Warner Bros. has responded to the lawsuit brought against it by Bethesda, calling the accusations ‘surprising’ and ‘unsubstantiated.’
Bethesda lawsuit was filed on the grounds that Warner Bros. Westworld game is a ‘blatant rip-off’ of Fallout Shelter.
The suit stated:
“Behaviour breached its contract with Bethesda and utilized its restricted access to Bethesda’s intellectual property, including Bethesda’s copyrighted code, trade secrets, and other rights, to compress its development timeline, reduce costs, and quickly bring the Westworld mobile game to market, and offer players the widely popular gameplay experience found in Fallout Shelter.”
In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, Warner Bros. said:
“As one of the world’s leading creators of intellectual property, including the ground-breaking television series Westworld, Warner Bros. has a deep respect for intellectual property rights. As such, the assertions by Bethesda Softworks that Warner’s Westworld mobile game improperly used source code from Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter are as surprising as they are unsubstantiated.
Warner Bros. has been assured by the game developer, Behaviour Interactive, that Bethesda’s allegations are untrue and that none of Bethesda’s code was used in the Westworld game. Moreover, contrary to Bethesda’s baseless accusation, Warner Bros. at no time ‘induced’ Behaviour to use the Fallout Shelter code in Westworld.”
Bethesda wants the Westworld game scrapped completely, and is suing for actual and punitive damages.
