Sony Lawsuit Slams Tencent's New Game As A 'Slavish Clone' Of Horizon
Sony’s suit, as seen by Reuters, alleges that Tencent’s Light of Motiram is a “slavish clone” of its popular Horizon series. Nearly all aspects of the game, such as its “story and gameplay themes, cultural, and character elements, but also art style, landscapes, architectural and art elements, color palettes, fonts, and symbols,” are identical. It even goes so far as to point out the similarities in the points of view and lighting.
However, there’s a lot more to this than Sony finding a striking similarity between these two titles. The company says that Tencent reached out during the 2024 Game Developers Conference to pitch a partnership that would see Tencent develop a Horizon game for Sony, a game that had already been in development since 2023. Sony declined to enter into a partnership with Tencent.
The lack of a partnership didn’t slow down Tencent, though, as it continued to work on Light of Motiram. Once Sony caught wind of this, it attempted to handle the copyright dispute with Tencent before filing its suit. Except, Tencent saw this as an opportunity to once again ask for a deal to work on a new Horizon game. Unsurprisingly, Sony opted to decline such a partnership.
Shortly thereafter, Tencent would go on to unveil Light of Motiram to the public, where it was swiftly called out as a copycat by the games’ media and on Reddit. Sony even includes the reception by the gaming community as part of its effort to bolster the complaint.
Sony is requesting that the court block Tencent from releasing the game, that it be awarded up to $150,000 in damages for each instance of infringement, and for Tencent to hand over materials that infringe on its copyrights.
