Tencent accuses Sony of abuse of power in the Light of Motiram case
, by Thibaut
Last July, Sony filed a lawsuit against Tencent over its game Light of Motiram. The Japanese manufacturer claimed copyright infringement of the Horizon franchise. Tencent's title appears to borrow several elements from Guerrilla Games' license.
Although there were some changes to the game following this, Tencent has officially responded to Sony. The Chinese giant accuses its Japanese counterpart of "abuse of power" by attempting to monopolize narrative conventions that are used by many titles.
Tencent specifically mentions post-apocalyptic worlds, red-haired heroes, and robotic monsters, the use of which should not be reserved solely for Sony. The company gives examples such as The Legend of Zelda, Outer Wilds, Far Cry, Enslaved, and Biomutant to illustrate its point. For Tencent, these themes and ideas don't belong to just one single brand and are used by dozens of titles.
"Sony’s Complaint tellingly ignores these facts. Instead, it tries to transform ubiquitous genre ingredients into proprietary assets.
By suing over an unreleased project that merely employs the same time-honored tropes embraced by scores of other games released both before and after Horizon—like Enslaved, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Far Cry: Primal, Far Cry: New Dawn, Outer Wilds, Biomutant, and many more—Sony seeks an impermissible monopoly on genre conventions."
To support its argument, Tencent goes so far as to mention a behind-the-scenes documentary on Horizon Zero Dawn. In it, Jan-Bart Van Beek, the game's art director, said that the title's storyline was similar to that of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, released in 2013. This similarity even prompted Guerrilla to temporarily shelve Horizon, as it was deemed too similar to Ninja Theory's title.
Tencent is therefore asking the court to dismiss the case entirely. Light of Motiram will not be released before the end of 2027.
Source: thegamepost.com