Here I was thinking that the Pokémon vs Palworld thing was crazy. Then Sony comes through with a lawsuit aimed at Tencent for their game Light of Motiram.
And it does bear a striking resemblance to Sony’s Horizon series, if we’re being honest…
Videos by VICE
Calling ‘Light of Motiram’ A ‘horizon’ clone is fair, right?
According to a report from Reuters:
“Sony Interactive has sued Tencent 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. 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”.
I mean, look at that key art. It’s not hard to see why Sony might feel that Tencent has taken some elements from their franchise and incorporated them into their own game.
“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”.
That’s wild if true. It reminds me of a particular scene from Family Guy involving everyone’s favorite doormat, Meg Griffin. Why not just make your own game? The rejection couldn’t have been so bad that the next idea was to make it anyway and adjust some elements slightly.
Sony even mentions some of the quotes regarding Tencent’s Horizon clone. “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.”
I feel like Pusha T listening to a Malice verse on “Let God Sort Em Out.” I wish I said that one. That’s gold. And now everyone is laughing at you when you could have just pivoted—wild place to be.
At any rate, it’ll be interesting to see how things shake out. I’m not entirely sure how it can be seen in any other way than how it looks. But crazier things have happened.
