gleefully rubbing their hands together in excitement. It's taken a while, but the legal team has finally jumped into action.

In a complaint filed in California court last week, Sony alleged that Light of Motiram copies everything from Horizon – mechanics, graphics, style, right down to an imitation of Aloy's Focus device.

Part of the complaint reveals that Tencent pitched the idea of a game set in the Horizon universe at the 2024 Game Developers Conference, but it failed to mention that it started developing Light of Motiram in 2023. Sony rejected the idea, yet Tencent continued developing its imitator.

Sony says it approached Tencent informally after it became aware of Light of Motiram to resolve the copyright dispute. Tencent once again asked if it could license the Horizon IP. Sony's response was to say no, again. But Tencent continued development anyway.

Something else that was surprising when the Light of Motiram reveal arrived was that PlayStation had published the trailers on its Chinese accounts on Weibo and Bilibili. PlayStation also mentioned "more cooperation" with the game in the future.

Sony is suing for copyright and trademark infringement, as well as false designation of origin. It is asking the court to forbid Tencent from infringing its copyright, to award damages of up to $150,000 per infringing work in the Horizon franchise, and to require Tencent to surrender all infringing materials for destruction. The unreleased game is still listed on the Steam and Epic Games stores.

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Sony sues Tencent over blatant Horizon Zero Dawn clone, Light of Motiram

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Nintendo should sue Sony for making the Playstation, which featured "similar concepts" to the snes CD addon, and request the destruction of all playstations. Would be just as insane.

It's a videogame, Sony. If you cant make decent titles, others will make them. If they use the same font, boohoo.

 

[VitalyT]

Good luck with that! Tencent is a Chinese company, and there is no word for copyright in Mandarin

Many have tried to sue Chinese businesses over copyright infringements, and I don't know of anyone who succeeded.

 

[dangh]

They starting making a game in Horizon universe without any approval or IP rights, and they didn't expect any follow up? lol. Sure, they might just be able to release it in China, but not in any other civilized country.
It's like making a Mario game without Nintendo consent. They will lost the case in US for sure, and if they wont stop, there will be many more cases which will be more costly than they are prepared for.

 

[Kirby1]

Sony has no case.

 

[RudyBob]

Oh Those Chinese....More proof what a fine upstanding player they are

 

[Theinsanegamer]

They starting making a game in Horizon universe without any approval or IP rights, and they didn't expect any follow up? lol. Sure, they might just be able to release it in China, but not in any other civilized country.
It's like making a Mario game without Nintendo consent. They will lost the case in US for sure, and if they wont stop, there will be many more cases which will be more costly than they are prepared for.

Is Sony the only company allowed to make a game about dino robots? The only one allowed to use times new roman?

We've had "clones" of popular games for decades, we've also had games that were originally meant to be a different IP then changed later in development.

What exactly is Sony's case here?

 

[m4a4]

Honestly, glad they didn't get the IP license. The characters can and will look better in Light of Motiram.

As for a blatant copy, eh. The styles are very similar, but no more so than CoD vs Battlefield.

Sounds more like Sony isn't happy their flagship Horizon IP isn't doing as well as it could (lol Lego), and they're afraid this'll make it even less relevant.

 

[dangh]

Is Sony the only company allowed to make a game about dino robots? The only one allowed to use times new roman?

If you follow the topic or just read the article you would see this is not a game with dino robots, it is a game made in the world of Horizon, with the same types of robots, mechanics, history and so on. They took the assets types, lore, modeled their character similarly to Alloy and after they started production they asked Sony if they are happy with the spinoff of their making.

"Tencent once again asked if it could license the Horizon IP. Sony's response was to say no, again. But Tencent continued development anyway."

so no, this is not just a similar game. It is a game made in the same universe without any right to do that, and for that they have no chances winning any court case.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

If you follow the topic or just read the article you would see this is not a game with dino robots, it is a game made in the world of Horizon, with the same types of robots, mechanics, history and so on. They took the assets types, lore, modeled their character similarly to Alloy and after they started production they asked Sony if they are happy with the spinoff of their making.

"Tencent once again asked if it could license the Horizon IP. Sony's response was to say no, again. But Tencent continued development anyway."

so no, this is not just a similar game. It is a game made in the same universe without any right to do that, and for that they have no chances winning any court case.

I did read the article. Sony claims this game (which still isnt out yet BTW) is set in the Horizon IP, based on Tencent wanting to make it as such.

However, that doesnt mean that Sony owns the rights to any game with robot dinosaurs, red headed protagonists, old buildings with vines, or "action adventure" mechanics. If that were true Horizon would have gotten DMCAd into the ground.

I do not believe that Sony has a claim on robot enemies, or action adventure gameplay, or old builds in a post apocalypse setting. I dont see how Sony is going to excuse that when the designs have all been changed and the world, while a ripoff, is not the horizon world. This is no worse then Genshin impact VS breath of the wild, and nintendo didnt go after them despite being way more sue happy.

I'd like to see proof that these are actual Sony assets being used, as opposed to look alikes. "clone" games with similar assets have existed almost as long as gaming itself.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Good luck with that! Tencent is a Chinese company, and there is no word for copyright in Mandarin

Many have tried to sue Chinese businesses over copyright infringements, and I don't know of anyone who succeeded.

Eh, I can think of one successful case - Snail Games, owners of the Ark Survival games, sued Angela Games, a Chinese company making the game Myth of Empires over copyright infringement a few years ago in the US courts, and eventually landed a favorable settlement (Snail Games got royalties & became the publisher for Myth of Empires). Of course that case involved literal copy & pasted source code being used (a former Snail employee took the source code with him when he joined Angela Games), while Sony's case here is a weaker one.

 

[dangh]

I did read the article. Sony claims this game (which still isnt out yet BTW) is set in the Horizon IP, based on Tencent wanting to make it as such.

However, that doesnt mean that Sony owns the rights to any game with robot dinosaurs, red headed protagonists, old buildings with vines, or "action adventure" mechanics. If that were true Horizon would have gotten DMCAd into the ground.

Tencent is asking for the Horizon IP licence from Sony to use in this game. Which is already in production. They do not ask for the licence because this is game about robo dinozaurs. They asking for it because they know they are doing a pure copy, and they knew they will have problems releasing.

And no one said Sony own the rights to all those small things. But do you suggest that Tencent is asking for a license unnecessarily? In addition, it is not one or two or five similarities. It is not like they borrowed anything from other games and put it together. Every detail in this copy is similar to Horizon, not a turock, jurasic park or whatever. I understand that some similarities are unavoidable, but in what is presented there, nearly nothing has been done differently. Which is not surprising, as Tencent simply made the copy hoping for some reason it will be easily licenced as part of the Horizon universe and they wouldn't have to make any late changes.

 

[unoficialoficial]

You can't sue for "similarity" (as subjectively interpreted by an individual), but you can sue for copyright infringement or patent infringement. The game in question has new assets and a new codebase that were created from scratch, so it’s obvious that there's no "copy" infringement on the medium in which Sony's ideas were embodied. Since they haven't mentioned any patents (for example, on gameplay mechanics), there's no patent infringement either.

If Sony is suing over deceptive claims, they might be engaging in fraud. It’s important that such practices be punished (executives should face criminal charges and potential years of jail time), because otherwise, any wealthy company can sue any potentially “dangerous” startup and stifle innovation. The law is not a toy. After all, if "likeness" (of a game, in this case) becomes a legal entity, all game developers might be stuck. All game genres share the same "likeness": FPS, RPG, JRPG, racing, pinball, football, basketball, mech, air combat, and so on. All these games in each category are similar and it's a common practice to create a new game in a particular genre.

 

[dangh]

another look at it.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Yeah look I'm as mad about WB patenting stuff like the nemesis system and doing nothing with it etc. I'd love to get more games in the Horizon universe as well.

But this thing is truly a straight up copy, with the biggest offender being the design of the robot "dinos". Honestly if the Dinos were redesigned to not look like swappable assets with Horizon then I doubt Sony would really have a single leg to stand on.

By not pursuing copyright infringement here, Sony would essentially be diluting one of their own brands by allowing whoever to come in and lift the robot dino style that is basically the heart of Horizon and do whatever with it.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

If you follow the topic or just read the article you would see this is not a game with dino robots, it is a game made in the world of Horizon, with the same types of robots, mechanics, history and so on. They took the assets types, lore, modeled their character similarly to Alloy and after they started production they asked Sony if they are happy with the spinoff of their making.

"Tencent once again asked if it could license the Horizon IP. Sony's response was to say no, again. But Tencent continued development anyway."

so no, this is not just a similar game. It is a game made in the same universe without any right to do that, and for that they have no chances winning any court case.

If you follow the topic or just read the article you would see this is not a game with dino robots, it is a game made in the world of Horizon

That could be the original goal.
But, thank to Sony, it wont be.

.. with the same types of robots, mechanics, history and so on

How can you tell appart 2 robots made as robotic counterpart of a cow, dear, horse, rhino, ... etc?

Even the teaser shows more mechanics that are not in Zero Dawn neither Forbidden West.
May be some were meant to be in 3rd Horizon or that mythical MMO, but that is not public knowledge.

I know nothing about lore/history in Motiram. How do you know any? Are you a part of dev team?

Somebody said the skill tree is (or at least looks) the same. Again, where have they got that info?

"Tencent once again asked if it could license the Horizon IP."

At the end of the day this is the one and only fact from article and you response.

Sony does not want a game made by 3rd company which could confuse players.
Sony wants to milk the Horizon universe without sharing.

PS: I do not like much Tencent. I can foresee the milking of players trough micro transactions (as is habbit in free-to-play games). I may or may not play it when it comes.

 

[AnilD]

So Tencent pitched a Horizon game, got told no, and just went ahead and made one anyway. The most surprising part isn’t the clone game, it’s that Sony let PlayStation China hype it up.