The Bethesda copyright lawsuit between the Fallout 76 creator and Behaviour Interactive has been amicably settled. The two companies had some issues and it seems that they’ve managed to hash them out, as the two parties have released a joint statement today stating that the issue is no more. The initial reason behind the Bethesda copyright lawsuit came down to a Westworld game that was in development by Behaviour Interactive. Bethesda claimed that the Westworld game was a little too similar to their vault-building title Fallout Shelter. Considering that Behaviour Interactive had developed both Fallout Shelter and the Westworld game, the two games appearing similar may not come as a surprise.
Conversely, publisher Warner Brothers contested the validity of the Bethesda copyright lawsuit. Fallout Shelter had originally been created under contract with the stipulation that none of the assets or code would be reused in other projects. However, Behaviour Interactive was confident that no code from Fallout Shelter was used in their newer game that nonetheless shares several thematic elements. Warner Brothers accepted these assurances from their developer and carried on with defending against the lawsuit.
Six months later, the parties came to an agreement to cease hostilities. The entirety of their statement is rather short and unfortunately uninformative:
“Bethesda Softworks and Behaviour Interactive jointly announced today that the parties have amicably resolved the lawsuit Bethesda brought against Behaviour and others related to the Fallout Shelter and Westworld mobile games.”
Unfortunately, we don’t yet know how this particular lawsuit was resolved. Bethesda had originally sought damages and for Behaviour Interactive to halt distribution of the Westworld game. There’s no definitive statement made as to what kind of arrangement was made between the two companies. Did Westworld‘s developers breach their contract and use code from Fallout Shelter or was it an accusation without merit? We might not get to hear the details of the Bethesda Copyright lawsuit, but the Westworld game is still available on the App Store, so it seems like distribution will be allowed to continue.
[via GamesIndustry.biz]
