Did Mass Effect Steal It's Story Outright?!

[UberNoodle]

Yeah, my bad. You make a pretty reasonable point actually, I just overreacted as I didn't realise you weren't talking about professional reviews. So I'm going to have to scoop up my nerd rage and shuffle off now.

But I know all about the way forum goers complain about successful things just for something to do. I am a Halo fanboy after all .

Well that's my fault. I wasn't clear enough. And, I'm Australian. We have made Tall POppy Syndrome and Cultural Cringe the basis of our culture.

'No good Aussie movies - not even the countless ones that win awards internationally!'
'There were Aussie landmarks in [Internation film] - how sh!t was that!'
'That [Aussie film gone international] has so much slang! It's bullsh!t!'
'Australia sucks and is the worst country to live in!'

And so on. Perhaps it's changed in the near decade in which I have been away.

 

[Meggiepants]

I read a great deal of science fiction, and have been reading it since I was a kid. By my late teen years, I found it's rare to come across a truly unique story. I'm sure there are stories very similar to Reynold's work that pre-dates his books as well.

More than a hundred thousand new titles are printed each year in the United States alone. I'm a librarian, and have seen just a fraction of these new books come through the doors of the library each year. Most books that were popular ten years ago are no longer remembered by the new generation of readers. That includes popular award winning science fiction novels. With new books coming out all the time, it is difficult for an author to stay relevant. (Perhaps this is why Orson Scott Card keeps re-writing Ender's Game? But I digress...)

I never thought Mass Effect was a unique storyline. The Geth, the Krogan, The Asari, even the Reapers are elements in books I have read before. What made it interesting despite its similarities to other works I have read, is how they have combined all the elements to make a compelling story, not a great one by any means, but a compelling one. The characters and the dialog are unique to the Mass Effect universe. The description of these different species and how they interact is also unique, as is the setting of the story.

We can bicker about how much a game "stole" its story from another source for ages, but the truth is I have read thousands of books, many of them very similar to other works of fiction. As one poster already said, if the author of those works doesn't see the similarities, then I'm not going to fuss over it.

 

[UberNoodle]

That's not really fair at all. Learning from an ancient species and unknowable unstoppable superaliens aren't plot points, they're genre tropes. I personally feel that unique characters, details and politics give ME a unique tone and voice.

And I hate the idea today that even these tropes are a mark of inferiority. I think it is the 'grazer' mentality hitting critical mass. Perhaps 20 years ago, adherance to genre tropes made fans happy and people were excited to see what became of their useage. Now, doing so inspires pages and pages of whining about 'rip-offs' and other schoolyard complaints.

What is inferior about a story that evokes mythic themes and characters (read 'piss poor tropes and cliches') to entertain us and show us something?

 

[Caligulove]

Not really. I Read a lot of Alastair Reynolds and his Rev.Space series. The writers are definitely fans of his- taking themes and situations from the likes of Chasm City and other novels. But I wouldn't call it plagerism. You should read the books yourself first. Not just because they're great- but you'll also see that Alastair Reynolds even admits to being influence by the greats lik Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clake. His work is great bit not entirely original for him either.

Plus most of Revelation Space deals with how humans change themselves over the millenia nearly into different species. And the Melding Plague isn't really like Husks... If anything I thought it was more lovecraftian and horrific.
That and you have to admit that BioWare reuses key elements of plots in their games a lot. Just compare a few of them and you see a lot of similarities. That and writers do little homages to other writers all the time. For instance, Cerberus in RS is entirely different than in ME

 

[Denamic]

That stories take seemingly identical turns in similar settings is not an uncommon thing.

Just take any FPS game for example.
If you compare similarities, you'll find a metric fuckton of them.
Or take a number of books in the same genre with similar settings.
Or anything, really.

 

[Tallim]

As one poster already said, if the author of those works doesn't see the similarities, then I'm not going to fuss over it.

Your assuming that he has played Mass Effect. As he is really the only one who would really know if it was subject to copyright infingement.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

snip

Mind taking this in PMs? Or we might end up spamming the hell out of the poor guy's topic.

 

[Meggiepants]

As one poster already said, if the author of those works doesn't see the similarities, then I'm not going to fuss over it.

Your assuming that he has played Mass Effect. As he is really the only one who would really know if it was subject to copyright infingement.

That's a valid point. Any author would have to read a work to see if it was stolen.

 

[Seatownstriker]

As one poster already said, if the author of those works doesn't see the similarities, then I'm not going to fuss over it.

Your assuming that he has played Mass Effect. As he is really the only one who would really know if it was subject to copyright infingement.

Yeah copyright is a tricky monkey.

 

[krseyffert]

I think this is ok, but if someone[Bioware] has in fact used this book's plot as a backbone, they should at least give mention to the book, like "Inspired by", or something. Unless of course, Bioware did come up with the story themselves, and it is just coincidence that is is so similar (shit happens).

 

[Krion_Vark]

Spoiler: SUE JK ROWLING LOL

Also James Cameron can't be sued for "ripping" off Dances with Wolves or Disney's Pocahontas because while that was basically the main story he had enough changes to not have to worry about breaking a copyright.

Yeah it probably is a huge rip off of the story but with the Characters Dialog and environments means that its not a rip off.

 

[sharkinz]

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

First off I think you should read Hero With A Thousand Faces, that book basically argues that stories that contain heroes all follow one format and that the only the events and characters within the story follow the same formula. According to the book only the names of characters or places are unique to any individual story. So the book you keep referencing, Space Revelation, was likely influenced by another story or has elements that are not original.

However with that said I did read the Wikipedia page that you posted and I have to agree with you that the Mass Effect and Space Revelations are very similar. I am not saying that Bioware ripped off the story entirely. My history professor used to always talk about an occurrence when two different mathematicians both came up with the same theory at the same time in two different countries, though since Mass Effect was released at least five years after Space Revelation I doubt this applies here. I is possible that Bioware came up with Mass Effects story on their own and that it is merely a coincidence that it is similar to Space Revelations. It is also possible that they completely ripped Space Revelation off. After all Martin Luther King Jr. ripped off his Doctoral Thesis paper and the famous "I have a dream" speech.

Either way you raise an interesting point and an interesting argument.

 

[Legend of J]

No it didn't well i think its bad people rip on things like mass effect and other great movies trying to find floors in there epicness.

 

[Jsnoopy]

also sounds similar to the halo storyline, minus the part about archeology.

 

[Projo]

Mass Effect's story is pretty generic though. I'm not going to take sides because I don't know anything about the book besides what the OP said, but yeah

 

[The Heik]

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

I've read the plot from the wiki page, and that doesn't sound much like Mass Effect. The Ultras sound like your run of the mill cybernetic baddies, the humans seem to be the only main race, and they didn't seem to find technology that turns out to be the source for a destructive cycle caused by a machine super race that evidently feeds off of organic matter and that seems to have been going on for eons.

It's just discovering that an ancient species screwed up by letting themselves be known to another ancient species who wasn't as friendly. That plot has been used by so many other stories that technically Revelation Space is plagiarizing too.

All in all, it doesn't matter though. Every human accomplishment is built up on the accomplishments of previous generations. We have to, otherwise we'll never improve.

Aside: anti-matter bombs in his eyes?! Who would believe that bluff?

 

[Pillypill]

Hang on? didn't bioware talk about "revelation space" just before the release of Mass effect?
I sware one of the developer Interviews brings it up. maybe i'm getting confused though.

Either way it doesn't bother me... because Krogans are cool.

 

[teebeeohh]

doesn't every scifi have race of super ancient beings that are either dead and left behind the skeleton key to space Travel/ do not interfer with lower races
plus i think every "did x steal ys story/gameplay/character/creature design" is total bullshit
i only think in terms of "owning" ideas because we think we have to make money off ervything.

image if the guy hwo invented the wheel wanted to have a copyright on it
we all would use ocatagon-shaped wheels to avoid that shit

 

[GLo Jones]

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

Whether they stole the plot or not, at the end of the day, they made a fucking great game. Also, since it can't be proved, this is all merely assumption, and because of that, I'm definitely still in love with Bioware.