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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Sega Goes Crazy, Sues Fox, EA Over Taxi 127

Posted by simoniker from the crazy-damages dept.
Thanks to Reuters for the news that Sega has sued Fox, EA, and developers Radical Entertainment over the similarity between EA's The Simpsons Road Rage and Sega's own Crazy Taxi. The story reveals: "Sega holds a U.S. patent, known as the '138 patent, on 'Crazy Taxi,' in which players take the role of a taxi driver who has to accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations." The patent infringement suit, which asks for the recall of the game and damages for lost profits, claims The Simpsons Road Rage was designed to "deliberately copy and imitate", citing a review "...that characterized 'Road Rage' as a 'shameless incident of design burglary'."
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Sega Goes Crazy, Sues Fox, EA Over Taxi More

Sega Goes Crazy, Sues Fox, EA Over Taxi

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  • Crazy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by semaj ( 172655 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @03:37AM (#7636900) Journal
    I don't see why this is crazy... in fact, isn't it quite obviously true?
    • 'Crazy' comes from 'Crazy Taxi', in this instance. Sega hasn't gone crazy, it's just some pseudoclever way to refer to the game Crazy Taxi in the title of the article.

      You'll find newspapers do this a lot.

  • Grand Theft Auto (Score:2, Insightful)

    by redune45 ( 194113 )
    I'd think Sega would sue Rockstar first. The taxi driver missions in GTA are a whole lot like Crazy Taxi, all that's lacking is jumping cars and annoying Offspring
    • Indeed. In fact, if Simpsons Road Rage is a ripoff of anything, its gameplay is a blatant ripoff of GTA3. However, most everybody sees it for what it is: a "me too" game that uses the Simpsons license in lieu of the gritty underworld-y feel of GTA3.

      If Road Rage were a game strictly consisting of taxi missions where you earned extra money for showing up early and performing crazy stunts, maybe they'd have a case.

      But wait, why stop with Simpsons Road Rage? Burnout 2 blatantly copies Crazy Taxi's revolut
    • You just need to complete some more taxi missions in GTA Vice City - and you'll see jumping taxis! :)
    • the taxi driver missions in gta are quite friiggiiin far off from what the action is on the crazy taxi series(no craaaaaaaaaazy stunts, and they're just a moneymaking extra).

      crazy taxi is great fun, but it has nothing to do with the way gta3 plays.. crazy taxi is just short action burst for craaazy play(great for parties & etc, and the non-arcade missions are quite fun also.. and friggin hard, could somebody tell me how are you supposed to deliver the 4 funk dudes to the 4 rooftops in time? in ct2 iirc
      • To deliver the dudes you must work on shaving precious half second off your time.

        you can Crazy dash Crazy Dash hop crazy turn dash dash hop (you should be going diagonaly in a coundter clockwise direction only catching the corner of the middle) dash hop turn repeat.

        It says there is a shortcut too, but I was able to do it with half a second left with no tricks.

        Also, keep in mind that you want to be going slower into the final roof top. I would get there and run out of time before I stopped a lot.

        I forge
    • greatest.song.opening.verse.evar

  • Software Patents? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by maharito ( 626909 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @03:41AM (#7636917)
    IANAL, but last time I checked, games fall under the category of software, which is, under current law, not able to be patented. Perhaps if developers of The Simpsons Road Rage were exposed to source code from Crazy Taxi before they began designing and coding the game, then a case of copyright infringement would be in question here. But "look and feel" and software in general, is not patentable under current law. Furthermore, by some stretch of logic, couldn't the makers of Crazy Taxi also sue Rockstar for including Taxi mini-missions and the insane stunt bonus in their GTA series of games? I think that perhaps game companies should worry more about producing worthwhile games than suing competing game companies for creating games that are in some ways similar, but share no source code. But when it comes to this kind of stuff we should all bow to the almighty dollar rather than customer satisfaction.

    • Re:Software Patents? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dtfinch ( 661405 ) *
      Tell that to the United States Patent Office, which grants roughly a dozen software patents a daily basis nowadays. Just check out uspto.gov. It sickens me to think that I could be sued into bankruptcy for failing to examine every one of them to ensure that I don't write something similar based on my own ideas.

      Software patents are quite legal. They manage it by calling them computer implemented business methods. Courts have ruled in favor of them, congress hasn't changed the law to prohibit them, and the p

    • Re:Software Patents? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by illuminata ( 668963 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @04:29AM (#7637070) Journal
      I think that perhaps game companies should worry more about producing worthwhile games than suing competing game companies for creating games that are in some ways similar, but share no source code.

      In this particular situation, Sega was the company creating the worthwhile game. Crazy Taxi was quite innovative, so let's give credit where credit is due. And The Simpsons Road Rage was extremely similar to Crazy Taxi, not just similar in some ways.

      But when it comes to this kind of stuff we should all bow to the almighty dollar rather than customer satisfaction.

      Now, was it really necessary to make a bleeding heart anti-capitalist statement like that? And what the hell does this situation have to do with customer satisfaction? This has to do with patent infringement.

      Look, I don't agree with Sega about the lawsuit, mostly due to the higher probability of losing it, but this is an option available to them. Rather than looking like they're doing nothing about having their ideas ripped off, they took action. One of the companies in the suit, EA, is their largest competitor. They probably thought that it was better than sitting around twiddling their thumbs while their investors are watching.
      • Patents like this are bad, mmkay?

        It's a good thing some of the earliest 3d texturemapped games (wolfenstein, doom, etc) didn't get patents, or there would probably be a lot fewer 3D games today.

        If we start accepting patents on new gaming styles, it will squash the possibility of opening up new genres altogether.
        • I'm sorry... And why is that a bad thing???
        • It's a good thing some of the earliest 3d texturemapped games (wolfenstein, doom, etc) didn't get patents, or there would probably be a lot fewer 3D games today.

          Considering that most of the 3D games available today use technology licensed from the developers of those games, your point is a bit weaker than it should be. We'd be missing ummm Unreal and the crap that Monolith spews out every once in a while, and Deus Ex. Not to mention that there's prior art when it comes to Wolf3D and Doom (for instance, Ul
    • Tell that to Macromedia who lost to Adobe because of a look & feel simalaraties.

      <br><br>
      <i>Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced that it has received a favorable jury verdict in its intellectual property case against Macromedia, Inc. in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, finding willful infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,546,528. The patent at issue covers Adobe's reconfigurable tabbed palette patent, which is Adobe's method of displaying and w
    • by some stretch of logic, couldn't the makers of Crazy Taxi also sue Rockstar for including Taxi mini-missions and the insane stunt bonus in their GTA series of games?

      No, I don't think so. Sega are arguing that Simpsons RR was blatantly stealing the 'Crazy Taxi' market, meaning that they worry that people will buy Simpsons RR instead of Crazy Taxi... GTA3 DOES have a taxi mini game, but essentially they're not directly 'stealing' any customers off Sega as they're selling a totally different game type and
    • I think real cab companies should sue them all.

  • patenting a plot? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rmm4pi8 ( 680224 ) <rmiller@reasonab ... Yet minus author> on Friday December 05, 2003 @03:44AM (#7636921) Homepage
    since when can you patent a plot? patents are for technology, algorithms, and business methods. you and i may not agree with software patents, but it at least seemed clear that they applied to the methods used to generate results in software, not the 'plot'/user experience of the software. if driving a videogame taxi can be patented, why not writing a letter?

    perhaps an overly similar videogame would be a derived work under copyright law or perhaps a trademark violation, but a _patent_???

    next you'll be able to patent the plots of e-books, so that if anyone creates another with a similar plot, you can sue. imagine the proceeds Tolkien would have on fantasy!
    • next you'll be able to patent the plots of e-books, so that if anyone creates another with a similar plot, you can sue. imagine the proceeds Tolkien would have on fantasy!

      Tolkien is dead. I'd like to think that his undead corpse would be polite enough not to care about legions of patent-violating halflings [itworld.com].

    • Even if you could, this description:

      Sega holds a U.S. patent, known as the '138 patent, on 'Crazy Taxi,' in which players take the role of a taxi driver who has to accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations."

      fits alot of games. I remember a game called Taxi on the commodore 64 which of course looked totally different but just did this. Not to mention Ugh for the pc, which wasn't a real taxi but it followed the same lines. And it would have

    • Re:patenting a plot? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Friday December 05, 2003 @04:54AM (#7637140) Homepage
      They're not claiming to have patented a plot (a good thing since "plot" and "Crazy Taxi" aren't really appropriate for use in the same sentence). Sega is claiming that they patented specific game mechanics used in Simpsons Road Rage. From what little I understand of the patent [uspto.gov], those mechanics at least include characters diving away from oncoming vehicles instead of going "splat" and a big floating arrow pointing the player toward a destination.

      I obviously can't comment on the validity of their claim, but I can say that Road Rage was intended from the ground up to be a ripoff of Crazy Taxi. I suspect that if Sega can demonstrate damages - specifically that Road Rage took sales away from Crazy Taxi and its sequels - they can probably win their case...of course, there's every possibility that EA, et. al. will settle out of court with Sega since a) they have incredibly deep pockets and b) I don't know that anyone in the video game industry, including Sega, would benefit from this kind of precedent.

      • ...include characters diving away from oncoming vehicles instead of going "splat" and a big floating arrow pointing the player toward a destination.

        Having read this, I'll repeat the parent poster's sentiments: how can you obtain a patent on characters diving away from cars, or a large floating arrow? This is ridiculous. Game designers would make more money simply patenting "pixelated red brick" than by making an actual game.

        If the games are so similar (and I'm quite sure they are), there must be anoth

      • Precedent (Score:4, Informative)

        by ronfar ( 52216 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @10:42AM (#7638300) Journal
        There already is a legal precedent for this in the video game industry, I refer you to the case of K. C. Munchkin a Pacman type game that came out for the Magnavox Odyssey.

        Scroll down this page for details:

        Odyssey II page [dadgum.com]

        From this, I'd say that Sega may have a case, provided they really can demonstrate that there is no prior art.

        However, I'm hoping they don't get the game removed from shelves. That's what happened with K. C. Munchkin fortunately after I had already purchased it.

      • From what little I understand of the patent, those mechanics at least include characters diving away from oncoming vehicles instead of going "splat" and a big floating arrow pointing the player toward a destination.

        What the fuck?! Midtown Madness had these things. I can't be bothered to do any research as to which was first, but if it was Crazy Taxi wouldn't they be trying to sue Microsoft too?

        I hate companies that have to resort to bullshit to make money, they can't just do the hard work and put out d
        • Midtown Madness was a pure racing game. No taxi elements at all.

          I for one like seeing this. Maybe now companies will stop ripping shit off and slapping a license on it to make some quick bucks.

      • It seems ridiculous that a game company can actually file and receive patents for gameplay concepts - that Sega can actually "own" the game mechanics of Crazy Taxi.

        Consider how this would work. Can there be no side-scrollers because Nintendo patented "a game that scrolls from left to right or vice versa with a main character that hops on enemies to destroy them"? Or no more FPS games because iD patents "a game whose perspective is in the first-person who is armed with a gun"? Before you say "That's rid

        • It is more of a problem that the mechanics for the two games are literally identical. This would be more like if the original Sonic the Hedgehog featured him collecting coins (often hidden in blocks), smashing bricks above him by punching them, a slow walking pace with a faster run if you held down a button, and every fourth zone was a castle filled with flame traps...

          Road Rage really takes copying a game's mechanics to a ridiculous extreme. It doesn't even add anything to the game style other than the Si
        • Great Giana Sisters banned [zzap64.co.uk] for similar reasons.

  • Taxi Mode in GTA3? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Numeric ( 22250 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @03:45AM (#7636923) Homepage Journal
    "take the role of a taxi driver who has to accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations.""

    I have done that in GTA3.

    1. Pick up passenger
    2. Drive down the wrong side of the road , over people, down grass inclines, etc.. (does that qualify as "outrageous"?)
    3. Dropped off passenger

    Of course, I'll add a few extra steps:
    4. Beat down exiting passenger with the baseball bat and steal their bling-bling.
    5. Enter cheat code to get unlimited ammo
    6. Enter cheat code to get infinite health
    7. Enter cheat code for tank.
    8. DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!

  • Oh come on.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DJayC ( 595440 ) * on Friday December 05, 2003 @03:46AM (#7636927)
    All of the new Simpsons games are rip-offs. Simpsons Skateboarding... Road Rage... Simpsons Wrestling.. Simpsons Hit and Run.

    I can't believe that Sega would do this. I thought that the Crazy Taxi series was doing well.

    There are plenty of games that imitate other ones. Successfull game concepts will always come up again and again.
    • Yes, rip-offs will always arise (DOOM clones, etc) but the difference here is that the Simpson's games are popular and, thus, make a great target for lawsuits which are actually just an excuse to setttle out of court...
    • maybe sega is just pissed at them for doing this, just cloning games and adding different characters and calling it a new game and then duping it to the customers?
      feck, maybe the guys there thought that fuck, we're paying these lawyers by the hour and there's these dupers saturating the market with cheap clones of our (patented) games!

      .

      i'm friggin surprised though that they have a PATENT on it.. well not that surprised.. but that 's whats protecting it from duping.. heck.. maybe they should change the pa
      • Don't forget the longstanding bitter grudge between EA and Sega. It's not like EA are saints in this regard, look at what they did with Call of Duty...
  • I could see SEGA being right if Simpsons Road Rage was basically Crazy Taxi with the same vehicles having different colors, textures and different chracters.

    Now if I remember correctly Simpsons Road Rage takes place in Springfield and is obviousely based off the Simpson's cartoon series. Crazy Taxi is more of a futuristic taxi like game.
  • Sega didn't come up with the game, "Crazy Taxi," I thought the acid dropping hippie taxi drivers of the 60's had come up with that game... it seemed like taxi drivers IRL still play it late at night. Haven't you seen "Confession of a Taxi Cab Driver?"
  • Rockstar can't be far behind in this suit. GTA III's been out for how long now, and one of the best features of the game is that it includes Crazy Taxi in the game! Or at least a Crazy Taxi like game.

    --Stephen
    Maybe their parents won't let them play it.

  • This is more crazy talk than Crazy Taxi . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dgrgich ( 179442 ) * <drew@NOsPaM.grgich.org> on Friday December 05, 2003 @04:05AM (#7636983)
    From the patent description in question . . .
    "Another object of the present invention is to provide a moving direction indication method which can make direction indications which are easy to be understood by operators freely moved in the virtual space, such as a city or others, and a game apparatus.

    Further another object of the present invention is to provide a game display method and a game apparatus which can make displays which are easily understandable for an operator who gets, in a virtual space, such as a city or others, a specific object and carries the object to a destination.

    Further another object of the present invention is to provide a drive simulation method which can provide real driving feeling. "

    Oh dear lord, am I glad I'm not a patent attorney!

  • I love Sega and all, but seriously.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @04:05AM (#7636984) Homepage
    The time for this lawsuit was over a year ago. You know, before the game went Greatest Hits on PS2 and Platinum Hits on Xbox. Before the sequel came out!

    It reminds me of Sega being sued [slashdot.org] by a lady who claims that Sega used her likeness (instead of Apollo Smile [dragoncon.org], who did the voice work on the NA releases) in Space Channel 5. There's no reason for this frivolous lawsuit.
    • one thing though, Lady Miss Kier of Dee-Lite certainly has prior over Apollo Smile. Maybe you should stop hanging out at anime cons for all your cultural info?

      In my opinion, Ulala certainly looks a good deal like the singer from Dee-Lite in both fashion and attitude.

      I'd care more if Dee-Lite actually made good music and if SC5 was actually a fun game.
  • I don't understand . . . there can be three movies in one year about killer asteroids hitting the earth or three movies in one year about volcano eruptions but Fox can't grab a game "idea" and reframe it with slightly different graphics or play mechanics? Granted - 'Road Rage' is a DIRECT ripoff of 'Crazy Taxi' but can this really be something that causes Sega harm? I thought expressions of ideas couldn't be patented or copyrighted???
    • Try publishing a book about Garry Rotter and his adventures at the Bogwood School of Sorcery. Characters in literature have had copyright protection for a long time. You can write a book about a similar type of character, but it can't be a direct rip-off of someone else's work.

  • Patent 6,200,138 (Score:5, Informative)

    by pkaminsk ( 177973 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @04:12AM (#7637016) Homepage
    I'm guessing that Sega is referring to patent 6,200,138 [uspto.gov]. From a quick scan, the patent seems to claim 1) an algorithm to get pedestrians to leap out of the way of the player's car and 2) a directional arrow pointing to the player's destination. (There's also some mumbo-jumbo about "easy to understand" displays and "real driving feeling" -- make of it what you will.) I'll leave it to patent agents expert in the field (do such beasts exist?) to determine whether the patent is valid and whether it's been infringed.
  • ...these people would be counter-sued by the makers of Space Taxi [retrogames.com].
  • This patent most probably is bogus (as most of them do). There's been years ago (early '90?) a game for DOS in which you played a driver of a flying taxi which had to deliver customers to their chosen destination points ASAP. And there was jumping and bouncing all the time ;-) One surely could call this taxi driver as 'crazy'. Of course game was 2D in 320x200 resolution :-)
  • I thought The Simpsons Road Rage was a licenced rebranding of Crazy Taxi. If they're not related, then the first one should probably be able to nail the second one to the wall.

  • prior art (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and old dos game "quarantine" should do it.

    http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/review/R 47 033.html

    review from gamefaqs.

    • Re:prior art (Score:2, Informative)

      by ThenAgain ( 627263 )
      The link seems to be broken so here's another one [3dgamers.com]. I haven't found one with a decent screenshot.

      I remember this game. It was about running all over a post-apocolyptic city, picking up and dropping off fares with a time limit, mowing down other pedestrians, jumping the taxi over things, and purchasing weapons.

  • Previous Lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sangloth ( 664575 ) <MaxPande@nospam.hotmail.com> on Friday December 05, 2003 @05:01AM (#7637160)
    Anybody remember Fighter's History?
    I've never played either Crazy Taxi or Simpson's Road Rage, but Fighter's History was practically a palette shift of Street Fighter 2. Capcom took DataEast to court, and lost. The judge felt that while there were definitaly similarities, Fighter's History was a different game of the same genre.

    Uncanny Simularities" [angelfire.com]

    Quick Summation Half way down [gamespy.com]

    I'm surprised, I remember the entire thing so vividly, but I just can't find more resources about it on the web....

    Sangloth
    I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
    • This is exactly what I thought of too. And my search yielded that same GameSpy article.

      Anyway, SEGA is stupid to do this as Data East has TWO similar precedents -- when they tried to sue (and lost) Epyx for copying their look and feel; and when Capcom sued them (and lost!) for Data East copying Street Fighter. I like SEGA and all, but I hope they get laughed out of the court-room for this.

      • Re: Different (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        THe difference though is those lawsuits were argued as copyright violations, and in the end, you can't copyright an idea like how a game plays.

        This is different in that it's patent related. Now we all know there are ridiculous software patents out there, but the outcome of this suit just isn't as clear.

  • The SCO Principle (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr Syd ( 707765 ) on Friday December 05, 2003 @05:24AM (#7637216) Homepage
    IANAL, but surely under the long-established "SCO Principle" SEGA should be suing everyone who PURCHASED Simpsons Road Rage? I am looking forward to my letter!

  • Ideas (Score:1)

    by jsse ( 254124 )
    *Proceed to patent plots that kills monsters, date girls, build stuffs, shoot planes and boom countries*
  • Now I can bitch again about how Nintendo is better than Sega. Anyone else get Nintendo power and taunt their Sega playing friends, as they popped Final Fantasy into their Super Nintendo? If they're suing people for making similar games, it looks like it just gives me another excuse to go back to my old days of Sega bashing. Of course, this time it's a Playstation that I pop my Final Fantasy into, but details don't matter.
  • I do like the Simpsons, I do like Sega, but I hate how the Simpson's games are a rip off (If they worked correctly at least, I would of have had liked them) Now I HATE software patents. Would it be logical if I patent "games that use 3D"? How about freedom games like GTA3 or Maniac Mansion? Or Multiple Endings, all games ripped that idea off of Maniac Mansion if my sources are correct. Software patents should only have to deal with: a) File format read/write code b) GUI code c) If software patents become m
  • Look, there's no way this sort of thing is helping innovation. Crazy Taxi still would have been created without the benefits of patent law. Congress needs to start holding hearings about patent law reform, because this crap has got to stop.
  • Crazy Taxi came out in 2000, it seems. Midtown Madness was out before that, as I recall; I know MTM2 had a lot of taxi stuff, but I think the original had taxi missions as well.
  • was obviously created by babelfish from a Japanese original.

    "A game display method for displaying a game in which a movable object is moved in a virtual space, comprising the steps of: "

    "a caution area is set around the dangerous area, and when a character enters the caution area, the character is caused to pause. "

    Actually, if you ever want your writing to sound like it was written by a lawyer, just translate it from english to german to french then back to english.

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by kmak ( 692406 )
    I'm surprised these things still happen.. a few words:

    Street Figher and Figther's History.

    Can someone tell me what's the difference?
  • In the credits to Road Rage, the Comic Book Guy says "Worst. Video Game. Ever !".

    I actually think that I can name *several* games which are much worse ( those godawful "pacman world" games come to mind ), Road Rage is neither the best nor worst PS2 game I own. I'm just happy that it's a game my two-year-old can play without any 'actual' violence ( although you can run over the characters, they go flying and aren't hurt ). That and probably several other differences exist between the two games in this lawsu
  • Sure, it's only 2D, but it definitely requires players to "accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations"
  • I can't wait until we develop the technology to make transversable wormholes to parallel universes. Then we could explore a world where Sega never made Crazy Taxi, and see if Fox made Road Rage. If not, then it's derivative. If they did, it's original.

    Of course, this would create the unusual circumstance of copying ideas which never happened in this universe, but did happen in others. Offworld imports like this could revolutionize profits for lawyers. Imagine Sega of America:Earth2677B suing Sega Nort
    • In the infinite universe theory there would be a universe in which fox created road rage and sega didn't create crazy taxi. Given an infinite number of chances, any event will happen assuming that it does not have a probability of zero. It would just depend on what universe you decided to look at.
  • OK so from reading previous posts this is what Sega patented:

    1) an algorithm to get pedestrians to leap out of the way of the player's car
    2) a directional arrow pointing to the player's destination.

    1) The original Driver game for playstation had pedestrians leap out of the way of cars: it was impossible to hit them (believe me I tried :P). This game came out the same year as Crazy Taxi (but I'm not sure which was first. Anybody?).

    2) The original GTA (which came out a year before Crazy Taxi) for play
    • The date that determines prior art in this case is October 30, 1997. It does not matter what order driver 1 and crazy taxi were released assuming that both were released after this date. I honestly have no idea when driver 1 and GTA 1 were released, but if it is after this date then they do not qualify as prior art.
  • In an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly about a year ago, they wondered whether Sega would sue EA for copying a game, and ruining it. I have Road Rage, and it is the worst game i have ever played.
  • GTA 3 and Vice City both let you take the role of a taxi driver in a similar situation... granted it's only a small part of the game, but it's still there...
  • Then there'd be no Half-life, Thief or [insert 1st person title here].

    Sega is nuts. Like they're so original? All games are derivative!

    Thanks again, SCO!
  • for Xbox, (owned demo for Taxi, full version of Simpsons), there are some definite similarities - but it's not a total rip-off - and the Simpson's versionis a better game. There are multiple vehicles to be unlocked, new areas of Springfield to unlock, etc. I think this is more an example of embrace and extend than out-right cloning.

    Still, most games are nearly identical to something else, having just a few improvements/innovations. And so are most movies. And most songs. And most books.

    • Crazy Taxi likewise had other areas to drive in (if we are talking about version 3, a NY and a San Fran style city in addition to Vegas) and cars to unlock as well. I can't decide how I feel about this case, but Road Rage is definitely a ripoff of Crazy Taxi - anyone who had played any of the previous Crazy Taxi games would realize it instantly upon play. The mechanics are not different in any substantive way whatsoever.

      (And for the record, the Simpsons version is worse. Crazy Taxi has bigger levels and ti
  • Assuming the '138' patent is short for US patent # 6,200,138, I just checked and it was filled in 1998(!).

    Between late 1994 and early 1995, I pitched a game idea to Disney (while I was an employee at WDI VR Studio) called "Wild Taxi," which was further developed for consideration as a new VR ride/game for DisneyQuest. That idea was fundamentally the same as Crazy Taxi, which I don't personally recall seeing as an arcade or console game for a few more years circa 1997 or 1998. I could have missed it, so ple
  • I haven't seen a lawsuit as purposeless as this in a while. I mean, it's hardly like Sega are the kings of originality. Maybe Nintendo should sue them for ripping off Mario with the Sonic games. I mean, all Sega did was take the exact same game concept and change the characters and graphics. Take a look;

    Run along in multiple levels that increase in challenge/complexity
    Jump over/on enemies
    Avoid obstacles
    Defeat bosses at the end of each world/zone/stage/whatever
    Rescue someone (Mario rescues the Princess

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