Sony is facing some angry criticism for allegedly copying Sackboy costume entries and selling them on as DLC. The costumes Sony offers are believed by some to have been designed by non-winning entries to a costume contest, being sold without due credit given.
Official PlayStation forum posters have pointed out the similarities between Sony's DLC and fan-designed costumes, which include the Shark suit we talked about a while ago. You can check out the similarities here, and I think you will agree that they're incredibly similar, to the point where it could almost be considered blatant.
Sony is calling the situation a complete coincidence. "This was always going to be a possibility when we ran the costumer competition - releasing new costumes which are similar in theme to ones that were entered," explained a Sony community rep. "Here's the fact of the matter. The art team who are responsible for designing new original (ie unlicensed) costumes were involved at the very final stage of judging, by which time the number of entries had been whittled down to 10 from each batch of entries (Europe, Japan, USA).
"If at any time we take inspiration from a costume competition entry that didn't win overall we will contact the creator directly."
So, coincidence, or dirty plagiarism? Either way, it's Sony's property, so it's Sony's right to give credit and use whatever assets it wants. That doesn't make it classy, however. It's not like Sony would ever admit to ripping off a fan, whether it did or not, so we'll never not for sure. They really are bloody similar though.
-icon.gif){kind=icon}
21 comments + 95764 views
I'm a shhhhhaarrrrkkkk
Too similar to Jaws. It should be moderated.
They probably forfeited rights to their entries when they entered the contest so they've likely got no case against Sony for stealing their ideas. The ones pointed out were reasonable coincidences though. I mean, a sackboy with a motocross helmet? Gee that's creative. I bet Sony is going to steal the lone pirate and ninja entries they got as well. I hope that Sony isn't lazy enough to actually be stealing entries though.
They are kinda close and I do actually like the drawn idea better but they are not so close as to infringe on anything, in my opinion. One has a shark eating the head and has the shark eyes as the Sackboy eyes whereas the other one has the head popping out of the mouth, pretty close though.
Thats the thing about posting your stuff on the internet on someone elses site, you have no rights and anything you write/post can be taken and used without you getting anything for it as when you post it it becomes that sites property.
Serious business.
I call bullocks on this one. The entries I saw were way too generic and vague for someone to knowingly rip them off. A shark head? A motorcross helmet?? Pleease.
These people are full of themselves if they think such boring ideas were ripped off from something they did.
Yeah I have to agree with Blind Assassin here, the "Stolen" entries are all pretty generic. The shard one is the only one that eve remotely comes close to being possibly stolen. With the popularity of penguins in general it's a no brainer they had one in the can, and come on of course they'll have a Motocross/Atv helmet wearing Sackboy considering one of the other draws of the ps3 is Motorstorm.
Did they ever think that maybe they didn't win the competition because they had similar plans/designs already made? Until I see an ORIGINAL idea that's been ripped off, I'll have to say it's people jumping the gun here
And the patch-work shark looks a lot cooler than the user submission, anyway.
I would find it more suspect if they weren't so basic in the first place. A shark, a penguin and a motocross guy that looks almost exactly like the MotorStorm icon (which in turn is just a generic helmet). Unless they invented sharks and helmets respectively, there isn't much of a case.
I don't think they look particularly similair. The only similarity I see is they're both sharks.
Wow, not one person pointed out it might be the other way around? What if these costumes were built before the competition came to be? Maybe that's why the costume never made it to the winner's circle in the first place. There are always two sides to this coin. If Media Molecule ripped these people's entries then "for shame." is in order.
I invended the question mark, gimme gimmie. Joking aside the user submission, while similar, is a very generic design. And if you want to get real technical you can see sackboys entire face in Sony's while the contest entry the shark is covering up the top half. A small difference but enough where they are not exactly the same.
Still waiting for my Pedobear to be turned into DLC.
I do think the costumes are too generic to be truly called a rip-off. The shark costumes are of people being eaten by a shark or otherwise wearing a shark. The official release is a sackperson being a shark. Semantics, to be sure, but the differences are as significant as the similarities.
The penguin costume is more suspect, though.
In any case, Sony hasn't exactly been known for its classy behavior, so dick moves like this are hardly unexpected.
sharks didn't exist before that costume entry.
How is the penguin costume more suspect,
One seems to be a penguin head in a top hat, the other one is a full penguin costume (the colors anyway) without the top hat and bow tie, and more generic penguin.
They stole it tell them to be quit jewing the contestants and give them a share of the profit
@unangbangkay
You seem like a resonable person, so lets be resonable, how many people do you think submitted a penguin as their design, I'd say quite a lot.
It's quite likley MM saw that thousands of people posted some form of penguin, so they decided to make one.
@elsteveo - Thats pretty racist man, and there is no reason for it. Go back to whatever cave you crawled out of.
I agree with unang and mosha. Yes, Sony is a dick corporation, and this isn't a surprising move, but, I think that their intentions were "somewhat" good, in that they saw what a lot of people wanted costume-wise in the game, and decided to make their own version of it. Plagarism? Not necessarily, they're just listening to the community.
The rules to the competition simply stated that all entries submitted became property of MM and maybe even sony I think. Even if they did "steal" the ideas it was no longer property of the creator. Most comps like this state that anyways. If any of the people who entered bitch... they're dumbasses for not reading the fine print.
Blind Assassin:
Actually there's already a ninja costume in the main game, I think if you clear the asia/japan-themed area you can unlock it, as well as a very cool looking headband.
Indeed though, SCEA could release any number of animal-themed outfits, so this should've been expected.
I like the fan version better.
MK VS. DC is ripping me off too!I said along time ago that scorpion could totally beat the flash's ass.I want reimbursement!Too bad Midway doesnt have that much money to begin with,or they would probably make a decent MK game instead of some lame niche crossover.
When something more concrete comes along, then call their bluff. This is still a little too generic.
Probably should have deleted the costume entry first Sony
Brutal, but not unexpected considering it's Sony.
I would hope they wouldn't rip people off, especially since I bought them, lol. But if they did, they are dicks and hopefully the people who designed them will get credit. Of course it could be coincidence. Was the only similar suit the shark?
Either way, even if it was an accident, they should hook the dude up, I think.
There's really only so many costumes you can dream up and most people are going to come up with pretty common ones.
Hell, the one i was going to but never did submit looked 99% identical to the robot costume in the game already.
I'm gonna go with coincidence on this one.
I can understand the frustration on the part of the people who submitted, but a shark costume? A penguin costume? Too generic to have been plagiarized.
As far as a shark hat goes, it seems like a pretty likely coincidence. Now if they had sold a hulu outfit in the same group of DLC, then I could see that being a downer for this contestant. No legal ramifications would come out of this anyways since Sony has that sealed tight like a sharks butt, water tight!
@elsteveo:
"jewing?" are you fucking kidding me?
why are you always so SMARMY
Not exactly an original idea to start with.
Besides the DLC costume is really just a shark version of the dinosaur hat included with the game.
There's differences in the designs but the themes clearly match: shark=shark, dirtbike helmet=dirtbike helmet, penguin=penguin. The timing says "yes we used the entries as inspiration for the DLC". I'm sure the entry-agreement says submitters allow Sony to sell their design. As much as I hate Nintendo Sony's probably worse. Atleast Nintendo has cause to alienate its' old fans.
I'm not sure if you all know this but the DLC is already on the disc... purchasing it from PSN just 'unlocks' it.
So it was bundled and shipped with the game quite some time ago.
Even if Sony completely and directly ripped off their ideas these people need to get over it. Its not Sony's fault that these people didn't bother reading the rules and regulations before entering a contest. They stated that all entries become the intellectual property of Sony, and Sony is not obligated to compensate the creator for usage, sale, or distribution of said creation. I didn't even bother reading them and I know that's what they say.
I would just like to say that I am the creator of the penguin costume. And yeah I feel a little ripped off.
Unlike this other kid, I am not looking for monetary compensation. I just want them to give shout out, or say something like "these costumes were inspired by some creative submitters from our costume contest" and maybe list the PSN names of some really good ones.
Personally, to the people saying that there were probably hundreds of penguin submissions and that the idea of having a penguin costume is generic, I have to disagree with you. I kept tabs on the contest and of the ones posted online that I could find, and I didn't see another penguin submission. I highly doubt that "hundreds" of people submitted a penguin design. I am also pretty sure that there were barely 100 submitted drawings for this contest. Maybe 2 - 300 if you really want to push it. I just don't think the number of submissions was high enough to justify that there were "hundreds" of repeats.
You know how many species of penguins there are? Why does it have to be the a similar type of penguin that I drew? I feel like they changed their own design just enough so they could say they didn't rip off my idea. And what's worse is that their design IS WORSE THAN MINE! At least my penguin doesn't look like a gay version of Chilly Willy, haha
What makes me think they ripped off my design even more is that these costumes were the first ones to be released. I just find the timing odd and that they look so very similar to the submissions that were given to them.
Look, at the end of the day, I know i signed my soul away to MM and Sony. I know that they don't have to do jack shit to make me happy or this other kid. But it really seems like a low blow when you put all this work into something and you don't even get as much as a shout out saying that you helped create something that they are now using and making money from.
It really hurts brand loyalty and will make me think twice about wasting my time on another contest. Which is sad because I find them to be a fun and creative outlet.
I created the shark costume and would like to make a few points.
The comp I entered was run under english law, and the terms and conditions for the comp are flawed.
Wether or not MM and SONY have copyright of my design or not, I still have "MORAL RIGHTS" over my design.
One of these rights is the right to be known as creator of my work.
So if the DLC has come as a result of my design then they have to say so.
I explain this in the thread just before they locked it.
As for the picture of the hat, the main difference is it's not a sackboy costume which is obviously what we are talking about.
The argument that you can't own a design because it's an animal is ridiculous, what about Micky MOUSE or Donald DUCK etc etc.
We are not claiming anything but the credit we believe we deserve.
Look at the recent case of the baja box art that was settled out of court.
There are clearly differences but obviously it was enough to cause a legal challenge and ended in a settlement.
I have not ruled a legal challenge and I will consider all my options.
Returning Dtoiders: login now to post a comment
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just Create an avatar now - it's fast and free: PLUS you also get your own gaming blog and begin posting stories and uploading videos in our open community area that may also appear on our home page. Sign up and we'll guide you through it, it's easy and 100% anonymous.