The 10 biggest lawsuits in the gaming world

The games industry, like any other, sometimes gets involved in some controversy and often in lawsuits. Most of the time, these are situations where two companies compete for something, as in the most recent case of Epic processing the Apple , among others a little heavier. Some with accusations of influencing a murder, theft of intellectual property, among others. So let's follow some of the most bizarre legal processes in the gaming world.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: The Hot Coffee Incident

Grand Theft Auto is always shrouded in controversy. From the possibility of running over people, killing everyone with a gun, or supposedly influencing people to commit atrocities. At the time of release of GTA: San Andreas for PC, a group of hackers managed to discover that in the game's code there was a mini-game called Hot coffee. This was nothing more than a mission where CJ (main character of the game) would take a girlfriend on a date and then he could have a more intimate moment, so to speak, with her. But the thing was a little more explicit than recommended.

These hackers even figured out how to activate this quest on home consoles at the time. And that was enough for the City of Los Angeles process the Take Two, the game's distributor, for not having previously warned about the spicy scene. As a result, the creator of GTA lost $20 million dollars.

Wilson vs. Midway Games (Mortal Kombat)

Politicians all too often love to blame video games for any catastrophe caused by a player. But in this case, it was a mother who filed a lawsuit against the Midway, then creator of the franchise Mortal Kombat.

Andrea Wilson he had just lost his son, Noah Wilson, who was murdered by his best friend,Yancy S.. According to the lawsuit, the boy believed he was the Cyrax, one of the cyborgs present in the third title of the franchise, and ended up using a character ending to kill Noah.

Mourned, the mother moved her process, but her state, Connecticut, argued that the game's creation and characters were protected by the US Constitution, through the First Amendment, and denied the request.

Electronic Arts vs. Brazilian soccer players

O Brazil it's a mess. We all know that. But if we only look at the management of football, the thing is even more obscure. In the past there was the club two 13 that took care of the television rights of the main teams in the country, however, some institutions decided that they should earn more and ended the group. But that's not the biggest problem.

If we look at how the image rights of athletes, the thing is even more “strange”. Clubs pay a portion of their salary with these rights, but are not allowed to use their appearance. So when the team signs a contract with Electronic Arts, to appear in games in the series Fifa, their image is not released.

Because of this, several athletes' unions, from several Brazilian states, have already filed lawsuits against the game's producer, and some have even won. As an example we have the action brought by the mining association of the group of players. There are still lawsuits being filed in São Paulo. So, every time you ask yourself the reasons why we don't have the players' real appearances and names, it's because there isn't an entity that takes care of that, so the EA does not find it interesting to negotiate with each of the club members.

Donkey Kong vs. Universal

A Nintendo was producing a game based on the drawing Popeye. Brutus had kidnapped Olivia and it was up to the hero to retrieve the damsel in distress. However, the owner of the rights at that time, the King Features Syndicate Inc, it took a long time to release the character, which made the president of Nintendo at that time, Hiroshi Yamauchi, ordered the game to be released without the spinach-fan sailor.

It was then that Shigeru Miyamoto changed everything and Popeye became a cabinetmaker, who would later become a plumber named jumpman — later becoming the icon Mario — while Brutus would become a monkey named Donkey Kong, and Olivia became Pauline. And it was precisely the overalls that caused a certain problem. But first, let's go back for a moment to give context.

In 1933 the studio RKO released a movie called King Kong. Many years later, in 1976, the Universal released a remake of the film and it was sued by the first studio. At the time, Universal claimed that the character was in the public domain and won the lawsuit.

So, when Donkey Kong was already a huge success and was eating chips in arcades, Universal decided to sue Nintendo alleging copyright infringement. THE Big N fought against the studio and presented the same evidence that had been used against RKO and won the lawsuit. In the end, Universal had to pay the costs of the legal dispute, about $1.8 million.

Activision vs. atari

This fight nearly broke the gaming industry. But first let's get to the context. There was a group of employees at the Atari who were quite unhappy with the job. Everything they produced was not named after them and the profits all went into the pockets of shareholders, while those who actually made the game received only a salary. So they had a brilliant idea: to leave Atari and start their own company, which they named Activision.

This happened in 1979. The employees then began producing their own games for Atari, but without paying a single penny to the company that employed them before. Obviously, the creator of the console sued the group. But they lost. This caused a turmoil in the relationship of how games came out, as now anyone could create their own title and dump it on the market. However, many did not value the quality, and the industry broke, in the 1983 crash, but that's for another day.

Bethesda vs. mojang

Fate is sometimes ironic. The companies that today belong to the ecosystem already fought over a name. As is public knowledge, the Bethesda is responsible for the franchise The Elder Scrolls and Mojang is the inventor of the classic Minecraft. In 2011, the doll builder company announced its third game: Scrolls. Bethesda immediately filed a lawsuit against the other company over the similarity of the new game's name and its open-world franchise.

Scrolls was nothing more than a collectible card game and during the lawsuits, the two companies managed to get it right: Mojang could use the name as long as the game looked nothing like The Elder Scrolls and promised not to register the trademark. The game was released in 2014, and renamed to Caller's Bane on its relaunch in 2018.

PUBG Corp vs. Epic Games

And here we have one of the processes of the Epic, but now against her. In 2017 a phenomenon was born that changed the way shooter games are seen, PlayerUnknkown's Battleground, or PUBG for the intimates. At first it was released to a small community of streamers who tested the game and approved. Subsequently, the game exploded in a way never seen in the history of games, and moved players, content creators and companies. The idea of ​​the game was simple: jump out of a plane, get weapons and equipment, be the last survivor on an island. Only that.

Of course, with that, clones began to appear. The most notable of these is Fortnite. The Epic game was released in 2011 still in development and consisted of carrying out a series of missions against zombies and other creatures. After the explosion of PUBG, Epic added a similar, free-to-play mode. This made a gigantic community come along, thanks to its appeal to children.

Without much thought, PUBG developer PUBG Corporation has filed a lawsuit against Epic. However, for no apparent reason, the process was abandoned and no one knows what happened. Both games are active to this day, including receiving content regularly.

The Romantics vs. activision

One of the most bizarre processes on the list, without a doubt. Guitar Hero it made many people's minds in the 2000s, mine included. So, to produce Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, Activision did all the legal procedures to count on the song “What I Like About You” from the band The Romantics in the game. But as they didn't have access to the originals of the song, they hired a cover and thus launched the new chapter of the franchise.

However, some band members felt that the song was too much like what they had recorded and sued Activision. When the case reached the judge Nancy G. Edmunds, who verified that the game's producer had done everything within the law, and also that the band's vocalist was not part of the process, she promptly denied the appeal and life went on as normal.

Nintendo vs. piracy sites

A Nintendo is one of the companies that most defends its intellectual property. She has always sued anyone who may have infringed her rights. One of the company's targets in recent years has been sites that provide pirated copies of their games in ROM format (a computer file that can be played on unlocked emulators or consoles).

Among these sites, it is worth mentioning three cases: against LoveROMS. com, LoveRETRO.co and romUniverse.com. The first two have already reached an agreement with the Big N and will pay $12 million as a fine, while RomUniverse received the heaviest punishment yet.

According to the court's ruling, the site's owner, Matthew Storman, will have to pay $2 million for trademark infringement and an additional $150 for each game on the site. The website owner tried unsuccessfully to run a fundraiser. RomUniverse is no longer on the air and it is not known how the case ended up.

Epic vs. apple

This is a fight that is still going on and will take some time to finish. It all started when the Epic decided to increase in Fortnite a payment system that did not even pass through the sieve of Apple nor from Google, that is, they would not receive the 30% they were entitled to for allowing the game to be in their respective stores. Both were quick and removed the game from there.

Epic considered this an abuse and accused Apple of controlling a monopoly, and filed a lawsuit against the apple. The case is still far from a conclusion and a jury trial, previously requested by Apple, was rejected by both, and the case will be tried by Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers.

Source: Game World Observer, Goliath, ScreenRant, ESPN, Globo Sport, My Gaming, justice, Wired, Polygon, BBC, Games Industry