Did Mass Effect Steal It's Story Outright?!
- Thread starter Ian Caronia
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Uh, OP, you need to learn what a "trope" is.
I have a friendly website for you to visit called TV Tropes...
I have a friendly website for you to visit called TV Tropes...
The idea of a precursor race that disappeared is ancient, and I can think of far more examples of it, going back to things like the "Jewels Of The Dragon", "Lair Of The Cyclops", "Crown Of The Serpent" trilogy about the spacefaring archaologist Rikard Breath and others. Heck, it goes back as far as guys like James Schmidt and his "Federation Of The Hub" stories which were from magazines where they deal with things like finding ancient botanic weapons used by a precursor civilization to "devolve" rising enemies and the like.
In this case though, I do see the point. We're not dealing just with the idea of a precursor race, but a very specific idea on what happened to them, as well as the idea of it being a robotic/AI civilization of sorts coming to do the extermination.
Of course the big question that arises is whether any of these ideas were actually copyrighted sufficiently ahead of time assuming there is a conflict. In many cases the idea of a story like this isn't nessicarly going to be protected.
Still it would have been nice of Bioware to give the acknowlegement given the way it admittedly looks at this point. Generally speaking it's possible they simply had the same (or very similar idea) legitimatly, it does happen, but still it's oftentimes polite to acknowlege even then when someone else did it first.
Also I will say that if you've ever read Ringworld, the idea is somewhat differant from Halo as is the general vibe. Yes the giant "ring shaped" artificial construct was something he came up with, but most of the meat of the stories was entirely differant because who made the ringworlds was a massive focus of the stories, and typically it was all about people getting trapped IN the Ringworld with other survivors, some of whom had been there thousands of years and developed entire civilizations. Halo is generally nothing like that. While not a FPS fan, I can sort of defend that bit, besides I think the Niven/Ringworld connection is almost common knowlege. When it comes to Dyson spheres (which are used less often) the very name comes from the person who came up with the theory.
In this case though, I do see the point. We're not dealing just with the idea of a precursor race, but a very specific idea on what happened to them, as well as the idea of it being a robotic/AI civilization of sorts coming to do the extermination.
Of course the big question that arises is whether any of these ideas were actually copyrighted sufficiently ahead of time assuming there is a conflict. In many cases the idea of a story like this isn't nessicarly going to be protected.
Still it would have been nice of Bioware to give the acknowlegement given the way it admittedly looks at this point. Generally speaking it's possible they simply had the same (or very similar idea) legitimatly, it does happen, but still it's oftentimes polite to acknowlege even then when someone else did it first.
Also I will say that if you've ever read Ringworld, the idea is somewhat differant from Halo as is the general vibe. Yes the giant "ring shaped" artificial construct was something he came up with, but most of the meat of the stories was entirely differant because who made the ringworlds was a massive focus of the stories, and typically it was all about people getting trapped IN the Ringworld with other survivors, some of whom had been there thousands of years and developed entire civilizations. Halo is generally nothing like that. While not a FPS fan, I can sort of defend that bit, besides I think the Niven/Ringworld connection is almost common knowlege. When it comes to Dyson spheres (which are used less often) the very name comes from the person who came up with the theory.
there are only so many plots in this world that has been told. your bound to find them existing in many forms in many different stories.
ACTUALLLYcrudus said:Lion King outright stole their story from a Japanese animated movie(who stole their story from Macbeth)
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)
The lion king was based on the historical story of the actual "lion king" Sundiataketa (Spelling) he was an African king, the story is almost exactly the same, go check your history book it's there.
Yeah, Halo and Ringworld have as much to do with one another as Ringworld and Lord of the Rings. Yeah, they all got rings in em, but they're not the same rings. For one thing, the Halo object is absurdly small...its in orbit around a friggen gas giant, for crying out loud! The Niven Ringworld is easily the size of 6 billion earths, stretched into a long ring around a SUN. You could set a game on a fraction of that surface and never run outta room.
Also, to be frank, I didn't think revelation space when I played Mass Effect...I thought Mass Effect when I played Mass Effect. While they have plenty of tropes and references, they still bind it into a coherent and (in my opinion) fucking awesome universe.
This isn't an isolated phenomena.
Even my all time most favorite game of all time, Homeworld, borrows liberally from Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, and the Old Testament. Of course, Homeworld was originally meant to be a BSG game.
For another more recent example, lets take the tabletop RPG Eclipse Phase. Eclipse Phase is what happens when you take Altered Carbon, Chasm City, The Uplift Series, Transmetropolitan, Terminator and Stargate and put them all in a blender then set it to FUCK AWESOME.
(Seriously, buy Eclipse Phase right now)
Earlier, someone mentioned Babylon 5...the author of that show freely admitted to stealing a bunch of his ideas from various sources outright. To quote him: "Bad writers borrow. Good writers steal."
Also, to be frank, I didn't think revelation space when I played Mass Effect...I thought Mass Effect when I played Mass Effect. While they have plenty of tropes and references, they still bind it into a coherent and (in my opinion) fucking awesome universe.
This isn't an isolated phenomena.
Even my all time most favorite game of all time, Homeworld, borrows liberally from Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, and the Old Testament. Of course, Homeworld was originally meant to be a BSG game.
For another more recent example, lets take the tabletop RPG Eclipse Phase. Eclipse Phase is what happens when you take Altered Carbon, Chasm City, The Uplift Series, Transmetropolitan, Terminator and Stargate and put them all in a blender then set it to FUCK AWESOME.
(Seriously, buy Eclipse Phase right now)
Earlier, someone mentioned Babylon 5...the author of that show freely admitted to stealing a bunch of his ideas from various sources outright. To quote him: "Bad writers borrow. Good writers steal."
The idea of an ancient cycle of extinction is all over the place is sci fi. It's in Revelation Space, it's in Stealing Light, it's in Mass Effect. While we're at it, they must have ruthlessly plagiarised evil AIs, FTL travel, precursor races, and so on.
Just read the quick description on wikipedia.
Yeah there are definately similarities between the two stories, like the planet not being a planet but a beacon to machines to come and wipe out star-fairing civilisations that activated the beacon. That said I still don't feel it's enough to claim they completely ripped it. Obviously I haven't read the book so it's hard to say for definite but it doesn't strike me as being similar enough. Yes there is similar threat to humanity/alien races but there are major differences in the way each of the stories get there.
People also seem to be forgetting that there's still a third game to come out. Seems to me that there could be a lot more happening in that game and maybe it would be best not to jump to conclusions until the series is at an end.
Yeah there are definately similarities between the two stories, like the planet not being a planet but a beacon to machines to come and wipe out star-fairing civilisations that activated the beacon. That said I still don't feel it's enough to claim they completely ripped it. Obviously I haven't read the book so it's hard to say for definite but it doesn't strike me as being similar enough. Yes there is similar threat to humanity/alien races but there are major differences in the way each of the stories get there.
People also seem to be forgetting that there's still a third game to come out. Seems to me that there could be a lot more happening in that game and maybe it would be best not to jump to conclusions until the series is at an end.
After many years games are going to start appearing similer to old ones, eventually we would have played or heard every story that can be told.
I think you guys need to stop getting in such a twist about this. Mass Effect's story is similar to many others, as is Star Wars and Star Trek. Lord of the Rings is an amazing story but "heavily influenced" by Beowulf and the Ring Cycle.
What they have done is put together an original IP with a very believable working universe. Some elements may have appeared almost exactly the same in other fiction but others may be wholly original and when joined together as a whole, it creates the universe that we know and love as Mass Effect.
I've read the synopsis of Revelation Space and it seems only loosely similar to the overall arc of Mass Effect. Honestly, I think you're reaching here. There are many details to ME that separate it from this.
What they have done is put together an original IP with a very believable working universe. Some elements may have appeared almost exactly the same in other fiction but others may be wholly original and when joined together as a whole, it creates the universe that we know and love as Mass Effect.
I've read the synopsis of Revelation Space and it seems only loosely similar to the overall arc of Mass Effect. Honestly, I think you're reaching here. There are many details to ME that separate it from this.
I love these kinds of threads. Especially considering Bioware stated several years ago that they won't set out to do something "truly original".
You know why? Because there IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING! Even Tolkien drew inspirations for his shapes from mythologies and his universe has very black and white definitions of good and evil too, which was inspired by the most ancient stories that always revolve around good triumphing over evil. Even Mozart's tunes relied upon the musical laws which stemmed from Bach and who got his inspiration most likely from the singing monks of the churches.
Bottom line, stop crying about people 'ripping others off'. Because if we looked at it strictly, all art is derivative. And that's perfectly fine. So long as they don't copy everything (which by the way, they do not - I'd defy you to find the kind of AI that the Geth turn out to be in Mass Effect 2 in other popular fiction - it won't be easy) I consider their stories certainly more original than androgynous teenagers killing Satan...again...
You know why? Because there IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING! Even Tolkien drew inspirations for his shapes from mythologies and his universe has very black and white definitions of good and evil too, which was inspired by the most ancient stories that always revolve around good triumphing over evil. Even Mozart's tunes relied upon the musical laws which stemmed from Bach and who got his inspiration most likely from the singing monks of the churches.
Bottom line, stop crying about people 'ripping others off'. Because if we looked at it strictly, all art is derivative. And that's perfectly fine. So long as they don't copy everything (which by the way, they do not - I'd defy you to find the kind of AI that the Geth turn out to be in Mass Effect 2 in other popular fiction - it won't be easy) I consider their stories certainly more original than androgynous teenagers killing Satan...again...
Didn't the Master of Orion series have advanced peoples who's tech you would find on new (to you) worlds and very high tech guys who would just gate in and randomly destroy colonies. Babylon 5 has been mentioned (berserker drone anyone?). I'm at the stage of reading so much Sci-fi to be honest that they are ALL beginning to blur into each other....
Indeedie. Hell, every game thats ever had a princess kidnapped (I'm looking at you Mario) is just a retelling of folk stories from days of old.Blindswordmaster said:
In fact, there has been books written on the topic of stories being essientially the same with compartmentalised detailed interchanged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces