Sega sues over Simpsons Road Rage

honru · 05-12-2003 6:14pm #1

Sega sues over Simpsons (Source: Gamespot)
According to a recent Reuters report, Sega of America has filed a suit against publisher Electronic Arts, developer Radical Games, the Fox Filmed Entertainment division of Fox Entertainment, and Vivendi Universal's Fox Interactive unit. Filed in a San Francisco federal court, the suit alleges that the 2001 game The Simpsons Road Rage was designed to 'deliberately copy and imitate' its Crazy Taxi games.

Sega holds a U.S. patent known as the '138 patent' on Crazy Taxi, and has cited a number of reviews from video game publications of The Simpsons Road Rage in which the game was described as being very similar to Crazy Taxi. In our own review of Road Rage we noted that the game could perhaps best be described as 'Crazy Taxi in Springfield'.

Sega has requested that the court stop the sale and import of The Simpsons Road Rage, which has sold more than a million copies to date, recall copies of the game currently in retail, and award damages for lost profits.

Bit late to jump to action, but I still back Sega. The game was seriously milking the cow and it wasn't even commendable. And I really love the Crazy Taxi series.

Pugsley · 05-12-2003 6:38pm

Definately support sega on this, it was a blatent rip off of the classic, far too slow from sega tho really.

DiscoStu · 05-12-2003 11:39pm

i always like bad stuff happening to ea

Mossy Monk · 06-12-2003 12:04am

it was a blatant rip off alright so bring those bad people to court

astrofool · 06-12-2003 12:44am

with every game out there being based on another similar game, I cannot see the logic behind this (as much as it's good to see EA in trouble).

Do Bungie get to sue someone else for making a "halo-killer". Is pes not copying the myriad of football games that came before it. Crash bandicoot was the psone's answer to mario, the whole industry is full of copying.

DiscoStu · 06-12-2003 1:13am

Originally posted by astrofool
with every game out there being based on another similar game, I cannot see the logic behind this (as much as it's good to see EA in trouble).

Do Bungie get to sue someone else for making a "halo-killer". Is pes not copying the myriad of football games that came before it. Crash bandicoot was the psone's answer to mario, the whole industry is full of copying.

welcome to the big bad world of IP, patent breaking and SCO

unfortunalty is is what happens when software(ie logical steps) can be patented.

i noticed this link in the webmaster forum a while back that illustrates the utter lunacy of allowing this kind of patent to be made. Linky
it shows how one man has patented the idea of automatically launching an exetrnal program to the web browser to handle different data types, such as the flash player to display flash or the java runtime environment to run applets. if its transparent to the user its covered by this riduclous patent.

unfortunatly sega's case is a natural extension of this stupid law. it will stifle innovation, progress and improvment of existing designs and ideas since your ass can be sued off you for trying to better anyone elses product.

/me runs off to see if i can get a patent on breathing.

once i get it all you dumbasses will have to pay me roaylties or you can go and suffocate and i will be the unquestioned ruler of the world.

Creamy Goodness · 06-12-2003 1:15am

well if this is the case then activision should sue the company who made the simpsons skateboarding

TheSonOfBattles · 06-12-2003 2:03am

The whole idea is idiotic, its what the game industry is based on. If it passes, we'll be lucky to see one new game a year, as every game will have to be completely differant from anything ever made. Besides if Sega win, Nintendo can start a suit with them, they copied the idea of platformers from the Mario series, they just called it Sonic and changed a few things. And it'll go on and on, and while they're sueing and counter sueing, we'll be reading books, watching the tv and doin other stuff in general, cause they'll be to busy to make games.

sceptre · 06-12-2003 4:08am

Originally posted by astrofool
Do Bungie get to sue someone else for making a "halo-killer". Is pes not copying the myriad of football games that came before it. Crash bandicoot was the psone's answer to mario, the whole industry is full of copying.

Seems like I've heard something similar in a Simpsons episode (the one where Itchy and Scratchy get shut down)

Let's ignore the patent for the moment and consider the case on its base merits. Unlike the various soccer games and anything based on skateboarding, Crazy Taxi is far closer to being an original work than Sensible Soccer (or whatever came before it) (and yes, I'm aware of cult French movies but AFAIR EA paid for that one in cold cash). They've far more of a case that Simpsons Road Rage is a derivative work based on Crazy Taxi than any publishers have of basing a case on a sport game. Grounded in copyright law. Far more sensible.

(I'm not the greatest fan of long patents but reasonable (95 years before becoming PD is /not/ reasonable) copyrights are good if the artist/writer chooses to publish in that way)

BlitzKrieg · 06-12-2003 7:19pm

For games like sonic and mario they may be the same genre but they play completely different the only real possible link is that its a 2d platformer. Everything else is different (level design use of rings as life, speed, 3 act system.)

Simpsons road rage though brought near nothing new to the system of crazy taxi which in its own right IS the only other game in that specific genre and the fact that simpsons does little to diverse itself from the original then it can be sued. (Other games like its GTA rip off etc are too different to be sueable.)

-Still fair play to Sega i assume the new sega console will be funded by this law suit.

TheSonOfBattles · 06-12-2003 8:38pm

Sega are a software only company from now on. They quit the hardware business (arcade's excluded) after the complete and utter failure that was the dreamcast. Bit unfortunate to be honest, as the Dreamcast was a very good machine that deserved to do a lot better. Still, I pray they lose the case as it's not really gonna be good for the game business. What new have games like Unreal brought to their genre. F**k all, still good though, and that's only of the top of me head.

jaggeh · 06-12-2003 10:07pm

Originally posted by TheSonOfBattles
Besides if Sega win, Nintendo can start a suit with them, they copied the idea of platformers from the Mario series, they just called it Sonic and changed a few things.

who can then in turn be sued by Coleco, ever played Space panic? frist platform game ever.

TheSonOfBattles · 06-12-2003 11:38pm

Obviously not. But there you go, the fun of sueing the pants of other companies continues on. Then again, there may be some kinky companies out there that enjoy having there pants taken off.

honru · 07-12-2003 12:33am

One thing I was noticing, you always hear about "Wallmart sues Sega" and "Dave Mirra sues Acclaim" and the details and such, but you never find out about how the case is resolved.

Dont be at yourself · 07-12-2003 12:38am

Sure ya do. Dave Mirra and Acclaim settled out of court, I believe. He hadn't got a leg to stand on, like.

Also, this is just Sega waving its willy at EA. Sega were pretty bullish when they went software only that they were gunning for EA's marketshare. The two companies are fairly hostile towards each other.

honru · 07-12-2003 1:37am

Yeah, I guess a few cases are heard about, the Nintendo and Blockbuster charge springs to mind. But the suing always outweighs the revolution, at least from what I read.

Ever since EA announced it would not be supporting the Dreamcast, they and Sega have been eyeing each others throat. They aggresively compete with each other with their yearly-updated sports titles, and I guess Sega's "number one software developer" goal has been indefinetly blocked by EA. Maybe this is the push behind this case.

BlitzKrieg · 07-12-2003 4:06pm

any1 read about back in the Mega drive and Snes days when they had the big dispute with the american government over violence in video games:

*reinactment*

Nintendo of america ceo on the chair, showing footage of Sega Games: "As you can see the sega mega drive is a console full of violent and unsuitable video games" Changes to nintendo games "While our console is of a much more suitable content."

Leaves chair

Sega of america CEO (forgot his name but was a legend should never have left) sits on chair. Quiet for a minute. "Suitable content....(Puts hand in bag) then can you explain this!!!" (Pulls out the nintendo boozaka thingy for shoot em ups, points it at nintendo ceo) BANG!! proceeds with case.

legendary guy

i think its all on classicgaming.com extracts from the investigation in which the sega ceo ripped it out of everyone. (Must find the article!!)

one good thing about gore not winning the elections his vice president Lincoln is very Censor games extremely type of guy, he was the one who started the last investigation (which was before GTA) so god knows wha he would have done as vice president...

A-Trak · 08-12-2003 3:59am

Do Bungie get to sue someone else for making a "halo-killer".

Do id get to sue everyone for making a "Slightly updated and slightly better FPS then ours?
I'm with Sega on this one, if you rip off exact game engine and play yet slow it down and package it differently you deserve to be reprimanded.

p.s. the only possible Halo beater sounds very similar with a 2 after it.

jaggeh · 08-12-2003 1:08pm

halo is not the be all and end all of games, its nothing special.

there are plenty of halo killers already out but they dont have the billion dollar engine of destructiion that is M$ behind them.

but the point is simpsons road rage IS crazy taxi only with simpsons characters in it.

although im pretty sure crazy taxi wasnt the first taxi game ever made or 'Delivery race' genre game. my research goes on to find the earlier ones.

Shred · 08-12-2003 1:54pm

one good thing about gore not winning the elections his vice president Lincoln is very Censor games extremely type of guy, he was the one who started the last investigation (which was before GTA) so god knows wha he would have done as vice president...

What about his missus - Tipper Gore. She's involved with the Washington Wives and the PMRC - responsible for such riduculous court cases as the one were they brought John Denver to court for 'Rocky Mountain High' because they argued it was promoting drug use:rolleyes:

(Sorry, off topic)

Syth · 08-12-2003 2:50pm

Id love to know hwo they got a patent on a game.

Sega sues over Simpsons Road Rage

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