Is Sony ripping off costume entries for LittleBigPlanet?

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.

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.

And the patch-work shark looks a lot cooler than the user submission, anyway.

I don't think they look particularly similair. The only similarity I see is they're both sharks.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

Probably should have deleted the costume entry first 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.

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.

@elsteveo:

"jewing?" are you fucking kidding me?

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.

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.

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.