Did Mass Effect Steal It's Story Outright?!

[Ian Caronia]

So I was reading up on the "JRPG's aren't RPGs" bullshit when I came across a Kotaku member that mentioned how Mass Effect was a work of outright plagiarism. They name-dropped a novel called "Revelation Space", and I just had to see if this was true. No way was the game I held in such high regard a work of plagiarism.

It is.

At first glance, there's only a few similarities between the two. Archeologists studying a 900,000 year old dead race that left behind tons of tech and was killed by a single cataclysm, tech-enhanced humans fucking with colonies, grotesque deformed monsters born from mutated tech-enchanced human (slightly resembles husks the way they describe it in the summary)...

But then I happened across the crux of the novel, the whole point laid bare, and I shat a brick...

"As Sylveste [Main character & archeologist] and the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity [tech-enhanced humans] approach Cerberus [a planet, not the organization], Sylveste realizes the massive celestial body isn't a planet at all -- but rather, a massive technological beacon, aimed at alerting machine sentience to the appearance of new star-faring cultures. It is this beacon, Sylveste belatedly realizes, that alerted a machine intelligence known as the Inhibitors to the presence of the Amarantin [the protheans in this case], and ultimately caused the demise of that race."

Fuck me, mate. This novel's pretty renoun in the UK, listed as a collectible being a first in a series of Revelation Space novels. Surely I don't have to point out the copy-paste plot here, right? Oh, and the novel was published in 2000.

Link to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space

 

[Blindswordmaster]

Should Kevin Costner sue James Cameron for ripping off Dances with Wolves when he made Avatar? No. People also say that Mass Effect is a rip off of Star Control 2. Some stories are as old as time, they just get retold over and over again.
-Star Wars. Star Wars' story is older than recorded history. Should George Lucas be sued? The answer is no.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Hey, Halo took it's entire concept from Ringworld, it happens all the time man.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Not taking sides yet, just wanted to point out that the ancient race's tech thing is pretty common. Precursors from Star Control come to mind.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Agreed with the previous guys, and, as far as I remember, the best part of ME is the dialogue and the different situations the game puts you in - surely they can't be all lifted from somewhere.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

Should Kevin Costner sue James Cameron for ripping off Dances with Wolves when he made Avatar? No. People also say that Mass Effect is a rip off of Star Control 2. Some stories are as old as time, they just get retold over and over again.
-Star Wars. Star Wars' story is older than recorded history. Should George Lucas be sued? The answer is no.

It only becomes an issue. I think, when it's blatant. Like, insultingly blatant, while trying to pass itself off as entirely original. There's a fine line between inspired homage and outright intellectual property theft.

I mean, I've not played the game, so don't lump me in as a fan, but seriously, what story hasn't been told in one form or another? It's all a rehash of 'The Hero's Tale" anyways, it's the little things like characters and setting and design that infer originality, not the skeletal framework.

That said, again, I haven't played the game (or read that book), so I honestly couldn't voice my opinion on it being a rip-off, just on what I think rip-offs are.

 

[Starke]

anc[is]Not taking sides yet, just wanted to point out that the ancient race's tech thing is pretty common. Precursors from Star Control come to mind.

Yeah, but we're in Starship Troopers is to Armor type territory here, not just random themes popping up again.

 

[crudus]

Lion King outright stole their story from a Japanese animated movie(who stole their story from Macbeth)

Spoiler: evidence

The original story was Kimba the White Lion. Should Disney be sued?....yes actually, but they weren't! (Simba's early depictions were even of him being white)

 

[jakkuss]

It's the whole 'hero with a thousand faces' deal. There is only one story, only the details change.

 

[Jandau]

No it didn't. Having similar story elements isn't grounds to declare theft or plagiarism. Next question, please.

 

[Ian Caronia]

Should Kevin Costner sue James Cameron for ripping off Dances with Wolves when he made Avatar? No. People also say that Mass Effect is a rip off of Star Control 2. Some stories are as old as time, they just get retold over and over again.
-Star Wars. Star Wars' story is older than recorded history. Should George Lucas be sued? The answer is no.

1st Star Wars's story is a genre. The young man is taught by an older, wiser man, then teams up with odd fellows to become an unlikely hero. That's a genre. It's like the "white knight saving the damsel in distress" thing.

2nd Avatar has been critically panned for its "Dances with Wolves" story. Even without a court case the thing has pretty much been widely accepted as a rip off. The only question is if people care or not.

-When it comes to Mass Effect, everyone thinks it has a pretty original story. Either that, or that its plot is a hodgepodge of human vs robot storylines. No one seems to know (I sure as hell didn't) that this game's whole premise and plot (2&3 included obviously) is WAY too fucking close to a novel written 7 YEARS before it's release. I liked ME. I love Wrex, Tali, and Garrus to death! I let the similar names and themes slide even up to the whole "ancient advanced race wiped out in a single blow" thing BECAUSE of my skepticism and love for the ME characters. But this...this is too much.

 

[Megalodon]

I remember argueing about this when ME1 first came out. Most things you will see in Science Fiction, or any story for that matter, has probably been done before. What matters more is how well its done and how interesting this particular telling is.

 

[Layz92]

Yeah stuff is unknowingly "copy pasted" all the time. People draw parallels between eragon and starwars I believe. Every basic idea ever has been done pretty much, the inventiveness is in what you do with that basic plot.

 

[Ian Caronia]

Agreed with the previous guys, and, as far as I remember, the best part of ME is the dialogue and the different situations the game puts you in - surely they can't be all lifted from somewhere.

Want to know the funny thing? One of the things critics bickered over (like and dislike) about "Revelation Space" is the heavy amounts of dialogue and characterization. That's spooky, but not evidence of further plagiarism. Bioware has always been about dialogue.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

And Assassin's Creed is based on Alamut, a classic Slovenian novel- it's an homage, though, not plagiarism. Perhaps the same could be true for Mass Effect?

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Agreed with the previous guys, and, as far as I remember, the best part of ME is the dialogue and the different situations the game puts you in - surely they can't be all lifted from somewhere.

Want to know the funny thing? One of the things critics bickered over (like and dislike) about "Revelation Space" is the heavy amounts of dialogue and characterization. That's spooky, but not evidence of further plagiarism. Bioware has always been about dialogue.

Hmmm... Well, I haven't exactly played much of ME and never heard of the novel, so I can't judge. But, basically, I trust the guys at Bioware because I do - if they lifted the main basic story from Revelation Space, I'm still quite sure they came up with the characters and the quests all by themselves.
Oh, and, might be a coincidence.
Because, if this novel is really "renoun", somebody would have already noticed.

 

[Ian Caronia]

I remember argueing about this when ME1 first came out. Most things you will see in Science Fiction, or any story for that matter, has probably been done before. What matters more is how well its done and how interesting this particular telling is.

I agree that, for the most part, no idea is truly original. New stories are, unknowingly or not, sometimes inspired by old works of literature. However, this book came out in 2000, and it's big in the "hard science fiction" genre over seas.

 

[Abedeus]

Well, everything's been done already, pretty much.

Still, you are from UK and you still don't know the difference between "it's" and "its"? Or "renoun" and "renown", since only one of them is a word?

Yes, I am nit-picking, but so are you. Now, if that book had aliens that are all female-looking, government organization of Spectres, alien councils that hate humans and technology allowing mass reduction to nothing or mass increase to almost infinite levels... Then sure. Why not.

Except the book isn't half as popular as you say it is, or there would be people acting up all over the world that a book was ripped off by a video game.

 

[PopeJewish]

anc[is]Not taking sides yet, just wanted to point out that the ancient race's tech thing is pretty common. Precursors from Star Control come to mind.

Yeah, but we're in Starship Troopers is to Armor type territory here, not just random themes popping up again.

The Starship Troopers movie had (very nearly) nothing to do with the book, and the book's author said he took lots of themes from Armor and was in a way paying homage to it as being a great book.

As for previous ancient races leaving behind advanced tech... a LOT of sci-fi does that, from Halo to Stargate. It's nothing new. Stories have been recycled since the beginning of time. Just look at the major religions to tell you that