Sony Interactive Entertainment sues Tencent Holdings for allegedly ripping off 'Horizon' video games; Tencent originally pitched to license the IP

nial

nial

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July 28 (Reuters) - Sony Interactive (6758.T), opens new tab has sued Tencent (0700.HK), opens new tab for copyright and trademark infringement in California federal court, accusing the Chinese tech conglomerate of ripping off its popular "Horizon" series of adventure video games.
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Sony said in a lawsuit filed on Friday that Tencent's upcoming "Light of Motiram" is a "slavish clone" of its games that copies several distinctive "Horizon" elements and threatens to confuse buyers.
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Spokespeople for Tencent and attorneys and spokespeople for Sony did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
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Sony released the first game in the "Horizon" series, "Horizon: Zero Dawn," on its PlayStation 4 in 2017. The games follow a red-headed woman named Aloy as she navigates a post-apocalyptic world populated by human tribes and robotic animals.
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Sony said in its complaint that it declined an offer from Tencent to collaborate on a new "Horizon" game last year. Tencent later announced "Light of Motiram," which Sony said features identical gameplay, story themes and artistic elements to "Horizon" as well as many other similarities.
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Sony said that video game journalists have characterized "Light of Motiram" as a "knock-off" of "Horizon," including one who called the game "Horizon Zero Originality."
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Sony asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and an order blocking Tencent from violating its intellectual property rights.
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The case is Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC v. Tencent Holdings Ltd, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:25-cv-06275.
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For Sony: Annette Hurst, Diana Rutowski and Laura Wytsma of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
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For Tencent: attorney information not yet available
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Astray said:
nial nial Can you please add the court doc link to the OP

Also interesting to see that Tencent started development of the game before they asked for the IP license, then just continued along after being told no.
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Sony claiming copyright for an art-style is ballsy, it's a very different type of game outside of the creature design, so I can't see it working out for them, Capcom however should take a look at some of those animations, they look ripped straight out of Monster Hunter.
 
Absolutely ballsy of Sony, but I'd love for them to win this against Tencent, lol.

Also not gonna lie, when I first saw the trailer for that game, I just straight up thought it was Horizon, lmao.
 
Nintendo being Ninten.....

Season 4 What GIF by The Office
 
For the first thirty seconds of the trailer, I was like, alright, whatever. Then the color palette as the drone was flying through the jungle made me go, hrrm. Then the little girl with the identical head dress and outfit to Aloy made me say wtf.
 
Thank God we get to have even more Horizon games. For a second there I thought maybe someone would copy an IP we lack like socom, infamous, resistance, killzone, uncharted, etc. . . but no. More Horizon. YES!!!!
 
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Yes, the lookalike is not subtle at all. However, it's a very different kind of game.

If Horizon is that popular an IP, it should not feel threatened by a chinese knock-off, right?

Right?

No, fuck Sony, Nintendo and whoever tries to pull off this kind of courtroom bullshit.
 
The antlered creature and then the horse from the announcement trailer looked very horizon. The scorpion guys too looked like the cargo machines. And the environment was very similar graphically.


But I'm all for more dinobot games. Looked pretty cool and id never heard of it
 
I think Sony might win this one.

What laziness from Tencent, had they changed the art style just enough Sony wouldn't be able to say shit. They even copied the tall red wheat that you hide in lol its exactly the same

I expect the game to be delayed so they can change things up
 
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Surprise, surprise every company does this, they will do what it takes to protect their property…..and like I said with Nintendo thread I have no sympathy these guys and Palworld devs who blatantly copy.
 
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Thick Thighs Save Lives said:
I mean...

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Yep, it definitely looks like they created this to pitch a licensed Horizon game, SIE denied and Tencent decided to run with it, anyway.
I know this thread will have a pretty predictable outcome (fuck it, diffusionx diffusionx already beat me to it), but it will be funny to see people pretending that this is not straight up a shameless copycat (when we all already agreed with that last year, at that).
At least they're not doing a Nintendo and suing over... patented game mechanics.
 
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Sony bringing out their inner Nintendo with this...acting like they invented something that others have done for years.

I've literally seen the robo-dinosaur shit done by hard-surface 3d modelers on Polycount, Artstation and the like before Horizon Zero Dawn even got teased. Nothing about the look was super unique, just really high-fidelity with nice use of color.
 
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I suspect there will be a lot of overlap between how the California judges preside over this case vis-a-vis the Disney vs OpenAI lawsuit.

If Sony can argue this is essentially an unauthorised derivative work of Horizon (which given it a) looks like a complete rip off; and b) they already asked to "derive" use of the license for their own works) then that might be a winning strategy to get this over the line.

However, if even the US courts look favourably on OpenAI and deem it acceptable for their AIs to generate derivative works of popular Disney/Marvel/Star Wars characters for their customers, then there may be an angle for Tencent to use that as precedent to wriggle out of this fiasco.

I hope Tencent get butchered though quite frankly.

It'll be almost impossible for Sony to enforce any ruling in China, but they should be able to carry any court ruling to enforce across most other regions to block distribution from Tencent there and receive damages.

However in China this will still be Tencent's "Little Timmy, we've got Horizon at home… it's the Temu version".
 
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Durin said:
Sony bringing out their inner Nintendo with this...acting like they invented something that others have done for years.

I've literally seen the robo-dinosaur shit done by hard-surface 3d modelers on Polycount, Artstation and the like before Horizon Zero Dawn even got teased. Nothing about the look was super unique, just really high-fidelity with nice use of color.
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It's not just the idea of dino robots, it's the music, the art style, the robo designs, costume designs, the red-haired female protagonist, etc. etc. One of the most blatant clones I"ve ever seen.
 
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