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For the same reason that two boring white dudes can star in two different movies in the same year about the White House being taken over by terrorists
Because similar isn't the same. As long as they can argue that specifics are different enough, that's all that matters.
Doom guy (from Doom 1 and 2) is derivative of Ash from Army of Darkness, down to the facial expressions, the chainsaw, and the shotgun.
Early video game copyright history was also a lot more loosy goosie. Bethesda cut its teeth on Terminator licensed games, because no one really cared about video games and corporations would give away licensing rights for a song.
If you look at early gaming history, there’s a lot of stuff that wouldn’t fly today copyright wise. (Iirc Nethack has enemies from Tron, folks very happily made and distributed Star Trek fan games - heck, in the early 00’s you could buy unofficial mod packs for video games in stores.)
LOAD "TREK64",8
RUN
I'm not sure but I'm sharing this for interest sake
Fighter's History vs. Street Fighter II Character Comparison - Lawsuit Exhibit
Fascinating. Thanks for the link.
The first dude seems like a blatant copy of Guile to me, so I had to look up what the court thought:
In spite of the intentional similarities between the two games, the court concluded that Data East did not infringe upon Capcom's copyright, as most of these similarities were not protected under copyright.
So 100% guilty of being a blatant copy, but not illegal.
This is not Guile... Cut to throwing sonic boom
Why would they? Getting inspiration or doing something similar to something that already exist is not illegal. And it shouldn't be. All art is derivative, and that's ok.
They're both "generic future soldier guy."
They're still distinct enough that no one would confuse them.
The current version of the Doomslayer came after Halo and does more ripping off Halo than Halo ever ripped of Doom.
They’re still distinct enough that no one would confuse them.
I've only played the original doom, from the early 90s. In that gsme your only view of your character is a little head in the hud. This head does not have armor on. You only see a human face. The promo/box shows the armor, so I'm not saying he isn't wearing it. I'm just saying you don't see yourself in game wearing it.
I've never played halo.
All that being said, the photo in this post shows both master chief and doom guy. I have no idea which is which. 50/50 chance I get it right.
I've only played the original doom, from the early 90s. In that gsme your only view of your character is a little head in the hud
You never played multiplayer? You never saw the dead Marines in the first level? You didn't see the box art for the game and the intro menu?
Never played multiplayer. I don't remember any dead marines in the first level, but it HAS been 30+ years. So, maybe my memory is lacking.
And I SAID that he's wearing armor on the promo/box art. I already.
The menu I remember was seeing first person perspective running through a level, while a bunch of menu choices fell from the top of the screen until you chose one.
The menu I remember was seeing first person perspective running through a level, while a bunch of menu choices fell from the top of the screen until you chose one.
Idk what game that was but it wasn't doom. Doom had a pretty straightforward menu for the time.
About point 2: I would argue that you could convince any judge that these characters are sufficiently distinct in the legal sense. IRL, people might still confuse them, but that’s not the point here. Just look at some of the competing car designs to get a feel for what is legally distinct enough these days. You can come up with a cartoon character, car or a sci-fi warrior that copies over 90% from something else, and you can still get away with it.
Yeah I was going to point out #3.
I bet that halo took the original space marine doomguy armor and modernized it, then doom later realized but didn't have a way out since halo had become so successful.
It wasn't necessary for both to be green. Master Chief could've had a blue (or a red, or black, or silver) armor and he'd still be the same.
John Halo and the Marines are Marines and not Soldiers. Though, I'm not certain Halo ever shows a non-Navy Servicemember in 1-4.
For what it's worth, the Army briefly shows up in Reach.
I think the only thing I remember about Reach is the last mission anyway but thanks for the heads up.
Green is the universal color of soldiers. The regular soldiers in Halo were wearing green. Master Chief's armor was green because he was a soldier. It made perfect sense to me.
If I remember the Halo books correctly (it’s been a while) the Spartan armor started out a golden color but dulled to green hue due to hits from Covenant energy weapons over time. Not particularly relevant to this discussion but I thought it was an interesting bit of lore.
I need to go back and reread them. Great series and well written for the most part.
The protagonist in Halo: Reach wears gray armor with blue accents and he looks just as badass as Master Chief, if not moreso.
Just want to add that, yes, Noble Six's default armour is very cool; but you can also have them wear whatever armour and colours you like. (Including making them look basically like the Chief)
Sure, but they had to start somewhere. Reach is the 6th Halo game.
Halo reach came out way later, and doesn’t look half as good as master chief but that’s not due to the coloring and instead the worse looking armour
One argument that hasn't been discussed here is the fact that Bethesda has been owned by Microsoft since 2021. It's likely that Microsoft had been planning to acquire the company for several years prior to the official purchase too.
Possible, but in that case it might have actually helped them to first tie them up in a difficult and potentially expensive lawsuit in order to lower the purchase price. Sounds like something Microsoft would do...
I reckon it's way too generic to sue over
Originally doom guy was just a face at the bottom of the HUD that grunted and got bloody as you took hits. The only images of him I remember was just a marine in green combat armor, not too dissimilar to modern real world combat armor, standing on a pile of dead demons and zombies(1993) and the 3rd person cinematics from Doom 3 (early 2000s ish?) where again he looked just like a normal human marine.
Halo come around in the mid 2000’s and Master Chief was never shown outside his armor or with his helmet off. Outside the TV show I’m not sure if that is still the case.
Not sure when the modern images of doom guy came about but I think it was around 2015. Probably not earlier.
For those of us who played Doom multiplayer over a network back in the 90s (the OG “Deathmatch”), you were very familiar with Doomguy(s):
Not to mention the iconic box art:
Halo 1 was released in 2001, doom 3 was 2004 current doom was 2015.
That's a good point. I mean Doomguy WAS very clearly visible on the box art wearing a green outfit and a gray helmet, but the outfit appears to be made of cloth rather than steel, and he looks more like a football player than anything.
His modern appearance in full power armor was indeed only introduced with the 2016 reboot.
Marathon's Security Officer already had the green armor and shiny mask.
Games workshop would then have to use both of them. Space marines pre-date both of them.
I mean, can you really put a patent on the idea of an astronaut suit for space soldiers? That seems way too generic.
But they generally have blue and gold armor, no?
The "poster boys" are the Ultramarines, who rock the blue and gold, but there are a tonne of different chapters with individual colour schemes.
In saying that I don't there are really any super popular ones rocking green at the time (probably were, but I don't recall any)