PlayStation sues Tencent over Horizon ‘clone’ Light Of Motiram

A lawsuit by Sony claims Tencent is ripping off Horizon Zero Dawn, after the company originally wanted to make its own game set in Asia.

Last November, Chinese conglomerate Tencent announced a brand new survival game for PC called Light Of Motiram; one that you can play with friends as you explore a post-apocalyptic world populated by animal-like machines.

The game’s announcement quickly went viral, not because it looked any good, but because it looked an awful lot like Sony’s Horizon Zero Dawn and its sequel. Even the woman depicted in the key art shared many similarities with Horizon protagonist Aloy.

At the time, some wondered if Sony would take umbrage with Light Of Motiram. Turns out the answer to that is yes, as the company has formally filed a lawsuit against Tencent, accusing it of copyright and trademark infringement.

According to Reuters the lawsuit explicitly describes Light Of Motiram as a ‘slavish clone of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s immensely popular, award-winning Horizon series of video games.’

Sony even cites the initial public response and comments from gaming news websites as evidence of Tencent copying Horizon developer Guerrilla Games’ homework.

Interestingly, Sony also mentions that representatives of Tencent and one of its internal developers, Aurora Studios, previously approached the company to pitch a new Horizon game – one that would retain the established open world setting but feature ‘Eastern aesthetics’, survival mechanics, and multiplayer options (so presumably it would’ve been set in Asia, rather than the US).

They went so far as to share a photo of Aurora Studios’ team members playing one of the Horizon games at work alongside screenshots of their PlayStation trophy lists to demonstrate how they were ‘diehard fans’ of the series.

Sony rejected the pitch and is convinced that Tencent has repurposed the idea as Light Of Motiram, except they ditched the planned Eastern aesthetic and instead copied Horizon wholesale.

‘The Light Of Motiram Promotional Material reflects that even though Sony Interactive Entertainment rejected Tencent’s pitch to create a licensed Horizon Franchise game, Tencent continued to produce a game that makes unauthorized use of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s rights in the Horizon Franchise intellectual property,’ reads the lawsuit.

‘In doing so, Tencent misappropriates many of the most distinctive and recognisable protected elements of the Horizon Franchise, including the franchise’s overall tone and feel, setting, narrative, characters, and visual expression, leading to confusion as to source, affiliation, and sponsorship of the Light Of Motiram game.’

Elsewhere, Sony also gives away that the Horizons series has sold a collective 38 million units in total. According to the PlayStation Blog, 32.7 million units had been sold as of April 2023, meaning roughly six million more have been sold since then.

As a reminder, the only Horizon games to have come out in that time were a PlayStation 5 remaster of the first game and the multiplatform Lego Horizon Adventures spin-off.

You can read the whole lawsuit in full for yourself, but ultimately Sony is seeking to block Light Of Motiram from ever been released, plus $150,000 ‘for each separate work in the Horizon Franchise infringed’ in damages and for Tencent to hand over any and all marketing materials so Sony can destroy them.

At the time of writing, Tencent has yet to issue any sort of response, so it’s unclear if it will comply or if it feels it can win the court case.

This situation is reminiscent of the still ongoing Nintendo/Palworld legal battle. As a reminder, Palworld quickly gained infamy for its obvious similarities to Pokémon, to the point where some suspected developer Pocketpair of using AI to copy multiple pokémon designs for its catchable cartoon animals.

Nintendo’s lawsuit, however, is based on Pocketpair allegedly infringing on Nintendo’s patents for certain game mechanics. Since then, Palworld has had some of its mechanics changed. For instance, Pals are no longer summoned by throwing the equivalent of a pokéball, they just appear next to you.

All that said, a report by IP consultant Florian Mueller for GamesFray earlier this month argues that Nintendo isn’t guaranteed a clean win. In fact, the company has had one of its patents modified which Mueller believes is a Hail Mary to try and obfuscate the issue.

The Light Of Motiram situation is different, though, since Sony isn’t accusing Tencent of copying Horizon’s mechanics but the entire concept and aesthetic, thus potentially confusing people into thinking it’s an official Horizon game.

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